title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: Alicia Kozakiewicz ( ; born 1988) is an American television personality, motivational speaker, and Internet safety and missing persons advocate. Kozakiewicz is the founder of the Alicia Project, an advocacy group designed to raise awareness about online predators, abduction, and child sexual exploitation. She is also the namesake of "Alicia's Law," which provides a dedicated revenue source for child rescue efforts. Kozakiewicz has worked with television network Investigation Discovery (ID) to educate the public on, and effect change for, issues such as Internet safety, missing people, human trafficking, and child safety awareness education.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: At the age of 13, Kozakiewicz was the first known victim of an internet luring and child abduction that received widespread media attention. Her story and message have been chronicled on "The Oprah Winfrey Show", "Good Morning America", "Dr. Phil", CNN, MSNBC, and the A&E Biography Channel. She has been the subject of an award-winning PBS internet safety documentary, "Alicia's Message: I'm Here to Save Your Life", as well as the Emmy award-winning "Alicia's Story" produced by Enough is Enough. Kozakiewicz has been featured in numerous national and international publications, such as "People" and "Cosmopolitan".


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: Kozakiewicz has addressed Congress on the issue of internet safety for children and federal child rescue funding.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: Kozakiewicz had corresponded online with someone she thought to be a boy of her own age—actually Scott Tyree a 38-year-old man who lived in Herndon, Virginia—who approached her in a Yahoo chat room. Over the course of nearly a year, Tyree groomed the 13-year-old Kozakiewicz. The Kozakiewicz family computer was located in the family room where internet activity could be monitored, but Tyree often contacted her at night while the rest of the family was asleep.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: On New Year's Day in 2002, Tyree lured Kozakiewicz into meeting him near her Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, address. He coerced her into his vehicle and then drove her back to his home in Virginia. Over the course of four days, she was held captive, shackled, raped, and tortured in Tyree's basement dungeon. Tyree filmed the abuse and broadcast it online, live via streaming video for others to witness.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: A viewer in Florida recognized Kozakiewicz from news stories and a missing persons flier from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. He contacted the FBI, anonymously and via a payphone because he feared being charged as an accessory to the crime.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: The FBI, using the Yahoo username they had learned from the anonymous tip, found Tyree's IP address and hence his street address, at a townhouse in Herndon. When FBI agents stormed the house on January 4, 2002, Kozakiewicz feared that they were men Tyree had sent to kill her. At 4:10 pm on January 4, 2002, agents freed Kozakiewicz. Tyree was arrested half an hour later at his workplace in Herndon.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: Alicia's kidnapper, Scott William Tyree, was born in 1963 to Erma Tyree. He graduated from Westmoor High School in 1981, married twice, had a 12-year-old daughter (who was staying with him during winter break and was sent back to her mother on the day Tyree kidnapped Alicia), and was divorced at the time of the kidnapping. His first wife, Sarah Tyree, said her husband was "a classic, long-haired computer guy" with an interest in science fiction and computer games. She said he had no prior brushes with the law.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: After her rescue, Kozakiewicz was examined at a hospital and released to the custody of Fairfax County Child Protective Services. Her parents, Mary and Charles Kozakiewicz, were unable to take a commercial flight to reunite with their daughter due to the heightened media attention. They were privately flown to Virginia by the FBI on the following day.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: In the aftermath, Kozakiewicz has developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and significant memory loss. Much of her life leading up to the abduction is difficult or impossible to recall. She has used counseling as a treatment method. As an adult she said that in 2002 people found it impossible to understand how this had happened and how she had been groomed; they mostly blamed the victim, although some people were supportive.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: In September 2003, Tyree was sentenced to 19 years and 7 months in federal prison. He was released in February 2019 from the Federal Correctional Complex, Butner. and was assigned to a halfway house in Pittsburgh; protests against the location of his placement eventually involved members of Congress in an unsuccessful effort to pressure the Federal Bureau of Prisons to move him farther away from Kozakiewicz's family. The controversy became moot in October 2019, when Tyree was returned to prison for an additional two years for violating the terms of his parole by visiting pornographic sites. He was released from prison once more on September 22, 2021.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: One year after her abduction, at the age of 14, Kozakiewicz founded the Alicia Project. The Alicia Project is an advocacy group that raises awareness and provides education on topics such as internet safety for children, the prevalence of online child predators, and abductions. Kozakiewicz has shared her story at numerous schools and conferences, despite acknowledging that speaking about the incident can be triggering.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: In 2007, she testified before the House Judiciary Committee in an effort to raise awareness of the importance of internet laws to protect children. She successfully lobbied for the passage of the Protect Our Children Act of 2008 and has been lobbying alongside PROTECT for the passage of Alicia's Law in state legislatures. Alicia's Law provides a stream of state-specific funding to the Internet Crimes Against Children task forces (ICAC). In some cases, state and local agencies are able to pull finances accumulated from misdemeanor and felony convictions, while others employ mechanisms such as unclaimed lottery funding. This money is used for training, task forces, research, and rescue efforts for law enforcement agencies seeking child sexual exploitation victims. Alicia's Law has been passed in 11 states, including Virginia, Texas, California, Hawaii, and Idaho. Kozakiewicz will advocate for its passage in all 50 states.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: In 2018, it was reported that Alicia's Law had assisted in the arrest of over 1,000 online predators in Wisconsin alone. Additionally, Alicia's Law funding has enabled Wisconsin law enforcement to add a K-9 officer trained to locate hidden electronic devices. He was named "Kozak" in honor of Kozakiewicz. Kozak was involved in the search for Jayme Closs.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: Kozakiewicz's work has been acknowledged by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children who honored her with the Courage Award in 2007. She was also honored with a Jefferson Award for Public Service in 2009. Kozakiewicz has trained the FBI National Academy, offering insight as part of the "Youth Violence: Victims and Perpetrators" program. In 2013, Kozakiewicz joined the Distinguished Speaker Series at the Clinton School of Public Service. Her 2008 book, an OJJDP publication, "You're Not Alone: The Journey From Abduction to Empowerment", is a survival guide for recovered abduction victims.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: Recently teaming up with the Investigation Discovery network, Kozakiewicz provides insight on internet safety and awareness. Currently, she is an Airline Ambassadors International Human Trafficking Awareness trainer and spokesperson, teaching airport personnel to recognize and report the signs of human trafficking.


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: Kozakiewicz has expressed concern about the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (a bill proposed in Congress in 2022) and its potential effect on law enforcement efforts to quickly investigate and solve child abduction cases. Although she supports the majority of the provisions in this bill, Kozakiewicz worries that "If the current version of the American Data Privacy and Protection Act had been in place when [she] was held captive, it may have been nearly impossible for law enforcement to find [her] and identify [her] captor as quickly as it did, if at all."


title: Alicia Kozakiewicz

text: At the time of her abduction, Kozakiewicz was a student at Carlynton Junior/Senior High School. She earned a bachelor's degree in psychology at Point Park University. In 2016, Kozakiewicz graduated from Chicago School of Professional Psychology with a master's degree in forensic psychology.


title: Sidon

text: Sidon ( ; , "Ṣīḏōn") known locally as Sayda or Saida ( "Ṣaydā"), is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate, of which it is the capital, on the Mediterranean coast. Tyre to the south and Lebanese capital Beirut to the north are both about away. Sidon has a population of about 80,000 within city limits, while its metropolitan area has more than a quarter-million inhabitants.


title: Sidon

text: The Phoenician name "Ṣīdūn" (, ) probably meant "fishery" or "fishing town". It is mentioned in Papyrus Anastasi I as Djedouna. It appears in Biblical Hebrew as "Ṣīḏōn" () and in Syriac as "Ṣidon" (). This was Hellenised as "Sidṓn" (), which was Latinised as "". The name appears in Classical Arabic as "Ṣaydūn" () and in Modern Arabic as "Ṣaydā" ().


title: Sidon

text: As a Roman colony, it was notionally refounded and given the formal name "" to honour its imperial sponsor.


title: Sidon

text: In the Book of Genesis, Sidon was the first-born son of Canaan, who was a son of Ham, thereby making Sidon a great-grandson of Noah.


title: Sidon

text: In the years before Christianity, Sidon had many conquerors: Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and finally Romans. Herod the Great visited Sidon. Both Jesus and Saint Paul are said to have visited it, too (see "Biblical Sidon" below). The city was eventually conquered by the Arabs and then by the Ottoman Turks.


title: Sidon

text: Sidon has been inhabited since very early in prehistory. The archaeological site of Sidon II shows a lithic assemblage dating to the Acheulean, whilst finds at Sidon III include a Heavy Neolithic assemblage suggested to date just prior to the invention of pottery.


title: Sidon

text: Sidon was one of the most important Phoenician cities, and it may have been the oldest. From there and other ports, a great Mediterranean commercial empire was founded. Homer praised the skill of its craftsmen in producing glass, purple dyes, and its women's skill at the art of embroidery. It was also from here that a colonising party went to found the city of Tyre. Tyre also grew into a great city, and in subsequent years there was competition between the two, each claiming to be the metropolis ('Mother City') of Phoenicia.


title: Sidon

text: Glass manufacturing, Sidon's most important enterprise in the Phoenician era, was conducted on a vast scale, and the production of purple dye was almost as important. The small shell of the Murex trunculus was broken in order to extract the pigment that was so rare it became the mark of royalty.


title: Sidon

text: In AD 1855, the sarcophagus of King Eshmun’azar II was discovered. From a Phoenician inscription on its lid, it appears that he was a "king of the Sidonians," probably in the 5th century BC, and that his mother was a priestess of ‘Ashtart, "the goddess of the Sidonians." In this inscription the gods Eshmun and Ba‘al Sidon 'Lord of Sidon' (who may or may not be the same) are mentioned as chief gods of the Sidonians. ‘Ashtart is entitled "‘Ashtart-Shem-Ba‘al," '‘Ashtart the name of the Lord', a title also found in an Ugaritic text.


title: Sidon

text: Nebuchadnezzar II subjugated the city to be part of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. At the end of the Persian era, in 351 BC, Phoenicia was invaded by Artaxerxes III.


title: Sidon

text: Like other Phoenician city-states, Sidon suffered from a succession of conquerors, first by the Persian Achamenid empire in the 6th century BC, ending with its occupation by Alexander the Great in 333 BC, and the start of the Hellenistic era of Sidon's history. The Persian influence seems to have been profound, as is observed in the change of the architectural style of the city. Under the successors of Alexander, it enjoyed relative autonomy and organised games and competitions in which the greatest athletes of the region participated. In the Hellenistic-period necropolis of Sidon, important finds such as the Alexander Sarcophagus, the Lycian tomb and the Sarcophagus of the Crying Women were discovered, which are now on display at the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul.


title: Sidon

text: When Sidon fell under Roman domination, it continued to mint its own silver coins. The Romans also built a theater and other major monuments in the city. In the reign of Elagabalus, a Roman colony was established there. During the Byzantine period, when the great earthquake of AD 551 destroyed most of the cities of Phoenice, Beirut's School of Law took refuge in Sidon. The town continued quietly for the next century, until it was conquered by the Arabs in AD 636.


title: Sidon

text: On 4 December 1110, Sidon was captured after the siege of Sidon, a decade after the First Crusade, by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem and King Sigurd I of Norway. It then became the center of the Lordship of Sidon, an important vassal-state of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin captured it from the Crusaders in 1187, but German Crusaders restored it to Christian control in the Crusade of 1197. It would remain an important Crusader stronghold until it was finally destroyed by the Ayyubids in 1249. In 1260, it was again destroyed by the Mongols led by Kitbuqa. The remains of the original walls are still visible.


title: Sidon

text: After Sidon came under Ottoman Turkish rule in the early 16th century, it became the capital of the Sidon Eyalet (province) and regained a great deal of its earlier commercial importance. Starting in the 18th century the city was dominated by the Hammud family of notables, who monopolized the production and exporting of cotton in the region and built numerous palaces and public works in the city. The Hammuds also served as government customs agents and tax collectors for various Ottoman religious foundations.


title: Sidon

text: During the Egyptian–Ottoman War, Sidon – like much of Ottoman Syria – was occupied by the forces of Muhammad Ali of Egypt. His ambitions were opposed by the British Empire, which backed the Ottomans. The British Admiral Charles Napier, commanding a mixed squadron of British, Turkish and Austrian ships, bombarded Sidon on 26 September 1840, and landed with the storming column. Sidon capitulated in two days, and the British went on to Acre. This action was recalled in two Royal Navy vessels being named .


title: Sidon

text: From 1887 the Royal necropolis of Sido was extensively excavated by the Ottomans, and its treasured trasferred to Istanbul (like the Alexander sarcophagus).


title: Sidon

text: After World War I it became part of the French Mandate of Lebanon. During World War II the city, together with the rest of Lebanon, was captured by British forces fighting against the Vichy French, and following the war it became a major city of independent Lebanon.


title: Sidon

text: Following the Palestinian exodus in 1948, a considerable number of Palestinian refugees arrived in Sidon, as in other Lebanese cities, and were settled at the large refugee camps of Ein el-Hilweh and Mieh Mieh. At first these consisted of enormous rows of tents, but gradually houses were constructed. The refugee camps constituted de facto neighborhoods of Sidon, but had a separate legal and political status which made them into a kind of enclaves. At the same time, the remaining Jews of the city fled, and the Jewish cemetery fell into disrepair, threatened by coastal erosion.


title: Sidon

text: On Easter Sunday, 19 April 1981, at least sixteen people were killed in Sidon after the (South Lebanon Army) SLA’s long-range artillery indiscriminately shelled the city centre. It was reported that it was in response to a request from Bashir Gemayel in connection with ongoing Syrian attacks on Phalangist positions around Zahle. Israel denied involvement.


title: Sidon

text: After the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon Sidon was occupied by the Israeli army for almost two and a half years.


title: Sidon

text: On 18 August 1997, following a roadside bomb near Jezzine which killed of two teenage members of a SLA leader’s family, SLA artillery shelled Sidon killing seven civilians and wounding thirty-five. Hizbollah responded the following day by firing 60–80 rockets into the security zone and northern Israel. According to UNIFIL observers the missiles appeared to be targeted at uninhabited areas. The attack on Sidon is credited with leading to a truce between Hizbollah and Amal and increased cooperation between the two groups and the Lebanese Army. This was evident in the Ansariya ambush the following month.


title: Sidon

text: Sidon was a small fishing town of 10,000 inhabitants in 1900, but studies in 2000 showed a population of 65,000 in the city, and around 200,000 in the metropolitan area. The little level land around the city is used for cultivation of some wheat, vegetables, and fruits, especially citrus and bananas. The fishing in the city remains active with a newly opened fishery that sells fresh fish by bidding every morning. The ancient basin was transformed into a fishing port, while a small quay was constructed to receive small commercial vessels. (Refer to the ""Old City"" and the ""Architecture and landscape"" sections below.)


title: Sidon

text: This sectarian and demographic division rose to the surface during the Lebanese Civil War, when armed clashes erupted between Sunni Muslims and Christians. The clashes ended with the surrender of the Christian front, and the Christians were forced to move to east Beirut. After the war ended in 1990, the Christians have gradually returned to their hometowns and in the year 2000 many fled to Israel.


title: Sidon

text: The local politics of Sidon in the 20th century was mainly dominated up till the 1980s by allegiances around two main families, the El-Bizri and Saad. The El-Bizri politicians were known for their business connections, close ties with eminent Lebanese and Levantine leaders, and their bent on serving the Lebanese state as government ministers, officials and mayors. The Saad politicians tended to be populist and became engaged in violent protests in the 1940s, 1950s and then during the Lebanese civil war as Nasserites (populist followers of Nasser in Lebanon).


title: Sidon

text: The local political conflict between these two families was always resolved through amicable means and ties of kinship. Their hold over the political aspects of the city was similar to that of Mediterranean families in Sicily or to being also influenced by the ties of Arab families, clans, and tribes in traditionalist forms. The most notable figures of the El-Bizri family in the first half of the 20th century were: Ahmad El-Bizri (born 1899), Salah El-Bizri, Eizeddine El-Bizri (commonly known as Eizzo) and Anwar El-Bizri (born 1910). These four brothers were businessmen and politicians who dominated the political life of the city up till the late 1940s, using traditional inherited forms of governance since Ottoman times. With intelligence and strength they maintained their power for over 50 years. It is from their ranks that Maarouf Saad started his public life, and their close cousins, Nazih El-Bizri, Amin El-Bizri, and Fouad El-Bizri became the next generation of politicians and statesmen in Lebanon; holding positions as ministers and members of parliament.


title: Sidon

text: The El-Bizri and the Saad political practices were bent on social justice and on local service in public affairs. The El-Bizri were since the Ottoman rule bent on serving the state, and this continued with their loyalty and support to the successive governments of Lebanon since the times of independence. They also helped eminent politicians and statesmen from Sidonian descent such as the Prime Ministers Riad Solh, Takieddine el-Solh and Rashid Solh, they also gave their support to former Prime Minister Saeb Salam, father of Tamam Salam, Prime Minister 2014–2016. The presence of the El-Bizris was at times intimidating on the local scene, but they were also known for their goodwill and dignified public service.


title: Sidon

text: The Saad family developed their links with Nasserism in the 1950s and engaged in the uprising and armed protest of 1958 against the government of the Lebanese President Chamoun. They also became involved in the civil war as part of the left wing politics of the Lebanon (Al-Haraka al-Wataniyya) with PLO connections, and they actively contributed to resisting the Israeli occupation after 1982. The Saads remained populist in their politics and focused on the grassroots, while the El-Bizri were generally appealing to the middle and upper classes. In the middle 1980s, the Hariri family started to rise to prominence and it became the most influential in Sidon in political and financial terms, even though the presence of the Saad and the El-Bizri in local politics remained significant at the level of visibility and activism.


title: Sidon

text: The politics of Sidon is similar to that of the traditional old cities of the Levant in the sense of being family-based. In broad terms one could say that the El-Bizri family had an influence since Ottoman times, and most significantly during the entirety of the 20th century. It was local in impact at first, but then the members of this family became influential within the Lebanese state and institutions, and they supported the Solh family that had successive Prime Ministers and that moved its power base from Sidon to Beirut. The Saad family developed its original politics from within the sphere of influence of the El-Bizri family and then became a power to reckon with on its own after 1948, and most powerfully in 1958, then in the civil war and up till today.


title: Sidon

text: Maarouf Saad, the leader of his family, and a local influential politician, was assassinated at the eve of the Lebanese civil war in 1975. The Saads retained their populism and grassroots appeal, and attracted a core of loyal adherents since the middle of the 20th century. While the El-Bizri were Levantine in their Arabism (namely focused mainly on Bilad al-Shaam in regional politics), and the Solh being also similar to them in this, the Saad were leaning more towards a broader pan-Arabism (Nasserite, Libyan, and then Syrian). As for the Hariri family, they are regionally focused on Saudi orientations in politics. The Hariri family started to rise to political and economic prominence in the 1980s and became perhaps the most influential family in Lebanon by the middle 1990s. It is now one of the most organised in political terms and it follows modern forms of political practice through a large party (Future Movement) that cuts across various economic classes but that is usually seen as a Sunni political movement with regional weight due to its close ties with Saudi Arabia.


title: Sidon

text: According to a recent United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report "data also point to an increase in urban poverty especially in Lebanon's largest cities suburbs such as Beirut, Tripoli and Saida, as illustrated by poverty-driven symptoms (child labour, over-crowding and deteriorated environment conditions)."


title: Sidon

text: In another UNDP report, the author discusses the development predominance of Beirut over the rest of the regions of Lebanon (North, South and Beqaa) is a well-known imbalance that can be dated to the early 19th century. With the expansion of Beirut in the 1870s, urban growth in the future capital outpaced Tripoli and Saida. Transportation routes, missionary schools, universities and hospitals as well as the Beirut port development and the commerce of silk participated to the fortification of Beirut as a major trade center for Mediterranean exchange (ARNAUD 1993; LABAKI 1999: 23). However, the establishment of Great Lebanon in 1920, under the French mandate, added the poorer areas of the North (Akkar), Beqaa (Baalbak-Hermel) and the South (Jabal Aamel) to the relatively affluent cities of Mount Lebanon. This addition made of Lebanon a country composed of unequally developed regions. This legacy remains a heavy load to bear socially, culturally, economically and politically. Even though the public policies elaborated by the young Lebanese State were attempting to have regional perspectives, the early urban planning schemes reveal a development approach exclusively axed on Beirut and its suburbs.


title: Sidon

text: The post war development policy of the State, promoted by Hariri government (1992–1998), was centered around balanced development and is widely inspired by the 1943 Pact and the 1989 Taef agreement (LABAKI1993: 104). However the application of this policy aims mainly at the rehabilitation and construction of roads and infrastructures (electricity, telephone, sewage). Another of its components is the rehabilitation of government buildings (airport, port, schools, universities and hospitals). Transportation projects (mainly concentrated on the coastal line) constitute 25% of the budget of 10-year economic plan developed by the CDR (BAALBAKI 1994: 90). However, all these projects are predominantly concentrated around Beirut, ignoring the regions.


title: Sidon

text: Near the southern entrance to the city used to be a 'rubbish mountain' called at the time by the locals the "Makab"; namely, a 600,000 cubic metre heap that reached the height of a four-story building. It was originally created to dispose of the remains of buildings destroyed in Israeli air strikes during the 1982 invasion, but it then became the main dump for the city. Growing out of the sea, it became an environmental hazard, with medical waste and plastic bags polluting nearby fishing grounds.


title: Sidon

text: Sidon politicians, including the Hariri family, failed for decades to resolve the "Makab" crisis—which has endangered residents health (especially during episodic burning). In 2004, Engineer Hamzi Moghrabi, a Sidon native, conceived the idea to establish a treatment plant for the city's decades-old chronic waste problem. He established the privately funded IBC Enviro and the treatment plant became operational in 2013.


title: Sidon

text: The Ministry of Environment came up with a $50,000+ plan to clean the whole area and transform the dump into a green space, along with other heaps in the country. Qamla beach in Sidon, a coast in close proximity to the Sea Castle, witnessed a large municipal cleanup in May 2011, as it was an easy target of rubbish being washed up by the Makab. These plans aim to revive the former glory of the city's coasts and attract tourists who avoided swimming in Sidon's sea before. The project of cleaning the region where the waste dump has already started, and currently a waves-barrier is being built, and the vast bulk of the waste dump being cleared.


title: Sidon

text: The city of Sidon is administrated by the Municipality of Sidon. The municipality is constituted of a council of 21 members including the City Mayor and his Deputy. It has administrative and financial independence but remains under the control and supervision of the central government, specifically the Ministry of Interior. The municipality's jurisdiction is limited to a region of 786 hectares in area and 5 meters in elevation, while each of the city's suburbs is administrated by its own independent municipal council. Sidon is the center of the Governorate of South Lebanon, and hosts the seat of the Governor of Southern Lebanon. The city is also the center of the Sidon District and the Union of Sidon and Zahrani Municipalities (founded in 1978 and contains 15 municipalities). Sidon hosts the southern regional headquarters of a series of governmental facilities like the Central Bank of Lebanon, Électricité du Liban, Central Telecommunications Station and others. It is also the home of the Justice Palace of South Lebanon in its new headquarters on East Boulevard (the old headquarters were an old Ottoman Saray that is currently occupied by the LSF and is planned to be transformed into a cultural center by the municipality).


title: Sidon

text: In the 2000 and 2005 parliamentary elections, the Sidon District along with the Tyre and Bint Jbeil districts formed the first electoral district of South Lebanon. However, in the 2009 elections – and due to the reactivation of the 1960 electoral law – the city of Sidon was separated from its district to form a separate electoral district.


title: Sidon

text: The overwhelming majority of Sidon's population belong to the Sunni sect of Islam, with few Shiites and Christians.


title: Sidon

text: Sidon is the seat of the Greek Melkite Catholic Archbishop of Sidon and Deir el Qamar, and has housed a significant Catholic population throughout its history. Sidon also hosts the seat of the Shiite Ayatollah of South Lebanon.


title: Sidon

text: In the 1930s, when Lebanon was still under the French mandate, Sidon had the largest Jewish population in Lebanon, estimated at 3,588, compared to 3,060 in Beirut.


title: Sidon

text: Sidon is home to numerous educational facilities ranging from public elementary schools to private universities. According to a 2006 study, the city is home to 29 schools that serve a total of 18,731 students: 37% are in public schools, 63% are in private schools. Sidon also contains 10 universities, 5 of which are private universities.


title: Sidon

text: The following archaeological sites in the area indicate settlements from the earliest prehistorical times.


title: Sidon

text: Sidon I is an archaeological site located to the east of the city, south of the road to Jezzine. An assemblage of flint tools was found by P. E. Gigues suggested to date between 3800 and 3200 BC. The collection included narrow axes or chisels that were polished on one side and flaked on the other, similar to ones found at Ain Cheikh, Nahr Zahrani and Gelal en Namous. The collection appears to have gone missing from the Archaeological Museum of the American University of Beirut.


title: Sidon

text: Sidon II is said to be "near the church" at approximately fifty meters above sea level. P. E. Gigues suggested that the industry found on the surface of this site dated to the Acheulean.


title: Sidon

text: Sidon III was found by E. Passemard in the 1920s, who made a collection of material that is now in the National Museum of Beirut marked "Camp de l'Aviation". It includes large flint and chert bifacials that may be of Heavy Neolithic origin.


title: Sidon

text: Sidon IV is the tell mound of ancient Sidon with Early Bronze Age (c. 3200 BC) deposits, now located underneath the ruined Saint Louis Castle and what are also thought to be the ruins of a Roman theater.


title: Sidon

text: In the area of this ruined Crusader castle, recent excavations uncovered a late Early Bronze Age I (EB I) settlement on bedrock. Here, an uninterrupted sequence from EB I to EB III was found. A modest third-millennium BC settlement consisting of domestic installations and tombs was also uncovered. Yet the following history of Sidon was not clarified. Very little has been known about the location, extent, and significance of Middle Bronze Age (MBA) Sidon until recently.


title: Sidon

text: Since the early 21st century, Tell el-Burak excavations have helped significantly in this area, because it was an active settlement during MBA, and quite well preserved. Tell el-Burak is located along the coast 9 km south from Sidon. Previously, there was a big gap in the history of this whole coastal area from the end of the Early Bronze Age until the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, when Sidon is first mentioned in the historical texts.


title: Sidon

text: Archaeologists determined that Sidon was clearly the big power centre during MBA, controlling significant territory. So there appears to have been the "Kingdom of Sidon" that controlled el-Burak, and many other surrounding areas.


title: Sidon

text: The area around Sidon contains a number of important necropoli (below in order of age, and noting their principal excavators):


title: Sidon

text: In indication of the high-profile of the old city of Sidon in archaeological expeditions, and mainly in the 19th century, in October 1860 the famous French scholar Ernest Renan was entrusted with an archaeological mission to Lebanon, which included the search for the antique parts of Sidon. The Phoenician inscriptions that he discovered, and his field data, were eventually published in his notebook the: "Mission de Phénicie" (1864–1874; "Phoenician Expedition").


title: Sidon

text: The St. Louis land-castle grounds were excavated in 1914–1920 by a French team. Then eastwards a new site was also excavated by another generation of French expeditions in the 1960s. This same site received renewed attention in 1998 when the Directorate General of Antiquities in Lebanon authorized the British Museum to begin excavations on this area of land that was specifically demarcated for archaeological research. This has resulted in published papers, with a special focus on studying ceramics.


title: Sidon

text: The archaeological fieldwork was not fully undertaken since the independence of the Lebanon. The main finds are displayed in the National Museum in Beirut. The fieldwork was also interrupted during the long civil war period, and it is now resumed but at a timid and slow scale, and not involving major international expeditions or expertise. Perhaps this is also indicative of the general lack in cultural interests among the authorities of this city, and almost of the non-existence of notable intellectual activities in its modern life. There are signs that the locals are beginning to recognize the value of the medieval quarters, but this remains linked to minor individual initiatives and not a coordinated collective effort to rehabilitate it like it has been the case with Byblos, even though the old district of Sidon contains a great wealth in old and ancient architecture.


title: Tomb of Jesus

text: The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It contains, according to traditions dating back to the fourth century, the two holiest sites in Christianity: the site where Jesus was crucified, at a place known as Calvary or Golgotha, and Jesus's empty tomb, where he is believed by Christians to have been buried and resurrected.


title: Tomb of Jesus

text: The marble covering protecting the original limestone slab upon which Jesus was thought to have been laid by Joseph of Arimathea had been temporarily removed for restoration and cleaning on October 26, 2016, as a result revealing the original slab for the first time since 1555.


title: Tomb of Jesus

text: Within the apocryphal text known as the Gospel of Peter, the tomb of Jesus is called "Joseph's garden".


title: Tomb of Jesus

text: The Garden Tomb is a rock-cut tomb in Jerusalem, which was unearthed in 1867 and is considered by some Protestants to be the tomb of Jesus. The tomb has been dated by Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay to the 8th–7th centuries BC.


title: Tomb of Jesus

text: The Talpiot Tomb (or Talpiyot Tomb) is a rock-cut tomb discovered in 1980 in the East Talpiot neighborhood, five kilometers (three miles) south of the Old City in East Jerusalem. It contained ten ossuaries, six inscribed with epigraphs, including one interpreted as ""Yeshua bar Yehosef"" ("Jeshua, son of Joseph"), although the inscription is partially illegible, and its translation and interpretation is widely disputed. It is widely believed by scholars that the Jesus in Talpiot (if this is indeed his name) is not Jesus of Nazareth, but a person with the same name, since he appears to have a son named Judas (buried next to him) and the tomb shows signs of belonging to a wealthy Judean family, while Jesus of Nazareth came from a low-class Galilean family.


title: Tomb of Jesus

text: The Roza Bal is a shrine located in the Khanyar quarter in downtown area of Srinagar in Kashmir. The word "roza" means tomb, the word "bal" mean place. Locals believe a sage is buried here, Yuzasaf (alternatively Yuz Asaf or Youza Asouph), alongside another Muslim holy man, Mir Sayyid Naseeruddin.


title: Tomb of Jesus

text: The shrine was relatively unknown until the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, claimed in 1899 that it is actually the tomb of Jesus. This view is maintained by Ahmadis today, though it is rejected by the local Sunni caretakers of the shrine, one of whom said "the theory that Jesus is buried anywhere on the face of the earth is blasphemous to Islam."


title: Tomb of Jesus

text: Shingō village in Japan contains another location of what is purported to be the last resting place of Jesus, the so-called "Tomb of Jesus" ("Kirisuto no haka"), and the residence of Jesus' last descendants, the family of Sajiro Sawaguchi. According to the Sawaguchi family's claims, Jesus Christ did not die on the cross at Golgotha. Instead his brother, Isukiri, took his place on the cross, while Jesus fled across Siberia to Mutsu Province, in northern Japan. Once in Japan, he changed his name to Torai Tora Daitenku, became a rice farmer, married a twenty-year old Japanese woman named Miyuko, and raised three daughters near what is now Shingō. While in Japan, it is asserted that he traveled, learned, and eventually died at the age of 106. His body was exposed on a hilltop for four years. According to the customs of the time, Jesus' bones were collected, bundled, and buried in the mound purported to be the grave of Jesus Christ.


title: Max Joseph

text: For seven seasons, he was a host and cameraman for "". He was absent from "Catfish" for several episodes in the fourth season to make his feature film debut, "We Are Your Friends", starring Zac Efron. Joseph announced that he was leaving "Catfish: The TV Show" in 2018, and he was replaced in 2020 by Kamie Crawford.


title: Max Joseph

text: Joseph has directed several films, including "12 Years of DFA: Too Old to Be New, Too New to Be Classic", "Garden of Eden", "Let's Harvest the Organs of Death Row Inmates", and several other productions.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegetation, or "slash", is then left to dry, usually right before the rainiest part of the year. Then, the biomass is burned, resulting in a nutrient-rich layer of ash which makes the soil fertile, as well as temporarily eliminating weed and pest species. After about three to five years, the plot's productivity decreases due to depletion of nutrients along with weed and pest invasion, causing the farmers to abandon the field and move to a new area. The time it takes for a swidden to recover depends on the location and can be as little as five years to more than twenty years, after which the plot can be slashed and burned again, repeating the cycle. In Bangladesh and India, the practice is known as jhum or jhoom.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: Slash-and-burn is a type of shifting cultivation, an agricultural system in which farmers routinely move from one cultivable area to another. A rough estimate is that 200 million to 500 million people worldwide use slash-and-burn. Slash-and-burn causes temporary deforestation. Ashes from the burnt trees help farmers by providing nutrients for the soil. In low density of human population this approach is very sustainable but the technique is not scalable for large human populations.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: A similar term is assarting, which is the clearing of forests, usually (but not always) for the purpose of agriculture. Assarting does not include burning.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: Historically, slash-and-burn cultivation has been practiced throughout much of the world. Fire was already used by hunter-gatherers before the invention of agriculture, and still is in present times. Clearings created by the fire were made for many reasons, such as to provide new growth for game animals and to promote certain kinds of edible plants.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: During the Neolithic Revolution, groups of hunter-gatherers domesticated various plants and animals, permitting them to settle down and practice agriculture, which provided more nutrition per hectare than hunting and gathering. Some groups could easily plant their crops in open fields along river valleys, but others had forests covering their land. Thus, since Neolithic times, slash-and-burn agriculture has been widely used to clear land to make it suitable for crops and livestock.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: Large groups wandering in the woodlands was once a common form of society in European prehistory. The extended family burned and cultivated their swidden plots, sowed one or more crops, and then proceeded on to the next plot.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: Slash-and-burn fields are typically used and owned by a family until the soil is exhausted. At this point the ownership rights are abandoned, the family clears a new field, and trees and shrubs are permitted to grow on the former field. After a few decades, another family or clan may then use the land and claim usufructuary rights. In such a system there is typically no market in farmland, so land is not bought or sold on the open market and land rights are traditional.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: In slash-and-burn agriculture, forests are typically cut months before a dry season. The "slash" is permitted to dry and then burned in the following dry season. The resulting ash fertilizes the soil and the burned field is then planted at the beginning of the next rainy season with crops such as rice, maize, cassava, or other staples. This work was once done using simple tools such as machetes, axes, hoes and shovels.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: This system of agriculture provides millions of people with food and income. It has been ecologically sustainable for thousands of years. Because the leached soil in many tropical regions, such as the Amazon, are nutritionally extremely poor, slash-and-burn is one of the only types of agriculture which can be practiced in these areas. Slash-and-burn farmers typically plant a variety of crops, instead of a monoculture, and contribute to a higher biodiversity due to creating mosaic habitats. The general ecosystem is not harmed in traditional slash-and-burn, aside from a small temporary patch. Slash and burn agriculture may be thought of as a form of agroforestry.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: This technique is most unsuitable for the production of cash crops. A huge amount of land, or a low density of people, is required for slash-and-burn. When slash-and-burn is practiced in the same area too often, because the human population density has increased to an unsustainable level, the forest will eventually be destroyed.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: Tribal groups in the northeastern Indian states of Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland and the Bangladeshi districts of Rangamati, Khagrachari, Bandarban and Sylhet refer to slash-and-burn agriculture as "jhum" or "jhoom" cultivation. The system involves clearing land, by fire or clear-felling, for economically-important crops such as upland rice, vegetables or fruits. After a few cycles, the land's fertility declines and a new area is chosen. "Jhum" cultivation is most often practiced on the slopes of thickly-forested hills. Cultivators cut the treetops to allow sunlight to reach the land, burning the trees and grasses for fresh soil. Although it is believed that this helps fertilize the land, it can leave it vulnerable to erosion. Holes are made for the seeds of crops such as sticky rice, maize, eggplant and cucumber. After considering "jhum"s effects, the government of Mizoram has introduced a policy to end the method in the state.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: Some American civilizations, like the Maya, have used slash-and-burn cultivation since ancient times. Native Americans in the United States also used fire in agriculture and hunting. In the Amazon, many peoples such as the Yanomami also live off the slash and burn method due to the Amazon's poor soil quality.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: Slash-and-burn techniques were used in northeastern Sweden in agricultural systems. In Sweden the practice is known as .


title: Slash-and-burn

text: Telkkämäki Nature Reserve in Kaavi, Finland, is an open-air museum where slash-and-burn agriculture is demonstrated. Farm visitors can see how people farmed when slash-and-burn was the norm in the Northern Savonian region of eastern Finland beginning in the 15th century. Areas of the reserve are burnt each year.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: The practice also spread to New Sweden in North America. Reinforced by the use of fire in agriculture and hunting by Native Americans, it became an important part of pioneering in America.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: involved stripping a ring of bark completely around the trunk of coniferous trees like pine or spruce or felling them, allowing them to dry, setting fire to the dried forest and growing crops on the fertile ash-covered soil. The resulting ash was highly fertile, but only for a short period. The clearing was initially planted to rye as soon as the ash had fully settled and sufficiently cooled. When the rain came, it packed the ash around the rye. The rye germinated and grew prolifically, with anywhere from 25 to 100 stalks (or straws), each with multiple grains.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: Only two tools were required, the axe and the sickle. The axe cut the trees to start the cycle. When the rye had ripened, it was harvested with a sickle, which could reach among the rocks and stumps where a scythe would have been ineffective.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: In the second and third year the field would be sown with turnips or cabbages. It then might be grazed for several years before being allowed to return to woodland.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: required felling new forest and burning a new area every year. It was necessary to allow the former fields to regrow with forest for 10–30 years before repeating the cycle. As a result, the dwellings were often many kilometers from the fields. Furthermore, since the process was man-power intensive, extended families tended to work together and live in compact communities.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: The farming approach required a large area. When forest was plentiful, the Finns were very prosperous. As population grew and restrictions were placed on the forest which could be burned, it became increasingly difficult. By 1710, during the conflict with Sweden, because of their suspect loyalties Norwegian authorities considered expelling them from the border area, but did not do so because it was judged they were too poor to survive if evicted.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: This type of agriculture is discouraged by many developmental or environmentalist organisations, with the main alternatives being promoted are switching to more intensive, permanent farming methods, or promoting a shift from farming to working in different, higher-paying industries altogether. Other organisations promote helping farmers achieve higher productivity by introducing new techniques.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: Not allowing the slashed vegetation to burn completely and ploughing the resultant charcoal into the soil (slash-and-char) has been proposed as way to boost yields.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: Promoters of a project from the early 2000s claimed that slash-and-burn cultivation could be reduced if farmers grew black pepper crops between "Inga" trees, which they termed 'Inga alley cropping'.


title: Slash-and-burn

text: A method of improving the yields in a type of traditional assarting cultivation used to grow common beans in Central American called 'slash-and-cover', has been proposed, by additionally planting leguminous shrubs to act as a fallow crop after the soil is exhausted and one is ready to clear a new patch of forest.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Simi Valley (; Chumash: "Shimiyi") is a city in the valley of the same name in the southeast region of Ventura County, California, United States. Simi Valley is from Downtown Los Angeles, making it part of the Greater Los Angeles Area. The city sits next to Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, and Chatsworth. As of the 2020 U.S. Census the population was 126,356, up from 124,243 in 2010. The city of Simi Valley is surrounded by the Santa Susana Mountains and the Simi Hills, west of the San Fernando Valley, and northeast of the Conejo Valley. It grew as a commuter bedroom community for the cities in the Los Angeles area, and the San Fernando Valley when a freeway was built over the Santa Susana Pass.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, where the former president was buried in 2004, is in Simi Valley. The Reagan Library has hosted Republican primary debates in 2012 and 2016.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Simi Valley was once inhabited by the Chumash people, who also settled much of the region from the Salinas Valley to the Santa Monica Mountains, with their presence dating back thousands of years. Around 5,000 years ago these tribes began processing acorns, and harvesting local marshland plants. Roughly 2,000 years later, as hunting and fishing techniques improved, the population increased significantly. Shortly after this sharp increase a precious stone money system arose, increasing the viability of the region by offsetting fluctuations in available resources relating to climate changes. The native people who inhabited Simi Valley spoke an interior dialect of the Chumash language, called Ventureño.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Simi Valley's name is derived from the Chumash word Shimiyi, which refers to the stringy, thread-like clouds that typify the region. The name could have originated from the strands of mist from coastal fog that move into the Oxnard Plain and wind their way up the Calleguas Creek and the Arroyo Las Posas into Simi Valley. The origin of the name was preserved because of the work of the anthropologist John P. Harrington, whose brother, Robert E. Harrington lived in Simi Valley. Robert Harrington later explained the name: ""The word Simiji in Indian meant the little white wind clouds so often seen when the wind blows up here and Indians living on the coast, would never venture up here when those wind clouds were in the sky. The word Simiji was constructed by whites to the word Simi. There are other explanations about the name Simi, but this one was given to me by my brother who worked over 40 years for the Smithsonian Institution and it seems most plausible to me"".


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Three Chumash settlements existed in Simi Valley during the Mission period in the late 18th and early 19th century: Shimiyi, Ta’apu (present-day Tapo Canyon), and Kimishax or Quimicas (Happy Camp Canyon west of Moorpark College). There are many Chumash cave paintings in the area containing pictographs, including the Burro Flats Painted Cave in the Burro Flats area of the Simi Hills, located between the Simi Valley, West Hills, and Bell Canyon. The cave is located on private land owned by NASA. Other areas containing Chumash Native American pictographs in the Simi Hills are by Lake Manor and Chatsworth.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The first Europeans to visit Simi Valley were members of the Spanish Portolá expedition (1769–1770), the first European land entry and exploration of the present-day state of California. The expedition traversed the valley on January 13–14, 1770, traveling from Conejo Valley to San Fernando Valley. They camped near a native village in the valley on the 14th.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Rancho Simí, also known as Rancho San José de Nuestra Señora de Altagracia y Simí, was a Spanish land grant in eastern Ventura and western Los Angeles counties granted in 1795 to Santiago Pico. After Santiago Pico's death in 1815, the Rancho was regranted to Santiago's sons Javier Pico and his two brothers, Patricio Pico and Miguel Pico, members of the prominent Pico family of California. Rancho Simí was the earliest Spanish colonial land grant within Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. The name derives from "Shimiji," the name of the Chumash Native American village here before the Spanish. It was the largest Spanish or Mexican land grant given in Ventura County, and one of the largest given in California. The Simi Adobe-Strathearn House, later the home of Robert P. Strathearn and family, served as the headquarters of the rancho.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: José de la Guerra y Noriega, a Captain of the Santa Barbara Presidio, who had begun to acquire large amounts of land in California to raise cattle, purchased Rancho Simí from the Pico family in 1842. After Jose de la Guerra death in 1858, the sons of Jose de la Guerra continued to operate the ranchos. The end of their prosperity came when several years of drought in the 1860s caused heavy losses. In 1865, the De la Guerras lost the ownership of El Rancho Simí excluding the Rancho Tapo. El Rancho Tapo was part of the original 113,009-acre Rancho Simí grant, but sometime around 1820–1830, the Rancho Tapo came to be thought of as a separate place within Rancho Simí. The last of the De la Guerras to live in Simí Valley retreated to a 14,400-acre portion of the original rancho that was known as the Tapo Rancho. As late as February 1877, Juan De la Guerra was reported in county newspapers to be preparing to plant walnuts in the Tapo, which appears to be the final mention of their farming in relation to the original Simí grant.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The De la Guerra heirs tried every legal means, but by the 1880s, the Rancho Tapo also slipped from their ownership, as had the rest of the Rancho.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The Pioneer, or 'American,’ period in Simi Valley began with the 96,000-acre purchase of El Rancho Simí by an eastern speculator named Thomas A. Scott (1814–1882), who had made his money as an investor in the Pennsylvania Railroad during the Civil War. He was president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and a partner in Philadelphia and California Petroleum Company. Scouts came to California to purchase lands, and thus Scott acquired El Rancho Simí (1865). His goal was to locate sites for oil, since the first oil well had been developed in Titusville, Pennsylvania just a few years earlier (1859). Within a short time, a 27-year-old man named Thomas Bard was sent west by Scott to manage the California properties. In the late 1880s, Simí Land and Water Company was formed to see to the selling of the huge rancho in ranch-size properties. Some American farmers had begun to lease land in the greater Rancho Simí for farming.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The earliest Anglo American ranchers showed up in Simí Valley in the late 1860s into the 1870s. Charles Emerson Hoar was given the title of "first American farmer" by early Simí historian Janet Scott Cameron. He had purchased the Hummingbird's Nest Ranch in the northeast corner of the Valley, and he leased land from the new owners of the Simí Rancho for raising sheep, already a proven way of making a living.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Much of the Simí Rancho land continued, as in Spanish days, to be used for raising sheep, cattle and grain. Wheat prospered longer here than in the rest of the county because it was free of a disease called "rust". Barley soon became the really successful grain crop.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Agriculture and ranching dominated the landscape through the 1950s. Citrus, walnuts and apricots were all grown in Simi Valley. In the early 1960s modern residential development began to take place.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: When Simí was an agricultural community, there were ranch houses that dotted the Valley. Four distinct communities also were located in the Valley (see 'Four Communities of Simi Valley' section below) prior to modern residential development. Though 1957 and 1958 brought the first 'tract' housing developments when the Dennis and Ayhens, Wright Ranch and Valley Vista tracts were built, the tremendous 'boom' in residential development took place beginning in 1960. The population which was 4,073 in 1950 doubled to 8,110 in 1960. By 1970 the population in Simi is reported by the census as 59,832.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The pioneers arrived in the late 1860s – 1870s and ever since, this has been 'The Valley of Simi.' But, not all the communities in the valley were known as 'Simi.' There was the township of Simi (known as 'Simiopolis' for about a six-month period in 1888, but then the name reverted to Simi). In the valley there were also the communities of Santa Susana, Community Center and the Susana Knolls (known first as Mortimer Park) at different points in time.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Simi – In the late 1887–1888, the incorporation of Simi Land and Water Company came about. El Rancho Simí was divided into ranches and farms by that corporation, and advertised for sale to midwestern and New England states. An investor group, the California Mutual Benefit Colony of Chicago, purchased land and laid out a townsite (located between First and Fifth Streets and from Los Angeles south to Ventura Ave), named it 'Simiopolis' and shipped twelve pre-cut, partially assembled houses from a lumberyard in Chicago via rail to Saticoy, then brought by wagon to Simi. These are known as 'colony houses.' This was the first 'neighborhood' in Simi. Stores sprung up on Los Angeles Ave, and the first Simi School was built in 1890 on Third and California Streets, and was used until Simi Elementary was built in the mid-1920s.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Santa Susana – In 1903 the Santa Susana Train Depot was built, and the railroad was complete through Simi Valley, except for the tunnel, which was completed in 1904. A small business community grew up near the Santa Susana Train Depot, which was located on the north side of Los Angeles Ave, just east of Tapo Street. Over time residential developments followed and the town of Santa Susana was born. The Depot was moved in 1975 by Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District to its current location off of Kuehner.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Community Center – In 1922 L.F. Roussey laid out the small development which became known as Community Center. The driving force behind this development was the need for a High School in Simi Valley, as well as an elementary school in a more central location in the valley. The FIRST graduating class from the very first Simi High School was 1924, Simi Elementary was completed in 1926, The Methodist Church (which is now the Cultural Arts Center) was built in 1924. Numerous houses were built in Community Center in the 1920s and 1930s. The Simi Valley Woman's Club was located there as well (the building which served as the clubhouse for the Woman's Club was moved from the town of Simi). The Woman's Club club house was used by many individuals and organizations as a community meeting place. It truly was a 'community center.'


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Mortimer Park (the Susana knolls) – The area that is now the Knolls was a nearly 1,800-acre parcel of land that was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Lewis T. Mortimer in the early 1920s. They planned on selling the lots for cabins, or vacation homes. The lots, however, were very small (30 x 50 feet), and the Mortimers did not take the mountainous nature of the land into account, so quite often the lots were not buildable. Oftentimes several lots were needed to build structures. In 1944 the Garden Club, an active community organization in the area petitioned the county supervisors to change the name of Mortimer Park to the Susana Knolls.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: "The first attempt to incorporate the towns of Simi, the area known as Community Center (93065) and Santa Susana (93063) in 1966 was unsuccessful. The second attempt in 1969 was successful, with residents voting 6,454 to 3,685 in favor of incorporation. 59% of eligible voters turned out for this vote. Susana Knolls is an unincorporated area of the Valley. Voters also voted whether to call this newly incorporated city 'Santa Susana' or 'Simi Valley.' The name Simi Valley garnered 2,000 more votes than Santa Susana."


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The Santa Susana Field Laboratory located in the Simi Hills, was used for the development of pioneering nuclear reactors and rocket engines beginning in 1948. The site was operated by Atomics International and Rocketdyne (originally both divisions of the North American Aviation company). The Rocketdyne division developed a variety of liquid rocket engines. Rocket engine tests were frequently heard in Simi Valley. The Atomics International division of North American Aviation designed, built and operated the Sodium Reactor Experiment, the first United States nuclear reactor to supply electricity to a public power system.[Also from Wikipedia: The Boiling Water Reactors (BORAX) experiments were five reactors built between 1953 and 1964 by Argonne National Laboratory. They proved that the boiling water concept was a feasible design for an electricity-producing nuclear reactor. One of the BORAX reactors (III) was also the first in the world to power a city (Arco, Idaho) on July 17, 1955.[59][60] Both claims can not be correct. ] The last nuclear reactor operated at SSFL in 1980 and the last rocket engine was produced in 2006. The SSFL has been closed to development and testing. The site is undergoing investigation and removal of the nuclear facilities and cleanup of the soil and groundwater. The Boeing Company, the US DOE, and NASA are responsible for the cleanup.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: In July 1959, the Sodium Reactor Experiment suffered a serious incident when 13 of the reactor's 43 fuel elements partially melted resulting in the controlled release of radioactive gas to the atmosphere. The reactor was repaired and returned to operation in September, 1960. The incident at the Sodium Reactor Experiment has been a source of controversy in the community. Technical analysis of the incident intended to support a lawsuit against the current landowner (The Boeing Company) asserts the incident caused the much greater release of radioactivity than the accident at Three Mile Island. Boeing's technical response concludes the monitoring conducted at the time of the incident, shows only the allowable amount of radioactive gasses were released, and a Three Mile Island-scale release was not possible. The case was settled, it is reported, with a large payment by Boeing. In September 2009, The U.S. Department of Energy sponsored a public workshop where three nuclear reactor experts shared their independent analysis of the July, 1959 incident.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The Santa Susana Field Laboratory also hosted the Energy Technology Engineering Center. The center performed the design, development and testing of liquid metal reactor components for the United States Department of Energy from 1965 until 1998.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The Santa Susana Field Laboratory includes sites identified as historic by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and by the American Nuclear Society. The National Register of Historic Places listed Burro Flats Painted Cave is located within the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, on a portion of the site owned by the U.S. Government. The drawings within the cave have been termed "the best preserved Indian pictograph in Southern California".


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, and Theodore Briseno) were accused of using unnecessary force in a March 3, 1991 beating of an African-American motorist Rodney Glen King. The case known as the Rodney King Trials was based on footage recorded on home video by a bystander (George Holliday). The now-infamous video was broadcast nationally and globally and caused tremendous response because the beating was believed to be racially motivated. Due to the heavy media coverage of the arrest, Judge Stanley Weisberg of the California Court of Appeals approved a change of venue to neighboring Ventura County, using an available courtroom in Simi Valley for the state case against the officers.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: On April 29, 1992, a Ventura County jury acquitted three of the four officers (Koon, Wind, and Briseno) and did not reach a verdict on one (Powell). Many believed that the unexpected outcome was a result of the racial and social make-up of the jury, which included ten white people, one Filipino person, and one Hispanic woman. None were Simi Valley residents. Among the jury were three who had been security guards or in military service. The acquittal led to the 1992 Los Angeles riots and mass protest around the country.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Simi Valley is a city located in the very southeast corner of Ventura County, bordering the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, and is a part of the Greater Los Angeles Area. The city of Simi Valley basically consists of the eponymous valley itself. The city of Simi Valley borders the Santa Susana Mountains to the north, the Simi Hills to the east and south, and is adjacent to Thousand Oaks to the southwest and Moorpark to the west. Simi Valley is connected to the nearby San Fernando Valley by the Santa Susana Pass in the extreme east of Simi Valley. Simi Valley is located at 34°16'16" North, 118°44'22" West (34.271078, −118.739428) with an elevation of 700–1,000 ft (210–300 m) above sea level. The syncline Simi Valley is located in the western part of the region called the Transverse Ranges. The valley is surrounded by the Santa Susana Mountains to the north and Simi Hills to the east and south. While the Santa Susana Mountains separate the valley from the Los Padres National Forest in the north, the Simi Hills separate it from Conejo Valley in the south. In the extreme east is Rocky Peak, one of Santa Susana Mountains' highest peaks, which is a dividing line between Ventura County to the west and Los Angeles County to the east. On the other side of the valley, in the extreme west side of Simi Valley is Mount McCoy, which may be most known for its 12 ft. concrete cross that sits at its peak. The physiographical valley is a structural as well as a topographic depression. The Simi Valley, just as neighboring San Fernando Valley, owes its existence and shape to the faulting and folding of the rocks. It is essentially a structural valley and not wholly the work of erosion. It is drained by the Calleguas Creek and also its principal tributary, Conejo Creek. Both of these originate in the Santa Susana Mountains.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 42.2 sq mi (109.4 km), comprising 41.5 sq mi (107.4 km) of land and 0.77 sq mi (2.0 km), or 1.81%, of it is water. Simi Valley is located northwest of the Los Angeles neighborhood of Chatsworth and approximately from Downtown Los Angeles, south of San Francisco, north of San Diego, and south of Sacramento. Commutes to Los Angeles are usually via the Ronald Reagan Freeway (Highway 118) or the Southern California Metrolink commuter train, which makes several daily trips from Simi Valley. Simi Valley has a mediterranean climate. Temperate variations between day and night tend to be relatively big. The mean annual temperature is 64.1 degrees (), while the annual precipitation is . The precipitation remains less than one inch for seven months – April until October, – while the precipitation exceeds four inches in the two wettest months – January and February. While the mean temperature is at its lowest at 53.6 degrees () in December, the mean temperature in July and August exceeds 76 degrees ().


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Simi Valley has been the victim of several natural disasters, including the flood of 1967, the storm of 1983, the 1988 lightning strike, as well as the 1994 Northridge earthquake and numerous wildfires.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Simi Valley has a warm and dry climate during summer when mean temperatures tend to be in the 70s. Wildfires do also occur here. The city's climate cools during winter when mean temperatures tend to be in the 50s. Because of its relatively low elevation, the Simi Hills typically experience rainy, mild winters. Snow is rare in the Simi Hills, even in the highest areas. The warmest month of the year is August with an average maximum temperature of , while the coldest month of the year is December with an average minimum temperature of . Temperature variations between night and day tend to be relatively large during summer, with a difference that can reach , and moderate during winter with an average difference of . The annual average precipitation in Simi Valley is 17.9 inches. Winter months tend to be wetter than summer months. The wettest month of the year is February with an average rainfall of 4.8 inches. Simi Valley gets 18 inches of rain per year, while the United States average is 37. Snowfall is 0 inches, while the U.S. average is 25 inches of snow per year. The number of days with measurable precipitation is 25. On average, there are 277 sunny days in Simi Valley per year. The July high is approximately . The January low is . The record low is (recorded in February 1989) and the record high is (recorded in August 1985). The prevailing wind direction is southwest, and the average wind speed is .


title: Simi Valley, California

text: An aspect of Simi Valley's location, situated beside the Simi Hills, is that it lies in a high-risk area for the wildfires that sweep through Southern California's mountain ranges every few years. Simi Valley is also at risk for earthquakes. The valley is surrounded by faults; the closest ones being the Santa Rosa Fault to the Northwest, the Northridge Hills Fault to the Northeast, and the Chatsworth Fault to the South. In 1994, portions of Simi Valley received significant damage from the Northridge earthquake. See Nuclear Accident at SSFL for information on the accident and associated risk(s) to residents.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: In autumn 2003, the Simi Fire burned about 108,000 acres. A 2005 fire started on September 28 and burned an estimated . On September 29, the fire was estimated to be . More than 1,000 firefighters worked against the tricky combination of dry brush, low humidity and temperatures in the high 90s along the line that divides Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The fire was later brought under control and extinguished, without serious injury. Three homes were lost in outlying areas, but none within the city limits.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Before the 1960s, Simi Valley once boasted a strong community of Latino families, many of whom worked for white ranchers. However, the housing boom in the 1960s and 1970s attracted many white Americans leaving urban areas in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. This turned Simi Valley into a predominately white city, but the percentage of those who identified as non-Hispanic white began to decrease from 86.2% in 1980 to 54% in 2020.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The 2010 United States Census reported that Simi Valley had a population of 124,237. The population density was . The racial makeup of Simi Valley was 93,597 (75.3%) White, 1,739 (1.4%) African American, 761 (0.6%) Native American, 11,555 (9.3%) Asian, 178 (0.1%) Pacific Islander, 10,685 (8.6%) from other races, and 5,722 (4.6%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 10,938 persons (23.3%); 16.2% of Simi Valley's population were Mexican-American, 1.2% Salvadoran, 0.9% Guatemalan, 0.6% Puerto Rican, 0.6% Peruvian, 0.3% Cuban, 0.3% Argentine, 0.2% Honduran, 0.2% Nicaraguan, and 0.2% Ecuadorian. Among Asian-Americans, 2.7% of Simi Valley's population were Indian-Americans, 2.2% Filipino, 1.2% Chinese, 1.0% Vietnamese, 0.7% Korean, 0.5% Japanese, 0.2% Thai, 0.1% Pakistani. The majority of Simi Valley's population was made up of Caucasian-Americans; the largest groups of whites were 16.7% German-American, 11.3% English, 8.5% Italian, 3.4% French, 3.1% Polish, 2.3% Norwegian, 2.3% Swedish, 2.1% Scottish and 2% Dutch.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The Census reported that 123,577 people (99.5% of the population) lived in households, 482 (0.4%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 178 (0.1%) were institutionalized. There were 41,237 households, out of which 16,765 (40.7%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 24,824 (60.2%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 4,659 (11.3%) had a female householder with no husband present, 2,214 (5.4%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 1,975 (4.8%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 291 (0.7%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 7,087 households (17.2%) were made up of individuals, and 3,013 (7.3%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.00. There were 31,697 families (76.9% of all households); the average family size was 3.33.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The population was spread out, with 31,036 people (25.0%) under the age of 18, 11,088 people (8.9%) aged 18 to 24, 33,890 people (27.3%) aged 25 to 44, 35,046 people (28.2%) aged 45 to 64, and 13,177 people (10.6%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37.8 years. For every 100 females, there were 96.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.4 males. There were 42,506 housing units at an average density of , of which 30,560 (74.1%) were owner-occupied, and 10,677 (25.9%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.2%; the rental vacancy rate was 4.6%. 93,181 people (75.0% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 30,396 people (24.5%) lived in rental housing units.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: As of the 2000 United States census, there were 111,351 people, 36,421 households, and 28,954 families


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Pacific Islander, 6.50% from other races, and 3.74% from two or more races. 16.82% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: There were 36,421 households, out of which 42.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 63.9% were married couples living together, 10.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 20.5% were non-families. 14.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 4.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.04 and the average family size was 3.33.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: In the city, the population was spread out, with 28.4% under the age of 18, 7.9% from 18 to 24, 32.9% from 25 to 44, 23.1% from 45 to 64, and 7.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 97.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.6 males.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: According to a 2007 estimate, the median income for a household in the city was $88,406, and the median income for a family was $91,658. 10.2% of the population and 7.4% of families were below the poverty line. In 2016, the median income for a household in Simi Valley has increased to $90,210 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The median per capita income for the past 12 months (2015) was $37,459. Sales tax was at 7.25% and income taxes were at 8.00%. The current unemployment rate was at 4.80% with a 0.36% recent job growth compared to the National Unemployment Rate of 5.20% and a 1.59% job growth. The median cost of homes in Simi Valley was $450,500 with mortgages at a median of $2,456.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Simi Valley is considered a conservative stronghold politically, along with the neighboring city of Thousand Oaks. The electorate was, at one point in time, often described as solidly Republican. Numerous publications had indicated Simi Valley among the most conservative cities in the United States; Simi Valley was ranked the 18th most conservative city in the country in 2005 by GovPro.com. Since its incorporation as a city, Simi Valley had voted for every Republican presidential nominee until 2020 when Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win the once-conservative stronghold.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The former Republican president and California governor, Ronald Reagan, is buried at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on a hilltop by the Thousand Oaks-Simi Valley city limits. The presidential library is frequently visited by conservative speakers and has been hosting numerous Republican primary debates, including the first debate in the 2008 presidential election, the 2012 presidential election, and the second primary debate for the 2016 presidential election. Simi Valley is located within the 25th congressional district, represented by Mike Garcia. The Simi Valley as well as neighboring Chatsworth are among the most Republican communities in the Greater Los Angeles Area, and the 25th district is among the most conservative in the State of California. In November 2018, Katie Hill unseated Republican Steve Knight and became the first Democratic woman to represent the district in the House of Representatives. Less than a year later, she would resign after revelations of an affair with a congressional staffer. She was replaced in a special election with Republican Mike Garcia.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Simi Valley's government uses the "Council-Manager" form of government. This means that the city council is composed of one mayor, elected every two years, and four council members elected for four-year terms. The city council appoints both the city attorney and city manager, who heads the executive branch of the city government. The city manager appoints the various department heads for the city, and acts as the city clerk and city treasurer.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: According to the 2008–2009 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report Fund Financial Statements, the city's various funds had $89.3 million in Revenues, $86.3 million in expenditures, $139.9 million in total assets, $26.1 million in total liabilities, and $158.5 million in investments.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Simi Valley is home to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, which has been visited by almost 400.000 people in 2014. After a major state funeral in Washington, D.C., President Reagan was buried at the library in June 2004. The library adjoins a hangar in which the Boeing 707 SAM 27000 (Air Force One), which served presidents Nixon through G.W. Bush, is housed and available for tours. In the pavilion are various automobiles used to transport the president, as well as Marine One, the presidential helicopter.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The Montalvo Cutoff, a railroad line opened by the Southern Pacific Railroad on March 20, 1904, to improve the alignment of its Coast Line, runs east–west through the valley. In 1905, the longest train tunnel in the United States at that time was completed at the east end of Simi Valley. Tunnel #26 still stands today linking Simi Valley and the San Fernando Valley. The area was originally served by the Santa Susana Depot which was also opened in 1904 as a combination passenger and freight depot built by the Southern Pacific and located on Los Angeles Avenue near Tapo Street. The station remained in use for the following 60 years until changes in the business model for railroads evolved that rendered the depot useless to the railroad.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Simi Valley Station is used by Amtrak and Metrolink on the railroad's Ventura County Line, after the line was purchased from Southern Pacific. The station is located at 5050 Los Angeles Avenue, west of Stearns Street. Simi Valley Transit buses stop on Los Angeles Avenue in front of the station. There are connections from Simi Valley north to Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, and south to Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego Counties.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: These trains, as well as the buses, run 7 days a week and stop in Simi Valley several times each day. The Simi Valley station is unstaffed; however, tickets are available from automated ticket dispensers, conductors on board the trains, travel agents, by telephone, or from the Amtrak and Metrolink websites.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The United States Postal Service operates the Simi Valley Post Office at 2511 Galena Avenue, the Kopy King Post Office at 2157 Tapo Street, and the Mount McCoy Post Office at 225 Simi Village Drive.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The city operates its own police department, and contracts with the Ventura County Fire Department to provide fire protection services. There are six fire stations within Simi Valley, and the city recently built a state-of-the-art police station. American Medical Response, in conjunction with Ventura County Fire Department, provide Emergency Medical Services at the Advanced Life Support (ALS) level.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The city provides sanitation service to residences, businesses and other users. Underground sewer lines collect sewage and wastewater which is treated at the city's sewage plant.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Commuting into the city of Los Angeles for work is done by 27% of Simi Valley residents, with 20% working within Simi Valley.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: In Simi Valley there are two main areas of industry – one in the eastern part of the city and the other one in the west. The primary industry is machinery and tools with 69 firms, and the secondary is the metal Industry with 51 firms, both situated in the eastern and western industrial areas. Other industries such as Lumber/Wood Products, Food, Plastic Products, Apparel/Textiles and Minerals, are also concentrated largely in these industrial areas.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The largest division of Countrywide Home Loans, now Bank of America, Loan Administration, has been headquartered in the city since the mid-1990s. Operating from Madera Road in a building that once housed the apparel company Bugle Boy, the company also has facilities on Tapo Canyon Road, and First Street. At its height, Countrywide had approximately 10,000 employees in the city.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The Volkswagen of America Design Center was once in an industrial complex across from the Costco wholesale club near Madera and Cochran. The VW Design Center California or DCC, moved to Santa Monica, California in the spring of 2006. Such notable automotive designers as Jay Mays, now (2007) VP Design for Ford and Freeman Thomas, co designer with Jay Mays of the original Audi TT, once called the DCC in Simi Valley their place of work. The original concept for the New Beetle from Jay Mays, had its genesis there.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Comparing to other cities in USA Simi Valley citizens are somewhat rich with a per capita income of $170,712 for a family of four per year.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: A study done by the University of Vermont ranked Simi Valley as the fifth-happiest city in the United States. According to crime statistics by the FBI in 2013, Simi Valley is the seventh-safest city in the U.S. with a population of 100,000 or more. The U.S. Census Bureau of 2018 reported a median household income of $93,516.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: According to the city's 2019-20 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Santa Susana High School has been named as a silver medal winner in U.S. News & World Report's "Top 500 Schools in America" for 2013 and 2014.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Schools of higher education located nearby include Moorpark College, Cal State Northridge, Cal State Channel Islands, California Lutheran University, University of LaVerne, University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), Ventura College, Oxnard College, Eternity Bible College, Louis Brandeis Institute of Justice, Pepperdine University, University of Southern California (USC), Caltech, Valley College, American Jewish University, Loyola Marymount University, University of La Verne, and UCLA.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: There are five high schools located in Simi Valley: Royal High School, Grace Brethren High School, Santa Susana High School, Simi Valley High School, and Apollo High School (a continuation school).


title: Simi Valley, California

text: There are three middle schools located in Simi Valley: Hillside Middle School, Valley View Middle School, and Sinaloa Middle School.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The Simi Valley Public Library, operated by the City of Simi Valley, opened in July 2013. Services were formerly provided through the Ventura County Library system. In its first year operating as a municipal library, it welcomed over 200,000 patrons into the library.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Park facilities in Simi Valley are operated by the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District. This included a total of fifty parks, where some are urban city-parks, while others are public open space or multi-purpose trail systems. The district has an inventory of of public owned land, including hundreds of acres of land in the Simi Hills. The purpose of these areas are to preserve the native landscape, as well as function as a wildlife corridor that protects the natural habitat for wildlife and flora. The city also boasts six golf courses and the Kanan Ranch home development has nature trails for hikers, bicyclists and equestrians to enjoy. Two collegiate baseball teams: The Simi Valley Senators and the California Oaks of the California Collegiate League in Thousand Oaks, provide sports action to local fans.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: To the east, Rocky Peak has a trail system for Mountain Biking, Hiking and Equestrian activities. The trail is accessed just off the 118 freeway at Kuehner Road, Yosemite Road (about North) or Rocky Peak. Trailheads are: The Hummingbird Trail, Rocky Peak Fire Road or The Chumash Trail. These trails are not recommended for beginners, due to fairly steep grades and some technical sections on the trail.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: To the southwest, numerous trails are accessible for Mountain Biking, Hiking and Equestrian activities. The main access point for Wood Ranch Open Space is at the intersection of Wood Ranch Parkway and Long Canyon Parkway, but can also be accessed through nearby Challenger Park or from trailheads in Thousand Oaks. The trail system travels as far west as highway 23, as far east as the Rocketdyne facility and connects to the Lang Ranch trail system (Westlake Village) and Chesebro trail system, which begins in Agoura Hills. Simi Peak (the highest peak in Simi Valley) is accessible from this trail system via China Flats in the Chesebro trail system. Ahmundson Ranch connects to this trail system, again via the Chesebro trail system. Bridlepath, a private trail system also connects to the main fire road. The west end of Simi Valley is also home to the 150-acre Tierra Rejada Park, which offers hiking trails to nearby Moorpark.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: The Simi Hills are the most critical wildlife corridor linkage from the Santa Monica Mountains – to the Santa Susana Mountains, and beyond to the Topatopa Mountains, San Gabriel Mountains, and other Transverse Ranges further east. The Simi's undeveloped native habitat provides routes that protect larger land wildlife of the Santa Monicas from genetic isolation. Large sections of the Simi Hills are protected by parks and open space preserves. Animals in the area include mammals such as the Virginia opossum, ornate shrew, broad-footed mole, mountain lion, mule deer, bobcat, spotted and striped skunk, California badger, southern California weasel, California raccoon, ringtail cat, black bear, Botta's pocket gopher, desert cottontail, valley coyote, gray fox, California vole, brush rabbit, California ground- and California grey squirrel, as well as several species of mice (California pocket mouse, western harvest mouse, brush mouse, deer mouse, and house mouse), rats (agile kangaroo rat, dusky-footed woodrat, black rat, roof rat, and brown rat) and bats (long-eared myotis, long-legged myotis, California myotis, small-footed myotis, western pipistrelle, Brazilian free-tailed bat, western mastiff bat, and Tejon myotis). Some of the reptiles in the area include several species of snakes (coachwhip, southern Pacific rattlesnake, San Diego night snake, striped racer, California black-headed snake, two-striped garter snake, San Diego gopher snake, coast mountain kingsnake, California kingsnake, coast patch-nosed snake, ringneck snake) and lizards (western fence lizard, California side blotched lizard, western skink, western whiptail, San Diego horned lizard, California horned lizard, San Diego alligator lizard, silvery legless lizard). There are ten species of amphibians in Simi Valley: the California newt, western spadefoot, California toad, arroyo toad, California slender salamander, arboreal salamander, American bullfrog, California red-legged frog, California treefrog, and the Pacific treefrog.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Birds in Simi Valley include Anna's hummingbird, Canada goose, mallard, California quail, common egret, great blue heron, American bittern, American coot, killdeer, mourning dove, roadrunner, belted kingfisher, black phoebe, barn swallow, cliff swallow, common raven, crow, white-breasted nuthatch, cactus wren, mockingbird, robin, cedar waxwing, phainopepla, starling, least Bell's vireo, hooded oriole, western tanager, several species of blackbird (western meadowlark, Brewer's blackbird and brown-headed cowbird) and woodpeckers (common flicker, Nuttall's woodpecker, acorn woodpecker, and yellow-bellied sapsucker). Raptors include turkey vulture, white-tailed kite, American kestrel, poor-will and several species of hawks (Cooper's hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, marsh hawk, red-tailed hawk, red-shouldered hawk, and the common nighthawk) and owls (great horned owl, short-eared owl, long-eared owl, barn owl, and the burrowing owl). Grosbeaks, finches and sparrows include black-headed grosbeak, house finch, American goldfinch, lesser goldfinch, California towhee, Savannah sparrow, sage sparrow, dark-eyed junco, white-crowned sparrow and the house sparrow.


title: Simi Valley, California

text: Given its close proximity to Hollywood, Simi Valley has long been a popular entertainment industry location.


title: Katsuki Bakugo

text: , also known by his nickname and his hero name , is a superhero and one of the main protagonists of the manga series "My Hero Academia", created by Kōhei Horikoshi. As a child, Katsuki often bullied the Quirkless Izuku Midoriya. However, after they both entered U.A. High School and Katsuki lost to Izuku in training, he began to see him differently. After Katsuki is kidnapped by the League of Villains, All Might loses his Quirk in the process of saving him, which made him blame himself for All Might's retirement, though All Might later reassures him it was not his fault. Katsuki later becomes one of the only people who know the true nature of Izuku's Quirk One For All. Katsuki's Quirk is , which allows him to make explosions from his hands by detonating the nitroglycerin-like substance he sweats; throughout the series, he learns various different ways to apply this. Overuse of the Quirk can potentially break his forearms.


title: Katsuki Bakugo

text: Katsuki has received positive reviews from critics, with many praising his character development throughout the series and his relationship with Izuku.


title: Katsuki Bakugo

text: In the first draft of the series, Katsuki was a genius with a nice personality, though Horikoshi scrapped this idea because it was too boring. Instead, he decided to make the character nasty and unlikeable. Horikoshi originally intended to keep Katsuki with the nasty and unlikable personality, though later decided to give him development so people wouldn't hate him. After the series' anime adaptation premiered, Horikoshi began writing the character with Nobuhiko Okamoto's voice in mind. Horikoshi had not expected Katsuki to become a popular character, so he was surprised to see the character rank well in the popularity polls.


title: Katsuki Bakugo

text: Katsuki's English voice actor, Clifford Chapin, has commented that he often has to end recording sessions early due to his voice getting worn out from all the screaming the character does. Chapin prefers voice acting the more calmer and emotional scenes with the character, even making the character accidentally sound too vulnerable at times.


title: Katsuki Bakugo

text: Katsuki begins the series as an intelligent student with aspirations of being the world's greatest hero, but had an arrogant, violent and crude personality. He often bullied Izuku Midoriya for being Quirkless during their childhood. However, after Izuku was given the generations-old Quirk One For All to Izuku, he and Katsuki enter the prestigious U.A. High School and are both enrolled in Class 1-A. After losing to Izuku during their first training exercise, he begins to treat Izuku with a grudging respect, which eventually evolves into an ongoing rivalry. His attitude earned the ire from most of his classmates who would often scold, ignore or even taunt Katsuki. During the story, however, Katsuki receives character development on par with Izuku, learning the importance of teamwork and co-operation, becoming a leader, accepting help, and how to save others in order to win. He also begins developing a friendship with classmates Eijiro Kirishima and Shoto Todoroki. However, Katsuki still holds onto his habit of yelling.


title: Katsuki Bakugo

text: After being kidnapped by the League of Villains, and refusing their offer to join them, Katsuki is rescued by All Might, his childhood hero. However, All Might's hero career comes to an end as he uses the last of his powers in the fight against the mastermind and his arch-enemy, All For One, which fills Katsuki with guilt for being the one who was taken and putting an end to the hero. After failing the Provisional Hero Licensing Exam due to his guilt and aggressive attitude, Katsuki takes Izuku out to Testing Ground Gamma, and reveals he has finally put the pieces together on how Izuku received his Quirk, One For All, from All Might. After that, Katsuki challenges Izuku to a battle to deal with his guilt and ask why it was Izuku who was chosen to receive One For All, when they both grew up admiring All Might just as much as each other. After defeating Izuku, All Might arrives to stop the fight, reassures him that what happened was not his fault, and tells him the Origins of All For One, the injury that limited his hero work, his need for a successor, and All For One. After agreeing to keep this information secret, Katsuki becomes one of the few people to know the truth about One for All. As they return to the U.A. dorms, Katsuki promises Izuku that he will surpass him one day, to which Izuku responds that he will simply have to go even higher still than Katsuki, forming a proper rivalry between the two.


title: Katsuki Bakugo

text: This rivalry becomes a quick rekindling of their childhood friendship and the pair talk more since the fight, although sometimes playfully antagonistic. As one of the only people who know Izuku's secret, Katsuki is often found training with Izuku to help him master his awakening Quirks and even sits in on his meetings with All Might about One For All. While gaining valuable lessons attending his internship with Izuku and Shoto, Katsuki's heart begins to open up more to people. However, the turning point for Katsuki's character happens during the war with the Paranormal Liberation Army. Katsuki watches on as Izuku, who has been giving his all to keep Tomura Shigaraki in the air, is about to die to Tomura's piercing attack. In a moment of pure urgency, Katsuki awakens a new explosive technique that propels him fast enough to push Izuku out of the way and tank the hits himself.


title: Katsuki Bakugo

text: After Izuku left U.A. High School during the Tartarus Escapees Arc, Katsuki and the rest of Class 1-A track down Izuku to bring him back to U.A. To convince Izuku into coming back, Katsuki apologizes to Izuku for bullying him in the past. He admits the reason he bullied Izuku was because of his jealousy from his own feeling that Izuku was closer to being a hero than he was and he also admitted that he had been taking his inferiority complex out on Izuku the entire time. He finishes by saying the words he had been wanting to say since they had both almost died: he was sorry for everything.


title: Katsuki Bakugo

text: Katsuki's Quirk is Explosion; it works by Katsuki sweating a nitroglycerin-like substance from his palms, which he can detonate at will. Throughout the series, Katsuki learns to apply this in different ways, such as to move through the air, create blinding flashes of light, catapult allies towards enemies, or create shockwaves to serve as defense. However, overuse makes his forearms ache.


title: Katsuki Bakugo

text: In the series' anime adaptation, Katsuki is voiced by Nobuhiko Okamoto in Japanese and Clifford Chapin in English. In the stage play, he is portrayed by Ryōta Kobayashi.


title: Katsuki Bakugo

text: Katsuki was added to the "Jump Force" video game as a DLC character in August 2019. In a crossover promotion with "", Katsuki shared a brief conversation with Iron Man.


title: Katsuki Bakugo

text: Katsuki will also appear in "Fortnite Battle Royale" as one of the crossover characters along with Izuku Midoriya, Ochaco Uraraka and All Might.