Pearl Harbor

Coordinates: 21°22′04″N 157°58′38″W / 21.3679°N 157.9771°W / 21.3679; -157.9771

Pearl Harbor is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the United States Pacific Fleet. The U.S. government first obtained exclusive use of the inlet and the right to maintain a repair and coaling station for ships here in 1887. The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan on December 7, 1941 was the immediate cause of the United States' entry into World War II.

History

Pearl Harbor was originally an extensive shallow embayment called Wai Momi (meaning, “Waters of Pearl”) or Puʻuloa (meaning, “long hill”) by the Hawaiians. Puʻuloa was regarded as the home of the shark goddess, Kaʻahupahau, and her brother (or son), Kahiʻuka, in Hawaiian legends. According to tradition, Keaunui, the head of the powerful Ewa chiefs, is credited with cutting a navigable channel near the present Puʻuloa saltworks, by which he made the estuary, known as "Pearl River," accessible to navigation. Making due allowance for legendary amplification, the estuary already had an outlet for its waters where the present gap is; but Keaunui is typically given the credit for widening and deepening it.

Harbor

A harbor or harbour (see spelling differences), or haven, is a body of water where ships, boats and barges seek shelter from stormy weather, or are stored for future use. Harbors and ports are often confused with each other. A port is a facility for loading and unloading vessels; ports are often located in harbors.

Harbors can be natural or artificial. An artificial harbor can have deliberately constructed breakwaters, sea walls, or jettys, or they can be constructed by dredging, which requires maintenance by further periodic dredging. An example of an artificial harbor is Long Beach Harbor, California, which was an array of salt marshes and tidal flats too shallow for modern merchant ships before it was first dredged in the early 20th century.

In contrast, a natural harbor is surrounded on several sides by prominences of land. Examples of natural harbors include Sydney Harbour, Australia and San Francisco Bay, California.

Artificial harbors

Artificial harbors are frequently built for use as ports. The oldest artificial harbor known is the Ancient Egyptian site at Wadi al-Jarf, on the Red Sea coast, which is at least 4500 years old (ca. 2600-2550 BC, reign of King Khufu). The largest artificially created harbor is Jebel Ali in Dubai. Other large and busy artificial harbors include:

Learning

Learning is the act of acquiring new, or modifying and reinforcing, existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, plants and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow a learning curve. It does not happen all at once, but builds upon and is shaped by previous knowledge. To that end, learning may be viewed as a process, rather than a collection of factual and procedural knowledge. Learning produces changes in the organism and the changes produced are relatively permanent.

Human learning may occur as part of education, personal development, schooling, or training. It may be goal-oriented and may be aided by motivation. The study of how learning occurs is part of educational psychology, neuropsychology, learning theory, and pedagogy. Learning may occur as a result of habituation or classical conditioning, seen in many animal species, or as a result of more complex activities such as play, seen only in relatively intelligent animals. Learning may occur consciously or without conscious awareness. Learning that an aversive event can't be avoided nor escaped is called learned helplessness. There is evidence for human behavioral learning prenatally, in which habituation has been observed as early as 32 weeks into gestation, indicating that the central nervous system is sufficiently developed and primed for learning and memory to occur very early on in development.

Harbor Freight Tools

Harbor Freight Tools is a privately held discount tool and equipment retailer, headquartered in Calabasas, California, which operates a chain of retail stores as well as a mail-order and eCommerce business. The company has over 600 stores in 47 states, offering over 7,000 tools and related products. The company employs over 11,000 people in the U.S.

History

Harbor Freight was founded in 1977 as a mail-order business by Eric Smidt and his father, Allan, in a small North Hollywood building, as Harbor Freight & Salvage Co. The company changed its name to Harbor Freight Tools and, in 1980, opened its first retail store in Lexington, Kentucky. In 1985, Eric Smidt became the president of Harbor Freight; he served under that title until 1999 when he became CEO.

Mail order

The company subsequently acquired US General, another mail-order tool and equipment company. At first, the company mailed promotions in standard #10 business envelopes. In the early 1980s, the company relocated to Camarillo, CA, acquiring the former headquarters of Unity, another large mail-order company, and launched its first mail-order catalog in the mid-1980s.

Harbor Town, Memphis

Harbor Town is an upscale, new urbanist-style neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee. Harbor Town sits atop 132 acres on a sandbar known as Mud Island. The neighborhood emphasizes the human, not the automobile, and interaction between neighbors is encouraged. It was the collaborative effort of Memphis native and downtown developer Henry Turley, RTKL of Baltimore, Looney, Ricks and Kiss architectural firm from Memphis and consultant, Tony Bologna. They made a simple book that plainly told "do this and don't do that"- development guidelines that would grow Harbor Town into the kind of community now known as New Urbanism. Today, Harbor Town is dense and walkable, offering traditional row houses, contemporary homes, apartments, shops, restaurants, schools, parks, and a marina. It is much studied by city planners from all over the world. Today the trees are mature, the cars are tucked away into alleys behind houses, the river beckons, and the downtown core is a stones throw away.