- Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American businessman, computer programmer, researcher, film producer, explorer, sports executive, investor and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with his childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which was followed by the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Allen was ranked as the 44th-wealthiest person in the world by Forbes with an estimated net worth of $20.3 billion at the time of his death in October 2018.
- Tacoma — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Tacoma epitomizes the cultural, economic, social, and technological development of the Puget Sound region and the entire state of Washington. Situated above Commencement Bay on scenic bluffs that were home to the Puyallup Tribe and other native peoples for millennia, the county seat of Pierce County possesses a natural harbor that was admired by the sound’s earliest Euro-American explorers. Tacoma won the prize of the era in 1873 when the Northern Pacific Railroad selected it as its western terminus. Tacomans have since established their community as a regional center for Pacific Rim shipping, forest products, high technology, and the arts. Ranked in the 2000 census as Washington’s third-largest city, Tacoma in the early years of the twenty-frist century embarked on an urban renaissance, with the construction of light rail transit, new museums and cultural centers, and a state-of-the-art telecommunications network.