1.
Madrid
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Madrid is the capital city of the Kingdom of Spain and the largest municipality in both the Community of Madrid and Spain as a whole. The city has a population of almost 3.2 million with an area population of approximately 6.5 million. It is the third-largest city in the European Union after London and Berlin, the municipality itself covers an area of 604.3 km2. Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the centre of both the country and the Community of Madrid, this community is bordered by the communities of Castile and León. As the capital city of Spain, seat of government, and residence of the Spanish monarch, Madrid is also the political, economic, the current mayor is Manuela Carmena from Ahora Madrid. Madrid is home to two football clubs, Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid. Madrid is the 17th most liveable city in the according to Monocle magazine. Madrid organises fairs such as FITUR, ARCO, SIMO TCI, while Madrid possesses modern infrastructure, it has preserved the look and feel of many of its historic neighbourhoods and streets. Cibeles Palace and Fountain have become one of the monument symbols of the city, the first documented reference of the city originates in Andalusan times as the Arabic مجريط Majrīṭ, which was retained in Medieval Spanish as Magerit. A wider number of theories have been formulated on possible earlier origins, according to legend, Madrid was founded by Ocno Bianor and was named Metragirta or Mantua Carpetana. The most ancient recorded name of the city Magerit comes from the name of a built on the Manzanares River in the 9th century AD. Nevertheless, it is speculated that the origin of the current name of the city comes from the 2nd century BC. The Roman Empire established a settlement on the banks of the Manzanares river, the name of this first village was Matrice. In the 8th century, the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula saw the changed to Mayrit, from the Arabic term ميرا Mayra. The modern Madrid evolved from the Mozarabic Matrit, which is still in the Madrilenian gentilic, after the disintegration of the Caliphate of Córdoba, Madrid was integrated in the Taifa of Toledo. With the surrender of Toledo to Alfonso VI of León and Castile, the city was conquered by Christians in 1085, Christians replaced Muslims in the occupation of the centre of the city, while Muslims and Jews settled in the suburbs. The city was thriving and was given the title of Villa, since 1188, Madrid won the right to be a city with representation in the courts of Castile. In 1202, King Alfonso VIII of Castile gave Madrid its first charter to regulate the municipal council, which was expanded in 1222 by Ferdinand III of Castile
2.
People's Party (Spain)
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The Peoples Party is a conservative and Christian democratic political party in Spain. It is one of the four parties of modern Spanish politics. The new party combined the conservative AP with several small Christian democratic, in 2002, Manuel Fraga received the honorary title of Founding Chairman. The PP was until November 2011 the largest opposition party in the Congress of Deputies, with 153 out of 350 deputies, and its youth organization is New Generations of the Peoples Party of Spain. In the elections of November 2011, the PP won a majority, the PP is a member of the center-right European Peoples Party, and in the European Parliament its 16 MEPs sit in the EPP Group. The PP is also a member of the Centrist Democrat International, the PP was also one of the founding organizations of the Budapest-based Robert Schuman Institute for Developing Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. The party has its roots in the Peoples Alliance founded on 9 October 1976 by former Francoist minister Manuel Fraga, although Fraga was a member of the reformist faction of the Franco regime, he supported an extremely gradual transition to democracy. However, he underestimated the publics distaste for Francoism. Additionally, while he attempted to convey a reformist image, the number of former Francoists in the party led the public to perceive it as both reactionary and authoritarian. In the June 1977 general election, the AP garnered only 8.3 percent of the vote, in the months following the 1977 elections, dissent erupted within the AP over constitutional issues that arose as the draft document was being formulated. Fragas wing won the struggle, prompting most of the disenchanted reactionaries to leave the party, the AP then joined with other moderate conservatives to form the Democratic Coalition. In the March 1979 general election, however, the CD received 6.1 percent of the vote, at the APs Second Party Congress in December 1979, party leaders re-assessed their involvement in the CD. Many felt that the creation of the coalition had merely confused the voters, Fraga resumed control of the party, and the political resolutions adopted by the party congress reaffirmed the conservative orientation of the AP. In the early 1980s, Fraga succeeded in rallying the various components of the right around his leadership and he was aided in his efforts to revive the AP by the increasing disintegration of the UCD. In the general held in October 1982, the AP gained votes both from previous UCD supporters and from the far right. It became the opposition party to the Spanish Socialist Workers Party. Whereas the APs parliamentary representation had dropped to 9 seats in 1979, the increased strength of the AP was further evidenced in the municipal and regional elections held in May 1983, when the party drew 26 percent of the vote. A significant portion of the electorate appeared to support the APs emphasis on law, subsequent political developments belied the partys aspirations to continue increasing its base of support
3.
Complutense University of Madrid
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The Complutense University of Madrid is a public research university located in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. The university enrolls over 86,000 students, and consistently ranks as one of the top universities in Spain, according to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, the university is widely regarded as the most prestigious academic institution in Spain. In the course of seven centuries, the University of Madrid has provided invaluable contributions in the sciences, fine arts. Alumni include renowned philosophers, writers, scientists, historians, military leaders, foreign leaders, in the year 1785, the University of Madrid became one of the first Universities in the world to grant a Doctorate degree to a female student. By Royal Decree of 1857, the University of Madrid was the institution in Spain authorized to grant doctorates throughout the Spanish Empire. On 13 April 1499, Cardinal Cisneros secured from Pope Alexander VI a Papal bull to expand Complutense into a full university and this Papal Bull conferred official recognition throughout Christendom to all degrees granted by the University. It also renamed the institution Universitas Complutensis, after Complutum, which was the Latin name of Alcalá de Henares, in the 1509–1510 school year, the Complutense University already operated with five major schools, Arts and Philosophy, Theology, Canon law, Philology and Medicine. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Complutense University became one of the greatest centers of Academic excellence in the world, many of the leading figures in science, arts and politics of that Age studied or taught in Complutenses classrooms. Special colleges were created for students of foreign origin, such as Flemish or Irish, in 1785, Complutense became one of the first Universities in the world to grant a Doctorate to a female student, María Isidra de Guzmán y de la Cerda. In comparison, University of Oxford did not accept female scholars until the year 1920, in 1824, Francisco Tadeo Calomarde further expanded Complutense by merging it with the University of Sigüenza. The University would be known under this name until its name of Complutense was restored in the 1970s. The University of Madrid awarded Albert Einstein a Doctor of Science degree Honoris Causa on 28 February 1923 and this was the first Doctor of Science degree Honoris Causa that Albert Einstein accepted from a European University. However, as the situation began to deteriorate throughout Europe. The University greatly expanded during the 19th century, and its accommodations in central Madrid proved to be increasingly inadequate. This situation changed in 1927, when by royal decree King Alfonso XIII officially ceded state-held lands in the proximity of the Palace of La Moncloa to establish space for the University of Madrid. A council appointed by King Alfonso XIII had decided that the new University of Madrid would require the innovative architecture and planning. Indeed, the buildings, exemplary amongst them the Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy and Odontology, are an homage to structural functionalism. The city of Alcalá de Henares decided to open a university within the campus buildings
4.
Mariano Rajoy
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Mariano Rajoy Brey is a Spanish politician who is the Prime Minister of Spain. He became leader of the Peoples Party in 2004 and Prime Minister in 2011 following the Peoples Party landslide victory in that general election. He was the Leader of the Opposition between 2004 and 2011 under José Luis Rodríguez Zapateros government and he is the son of Mariano Rajoy Sobredo, a jurist, and president of the Provincial Court of Pontevedra, the city where he grew up. Later on, his father was transferred to León and the family moved there. He was duly enrolled, together with his brothers Luis and Enrique, after finishing secondary school he started university, enrolling in the Law Faculty in Santiago de Compostela. He was assigned to Padrón, Villafranca del Bierzo and Santa Pola, in that year, Rajoy sustained facial injuries in a traffic accident. Since then, he has worn a beard to cover the scars from these injuries. Rajoy married Elvira Viri Fernández Balboa on 28 December 1996, in La Toja island, while on the campaign trail in 2011, Rajoy published his autobiography, En Confianza. Rajoy started his career in 1981 as a member of the right-wing party Peoples Alliance. In 1982, he was appointed by Galician regional President, Xerardo Fernández Albor, on 11 June 1986, Rajoy was elected President of the Provincial Council of Pontevedra, a position he held until July 1991. He occupied this position until the end of September 1987. In May 1988 he was elected General Secretary of the PA in Galicia during a congress of the regional party. When in 1989 the AP merged with other parties to form the Peoples Party, with Manuel Fraga as its president, Rajoy was named a member of its National Executive Committee and he was reelected to parliament in 1993. Before the PPs triumph in the 1996 elections, he was a PP-designated member of the Commission of Parliamentary Control of the RTVE. In April, the president of Castile and León and presidential candidate of the government general elections in 1989. Confirmed in the National Executive, Mariano Rajoy was appointed deputy secretary general of the party and he was re-elected in Pontevedra in the election on 6 June 1993. On 3 March 1996, the PP won the parliamentary elections and formed a government with the support of the Basque Nationalist Party, Convergence and Union. He changed his portfolio on 20 January 1999 and replaced Esperanza Aguirre as Minister of Education, just after his appointment, he was reelected vice-secretary general of the PP during its thirteenth national conference
5.
El Escorial
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It is one of the Spanish royal sites and functions as a monastery, basilica, royal palace, pantheon, library, museum, university and hospital. It is situated 2.06 km up the valley from the town of El Escorial, El Escorial was, at once, a monastery and a Spanish royal palace. Originally a property of the Hieronymite monks, it is now a monastery of the Order of Saint Augustine and it is also a boarding school. Philip engaged the Spanish architect, Juan Bautista de Toledo, to be his collaborator in the design of El Escorial, Philip appointed him architect-royal in 1559, and together they designed El Escorial as a monument to Spains role as a center of the Christian world. On 2 November 1984, UNESCO declared The Royal Seat of San Lorenzo of El Escorial a World Heritage Site and it is a popular tourist attraction, often visited by day-trippers from Madrid – more than 500,000 visitors come to El Escorial every year. El Escorial is situated at the foot of Mt. Abantos in the Sierra de Guadarrama, Quentin in Picardy against Henry II, king of France. He also intended the complex to serve as a necropolis for the interment of the remains of his parents, Charles I and Isabella of Portugal, himself, in addition, Philip envisioned El Escorial as a center for studies in aid of the Counter-Reformation cause. The buildings cornerstone was laid on 23 April 1563, the design and construction were overseen by Juan Bautista de Toledo, who did not live to see the completion of the project. With Toledos death in 1567, direction passed to his apprentice, Juan de Herrera, under whom the building was completed in 1584, to this day, la obra de El Escorial is a proverbial expression for a thing that takes a long time to finish. Since then, El Escorial has been the site for most of the Spanish kings of the last five centuries. Two Bourbon kings, Philip V and Ferdinand VI, as well as King Amadeus, are not buried in the monastery, the floor plan of the building is in the form of a gridiron. The traditional belief is that design was chosen in honor of St. Lawrence. St. Lawrence’s feast day is 10 August, the date as the 1557 Battle of St. Quentin. In fact, however, the origin of the layout is quite controversial. The grill-like shape, which did not fully emerge until Herrera eliminated from the conception the six interior towers of the facade, was, by no means. In fact, palaces of this design were commonplace in the Byzantine. Statues of David and Solomon on either side of the entrance to the basilica of El Escorial lend further weight to the theory that this is the origin of the design. A more personal connection can be drawn between the David-warrior figure, representing Charles V, and his son, the stolid and solomonically prudent Philip II
6.
BBC
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The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. It is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, the BBC is the worlds oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total,16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting, the total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed contract staff are included. The BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, and used to fund the BBCs radio, TV, britains first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920. It was sponsored by the Daily Mails Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian Soprano Dame Nellie Melba, the Melba broadcast caught the peoples imagination and marked a turning point in the British publics attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office, was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts. But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests, John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast. The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved manufacturers, to this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to inform, educate and entertain. The financial arrangements soon proved inadequate, set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee and this was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired. The BBCs broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, the BBC was also banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00, and required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee, by now the BBC under Reiths leadership had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a service rather than a commercial enterprise. The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production and with restrictions on news bulletins waived the BBC suddenly became the source of news for the duration of the crisis. The crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position, the Government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PMs own
7.
Madrid City Council election, 2011
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The 2011 Madrid City Council election was held on Sunday,22 May 2011, to elect the 9th Madrid City Council, the unicameral local legislature of the municipality of Madrid. At stake were all 57 seats in the City Council, determining the Mayor of Madrid. The Peoples Party won its 6th consecutive absolute majority of seats in the City Council, albeit with a voter base. He was succeeded as mayor by Ana Botella, the number of seats in the Madrid City Council was determined by the population count. As the updated population census for the 2011 election was 3,273,049, all City Council members were elected in a single multi-member district, consisting of the Madrid municipality, using the DHondt method and a closed-list proportional representation system. Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot, only lists polling above 5% of valid votes in all of the municipality were entitled to enter the seat distribution
8.
Prime Minister of Spain
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The current office is established under the Constitution of 1978. In practice, the Prime Minister is almost always the leader of the largest party in the Congress, since current constitutional practice in Spain calls for the King to act on the advice of his ministers, the Prime Minister is effectively the countrys chief executive. Mariano Rajoy Brey of the Peoples Party has been the minister since he was sworn in on December 21,2011. The Spanish head of government is known, in Spanish, as the Presidente del Gobierno, in Spain the head of the government is often called simply Presidente, meaning President. Before 1833 the figure was known as Secretario de Estado, a denomination used today for junior ministers, once a general election has been announced by the king, political parties nominate their candidates to stand for the presidency of the government-usually the party leader. Constitutionally, the Prime Minister and the cabinet are responsible to the monarch, on paper, the monarch is free to name anyone he sees fit as his prerogative to form a government. For this reason, the Prime Minister is usually the leader of the largest party in the Congress. By political custom established by Juan Carlos I since the ratification of the 1978 Constitution, however, there is no legal requirement for this. In theory, the largest party could end up not ruling if rival parties gather into a majority, the monarch is normally able to announce his nominee on the day following a general election. A simple majority confirms the nominee and his program, after the nominee is confirmed, the Speaker of the Congress formally reports to the king of the congressional confirmation. The king then appoints the candidate as the new President of the Government, the kings order of appointment is countersigned by the Speaker. If no overall majority was obtained on the first Vote of the Confidence, then the same nominee and program is resubmitted for a second vote within forty-eight hours. Following the second vote, if confidence by the Congress is still unreached, then the monarch again meets with political leaders and the Speaker, and submits a new nominee for a vote of confidence. If, within two months, no candidate has won the confidence of the Congress then the King dissolves the Cortes, the Kings royal decree is countersigned by the Speaker of the Congress. Once appointed, the President of the Government forms his government whose ministers are appointed and removed by the King on the presidents advice, conversely, nominating the party leader whose party maintains a plurality and who are already familiar with their party manifesto facilitates a smoother nomination process. In the event of coalitions, the leaders would customarily have met beforehand to hammer out a coalition agreement before their meeting with the King. Governments and the Cortes sit for a no longer than four years when the president tenders his resignation to the king and advises the king to dissolve the Cortes. It remains within the prerogative to dissolve the Cortes if, at the conclusion of the four years
9.
Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary, the earliest documented English use of the term to refer to a university is in 1600, when University of Cambridge printer John Legate began using an emblem for the universitys press. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is often cited in 1710, many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. The University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been called the Alma Mater of the Nation because of its ties to the founding of the United States. At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses, outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
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