Benzene is an organic chemical compound with the molecular formula C6H6. The benzene molecule is composed of six carbon atoms joined in a ring with one hydrogen atom attached to each; as it contains only carbon and hydrogen atoms, benzene is classed as a hydrocarbon. Benzene is one of the elementary petrochemicals. Due to the cyclic continuous pi bonds between the carbon atoms, benzene is classed as an aromatic hydrocarbon, the second -annulene, it is sometimes abbreviated PhH. Benzene is a colorless and flammable liquid with a sweet smell, is responsible for the aroma around petrol stations, it is used as a precursor to the manufacture of chemicals with more complex structure, such as ethylbenzene and cumene, of which billions of kilograms are produced annually. As benzene has a high octane number, aromatic derivatives like toluene and xylene comprise up to 25% of gasoline. Benzene itself has been limited to less than 1 % in gasoline. Most non-industrial applications have been limited as well for the same reason.

The word "benzene" derives from "gum benzoin", an aromatic resin known to European pharmacists and perfumers since the 16th century as a product of southeast Asia. An acidic material was derived from benzoin by sublimation, named "flowers of benzoin", or benzoic acid; the hydrocarbon derived from benzoic acid thus acquired benzol, or benzene. Michael Faraday first isolated and identified benzene in 1825 from the oily residue derived from the production of illuminating gas, giving it the name bicarburet of hydrogen. In 1833, Eilhard Mitscherlich produced it by distilling benzoic lime, he gave the compound the name benzin. In 1836, the French chemist Auguste Laurent named the substance "phène". In 1845, Charles Mansfield, working under August Wilhelm von Hofmann, isolated benzene from coal tar. Four years Mansfield began the first industrial-scale production of benzene, based on the coal-tar method; the sense developed among chemists that a number of substances were chemically related to benzene, comprising a diverse chemical family.

In 1855, Hofmann used the word "aromatic" to designate this family relationship, after a characteristic property of many of its members. In 1997, benzene was detected in deep space; the empirical formula for benzene was long known, but its polyunsaturated structure, with just one hydrogen atom for each carbon atom, was challenging to determine. Archibald Scott Couper in 1858 and Joseph Loschmidt in 1861 suggested possible structures that contained multiple double bonds or multiple rings, but too little evidence was available to help chemists decide on any particular structure. In 1865, the German chemist Friedrich August Kekulé published a paper in French suggesting that the structure contained a ring of six carbon atoms with alternating single and double bonds; the next year he published a much longer paper in German on the same subject. Kekulé used evidence that had accumulated in the intervening years—namely, that there always appeared to be only one isomer of any monoderivative of benzene, that there always appeared to be three isomers of every disubstituted derivative—now understood to correspond to the ortho and para patterns of arene substitution—to argue in support of his proposed structure.

Kekulé's symmetrical ring could explain these curious facts, as well as benzene's 1:1 carbon-hydrogen ratio. The new understanding of benzene, hence of all aromatic compounds, proved to be so important for both pure and applied chemistry that in 1890 the German Chemical Society organized an elaborate appreciation in Kekulé's honor, celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of his first benzene paper. Here Kekulé spoke of the creation of the theory, he said that he had discovered the ring shape of the benzene molecule after having a reverie or day-dream of a snake seizing its own tail. This vision, came to him after years of studying the nature of carbon-carbon bonds; this was 7 years after he had solved the problem of how carbon atoms could bond to up to four other atoms at the same time. Curiously, a similar, humorous depiction of benzene had appeared in 1886 in a pamphlet entitled Berichte der Durstigen Chemischen Gesellschaft, a parody of the Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft, only the parody had monkeys seizing each other in a circle, rather than snakes as in Kekulé's anecdote.

Some historians have suggested that the parody was a lampoon of the snake anecdote already well known through oral transmission if it had not yet appeared in print. Kekulé's 1890 speech in which this anecdote appeared has been translated into English. If the anecdote is the memory of a real event, circumstances mentioned in the story suggest that it must have happened early in 1862; the cyclic nature of benzene was confirmed by the crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale in 1929. The German chemist Wilhelm Körner suggested the prefixes ortho-, meta-, para- to distinguish di-substituted benzene derivatives in 1867, it was the German chemist Karl Gräbe who, in 1869, first used the prefixes ortho-, meta-, para- to denote specific relative locations of the substituents on a di-substituted aromatic ring (v

Emmanuel N. Monfort is a Filipino basketball player who last played for the NLEX Road Warriors of the Philippine Basketball Association, he was selected 16th overall in the 2012 PBA draft by Barako Bull Energy Cola. Monfort during his collegiate career won three championships with the Ateneo Blue Eagles in the UAAP from 2009 to 2011. Monfort called The Minion, the 16th overall pick in the 2012 PBA draft out of Ateneo De Manila University, played in just 12 games due to various injuries, but when he was on the court, he showed that he could run a team like a veteran in his first team as a professional PBA player. On October 31, 2013, he was traded to Barangay Ginebra San Miguel to bolster their backcourt sending Robert Labagala to Barako Bull. On August 25, 2015, he was traded to Barako Bull Energy with Josh Urbiztondo and Jens Knuttel in exchange for Nico Salva and a future first-round pick. Correct as of September 23, 2016

Stephen Herbert Wynn Hughes-Games was an English chaplain and poet with strong ties to the Isle of Man. Hughes-Games was born on 21 March 1862 in Liverpool, the second son of ten children born to Joshua Hughes-Games and his wife, Mary Helena Yates, he attended King William's College, where his father had been principal since 1866. He attended Worcester College, achieving his Honour Moderations in 1883, before returning to the Isle of Man to be lecturer in the Sodor and Man Theological College and Curate of Kirk Andreas, under his father, between 1887 and 88, it was in February 1887 that Hughes-Games’ sister, Louise Elizabeth Wynn, married the Speaker of the House of Keys and leading Manx antiquarian, historian and folklorist, A. W. Moore. In 1888 he became Domestic Chaplain to Bishop of Sodor and Man and the Diocesan Inspector of Schools for Sodor and Man, but in 1889 he became principal of the Bishop Wilson Theological College, Isle of Man; the College was based in Bishopscourt, a place which featured in one of Hughes-Games' poems: O fair green lawns, by rippling water lined, O'erwatched by tower and fane and ivied walls, How on you now the evening falls And wakes your leaf-crowned aisles with whispering wind!

In 1890 he moved to London to become Curate of St. Giles, before moving to become curate of Croydon Parish Church in 1893, the same year in which he obtained by MA from the University of Oxford, it was in 1893 that he got married, on 27 April at St John's, Notting Hill, London. He was to go on to have two sons. For his wedding day Hughes-Games composed a wedding hymn, which began with the following stanza: O love that lit with glory Fair Eden long ago – O love, the star and story Of life above, Thy light it sprung from heaven, It flashed in fulness down, God born, God-blessed, God given, Of all God's gifts the crown! After three years in Croydon, Hughes-Games moved to become Vicar of Doddington, Kent in 1896. By 1901 Hughes-Games was Vicar of St. Mary's Birkenhead. In 1904 Hughes-Games published a collection of poetry and Other Poems, judged to be'worthy of deep admiration' at his death nearly twenty years later, his poem'In memoriam: T. E. Brown' was selected by William Cubbon for inclusion in his A Book of Manx Poetry, published in 1913, included the striking stanza: Poet and Patriot, strong and wise, All notes were in thy song, Mirth in thine eyes.

Hughes-Games moved to St. Lawrence, Thanet, in 1906, in around 1908 he moved to a new position in Clifton, Bristol, it was here that he died on 16 May 1923. Thekla, Other Poems, by Stephen Hughes-Games, London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1904