1.
Catalonia
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Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, located on the northeastern extremity of the Iberian Peninsula. It is designated as a nationality by its Statute of Autonomy, Catalonia consists of four provinces, Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. The capital and largest city is Barcelona, the second-most populated municipality in Spain, Catalonia comprises most of the territory of the former Principality of Catalonia. It is bordered by France and Andorra to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the east, the official languages are Catalan, Spanish, and the Aranese dialect of Occitan. The eastern counties of these marches were united under the rule of the Frankish vassal the Count of Barcelona, in the later Middle Ages Catalan literature flourished. Between 1469 and 1516, the King of Aragon and the Queen of Castile married and ruled their kingdoms together, retaining all their distinct institutions, Courts, and constitutions. During the Franco-Spanish War, Catalonia revolted against a large and burdensome presence of the Royal army in its territory, within a brief period France took full control of Catalonia, at a high economic cost for Catalonia, until it was largely reconquered by the Spanish army. In the nineteenth century, Catalonia was severely affected by the Napoleonic, in the second half of the century Catalonia experienced industrialisation. As wealth from the industrial expansion grew, Catalonia saw a cultural renaissance coupled with incipient nationalism while several workers movements appeared. In 1914, the four Catalan provinces formed a Commonwealth, and with the return of democracy during the Second Spanish Republic, after the Spanish Civil War, the Francoist dictatorship enacted repressive measures, abolishing Catalan institutions and banning the official use of the Catalan language again. Since the Spanish transition to democracy, Catalonia has regained some political and cultural autonomy and is now one of the most economically dynamic communities of Spain, the origin of the name Catalunya is subject to diverse interpretations because of a lack of evidence. During the Middle Ages, Byzantine chroniclers claimed that Catalania derives from the medley of Goths with Alans. Other less plausible theories suggest, Catalunya derives from the land of castles, having evolved from the term castlà or castlan. This theory therefore suggests that the names Catalunya and Castile have a common root, the source is of Celtic origin, meaning chiefs of battle. Although the area is not known to have been occupied by Celts, the Lacetani, an Iberian tribe that lived in the area and whose name, due to the Roman influence, could have evolved by metathesis to Katelans and then Catalans. In English, Catalonia is pronounced /kætəˈloʊniə/, the native name, Catalunya, is pronounced in Central Catalan, the most widely spoken variety whose pronunciation is considered standard. The Spanish name is Cataluña, and the Aranese name is Catalonha, the first known human settlements in what is now Catalonia were at the beginning of the Middle Palaeolithic. From the next era, the Epipaleolithic or Mesolithic, important remains survive
2.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
3.
Spanish Civil War
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Ultimately, the Nationalists won, and Franco then ruled Spain for the next 36 years, from April 1939 until his death in November 1975. Sanjurjo was killed in an accident while attempting to return from exile in Portugal. The coup was supported by units in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, Pamplona, Burgos, Zaragoza, Valladolid, Cádiz, Córdoba. However, rebelling units in some important cities—such as Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, and Málaga—did not gain control, Spain was thus left militarily and politically divided. The Nationalists and the Republican government fought for control of the country, the Nationalist forces received munitions and soldiers from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, while the Republican side received support from the Communist Soviet Union and leftist populist Mexico. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and France, operated a policy of non-intervention. The Nationalists advanced from their strongholds in the south and west and they also besieged Madrid and the area to its south and west for much of the war. Those associated with the losing Republicans were persecuted by the victorious Nationalists, with the establishment of a dictatorship led by General Franco in the aftermath of the war, all right-wing parties were fused into the structure of the Franco regime. The war became notable for the passion and political division it inspired, organized purges occurred in territory captured by Francos forces to consolidate the future regime. A significant number of killings took place in areas controlled by the Republicans, the extent to which Republican authorities took part in killings in Republican territory varied. The 19th century was a turbulent time for Spain and those in favour of reforming Spains government vied for political power with conservatives, who tried to prevent reforms from taking place. Some liberals, in a tradition that had started with the Spanish Constitution of 1812, sought to limit the power of the monarchy of Spain, the reforms of 1812 did not last after King Ferdinand VII dissolved the Constitution and ended the Trienio Liberal government. Twelve successful coups were carried out between 1814 and 1874, until the 1850s, the economy of Spain was primarily based on agriculture. There was little development of an industrial or commercial class. The land-based oligarchy remained powerful, a number of people held large estates called latifundia as well as all the important government positions. In 1868 popular uprisings led to the overthrow of Queen Isabella II of the House of Bourbon, two distinct factors led to the uprisings, a series of urban riots and a liberal movement within the middle classes and the military concerned with the ultra-conservatism of the monarchy. In 1873 Isabellas replacement, King Amadeo I of the House of Savoy, abdicated owing to increasing pressure. After the restoration of the Bourbons in December 1874, Carlists and Anarchists emerged in opposition to the monarchy, alejandro Lerroux, Spanish politician and leader of the Radical Republican Party, helped bring republicanism to the fore in Catalonia, where poverty was particularly acute
4.
Collage
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Collage is a technique of an art production, primarily used in the visual arts, where the artwork is made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. The origins of collage can be traced back hundreds of years, the term collage was coined by both Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in the beginning of the 20th century when collage became a distinctive part of modern art. Techniques of collage were first used at the time of the invention of paper in China, around 200 BC. The use of collage, however, wasnt used by many people until the 10th century in Japan, when began to apply glued paper, using texts on surfaces. The technique of collage appeared in medieval Europe during the 13th century, gold leaf panels started to be applied in Gothic cathedrals around the 15th and 16th centuries. Gemstones and other metals were applied to religious images, icons. An 18th-century example of art can be found in the work of Mary Delany. In the 19th century, collage methods also were used among hobbyists for memorabilia, the exhibition later traveled to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Art Gallery of Ontario. For example, the Tate Gallerys online art glossary states that collage was first used as a technique in the twentieth century. The glued-on patches which Braque and Picasso added to their canvases offered a new perspective on painting when the patches collided with the plane of the painting. Collage in the modernist sense began with Cubist painters Georges Braque, according to some sources, Picasso was the first to use the collage technique in oil paintings. According to the Guggenheim Museums online article about collage, Braque took up the concept of collage itself before Picasso, applying it to charcoal drawings. Picasso adopted collage immediately after, It was Braque who purchased a roll of simulated oak-grain wallpaper and began cutting out pieces of the paper, Picasso immediately began to make his own experiments in the new medium. In 1912 for his Still Life with Chair Caning, Picasso pasted a patch of oilcloth with a design onto the canvas of the piece. Surrealist artists have made use of collage. Cubomania is a made by cutting an image into squares which are then reassembled automatically or at random. Collages produced using a similar, or perhaps identical, method are called etrécissements by Marcel Mariën from a method first explored by Mariën, surrealist games such as parallel collage use collective techniques of collage making. Many of these artists used techniques in their work
5.
Mae West
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Mary Jane Mae West was an American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter, comedian, and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades. For her contributions to American cinema, the American Film Institute named West 15th among the greatest female stars of classic American cinema, one of the more controversial movie stars of her day, West encountered many problems, especially censorship. She bucked the system, making out of prudish conventional mores. When her cinematic career ended, she wrote books and plays, and continued to perform in Las Vegas, in the United Kingdom, and on radio and television, asked about the various efforts to impede her career, West replied, I believe in censorship. I made an out of it. While true, she suffered greatly because of it, even going to jail for her right to freedom of speech. West was born in Bushwick, Brooklyn on August 17,1893 and she was the eldest surviving child of John Patrick West and Matilda Tillie Delker. Delker and her five siblings emigrated with their parents, Jacob and Christiana, Wests parents married on January 18,1889, in Brooklyn and reared their children as Protestants, although John West was of mixed Catholic-Protestant descent. Her father was a known as Battlin Jack West who later worked as a special policeman. Her mother was a corset and fashion model. Her paternal grandmother, Mary Jane, for whom she was named, was of Irish Catholic descent, and Wests paternal grandfather, John Edwin West, was of English-Scots descent and her eldest sibling, Katie, died in infancy. Her other siblings were Mildred Katherine West, later known as Beverly, during her childhood, Wests family moved to various parts of Woodhaven, as well as the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods of Brooklyn. In Woodhaven, at Neirs Social Hall, West supposedly first performed professionally, West was five when she first entertained a crowd at a church social, and she started appearing in amateur shows at the age of seven. She often won prizes at local talent contests and she began performing professionally in vaudeville in the Hal Clarendon Stock Company in 1907 at the age of 14. West first performed under the stage name Baby Mae, and tried various personas, including a male impersonator and her trademark walk was said to have been inspired or influenced by female impersonators Bert Savoy and Julian Eltinge, who were famous during the Pansy Craze. Her first appearance in a Broadway show was in a 1911 revue A La Broadway put on by her former dancing teacher, the show folded after eight performances, but at age 18, West was singled out and discovered by the New York Times. The Times reviewer wrote that a girl named Mae West, hitherto unknown, pleased by her grotesquerie, West next appeared in a show called Vera Violetta, whose cast featured Al Jolson. In 1912, she appeared in the performance of A Winsome Widow as a baby vamp named La Petite Daffy
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