1.
Columbus, Ohio
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Columbus is the capital and largest city of the U. S. state of Ohio. It is the 15th-largest city in the United States, with a population of 850,106 as of 2015 estimates and this makes Columbus the fourth-most populous state capital in the United States, and the third-largest city in the Midwestern United States. It is the city of the Columbus, Ohio, Metropolitan Statistical Area. With a population of 2,021,632, it is Ohios third-largest metropolitan area, Columbus is the county seat of Franklin County. The city proper has also expanded and annexed portions of adjoining Delaware County, named for explorer Christopher Columbus, the city was founded in 1812 at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, and assumed the functions of state capital in 1816. As of 2013, the city has the headquarters of five corporations in the U. S, fortune 500, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, American Electric Power, L Brands, Big Lots, and Cardinal Health. In 2012, Columbus was ranked in BusinessWeeks 50 best cities in America. In 2013, Forbes gave Columbus an A rating as one of the top cities for business in the U. S. and later that included the city on its list of Best Places for Business. Columbus was also ranked as the No.1 up-and-coming tech city in the nation by Forbes in 2008, and the city was ranked a top-ten city by Relocate America in 2010. In 2007, fDi Magazine ranked the city no.3 in the U. S. for cities of the future, and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium was rated no.1 in 2009 by USA Travel Guide. The area including modern-day Columbus once comprised the Ohio Country, under the control of the French colonial empire through the Viceroyalty of New France from 1663 until 1763. In the 18th century, European traders flocked to the area, the area found itself frequently caught between warring factions, including American Indian and European interests. In the 1740s, Pennsylvania traders overran the territory until the French forcibly evicted them, in the early 1750s, the Ohio Company sent George Washington to the Ohio Country to survey. Fighting for control of the territory in the French and Indian War became part of the international Seven Years War, during this period, the region routinely suffered turmoil, massacres, and battles. The 1763 Treaty of Paris ceded the Ohio Country to the British Empire, after the American Revolution, the Ohio Country became part of the Virginia Military District, under the control of the United States. Colonists from the East Coast moved in, but rather finding a empty frontier, they encountered people of the Miami, Delaware, Wyandot, Shawnee. The tribes resisted expansion by the fledgling United States, leading to years of bitter conflict, the decisive Battle of Fallen Timbers resulted in the Treaty of Greenville, which finally opened the way for new settlements. By 1797, a surveyor from Virginia named Lucas Sullivant had founded a permanent settlement on the west bank of the forks of the Scioto River
2.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
3.
The Philadelphia Story (film)
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The Philadelphia Story is a 1940 American romantic comedy film directed by George Cukor, starring Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart and featuring Ruth Hussey. She acquired the rights to the play, which she had also starred in, with the help of Howard Hughes. Nominated for six Academy Awards, the film won two, James Stewart for Best Actor and Donald Ogden Stewart for Best Adapted Screenplay and it was remade in 1956 as a musical, retitled High Society. The Philadelphia Story was produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1995, Tracy Lord is the elder daughter of a wealthy Philadelphia Main Line socialite family. Now she is about to marry nouveau riche man of the people George Kittredge, Spy magazine publisher Sidney Kidd is eager to cover the wedding, and assigns reporter Macaulay Mike Connor and photographer Liz Imbrie. He can get them into the affair with the assistance of Dexter Haven, Dexter will introduce them as friends of Tracys brother Junius. Tracy is not fooled, but Dexter threatens her with an article about her father Seths affair with a dancer. Tracy deeply resents her fathers infidelity, which has caused her parents to live separately, to protect her familys reputation, she agrees to let Mike and Liz stay. Dexter is welcomed back with arms by Tracys mother Margaret and teenage sister Dinah. In addition, she discovers that Mike has admirable qualities. As the wedding nears, she finds herself torn between George, Dexter, and Mike, the night before the wedding, Tracy gets drunk for only the second time in her life and takes an innocent midnight swim with Mike. When George sees Mike carrying an intoxicated Tracy into the house afterward, the next day, he tells her that he was shocked and feels entitled to an explanation before going ahead with the wedding. She takes exception to his lack of faith in her and breaks off the engagement, then she realizes that all the guests have arrived and are waiting for the ceremony to begin. Mike volunteers to marry her, but she graciously declines and she also realizes, for the first time, that she isnt perfect and shouldnt constantly condemn others for their weaknesses. At this point, Dexter offers to marry her again, Dexter Haven Katharine Hepburn as Tracy Samantha Lord James Stewart as Mike Connor Ruth Hussey as Elizabeth Imbrie John Howard as George Kittredge Roland Young as William Q. Costarring with Hepburn on Broadway were Joseph Cotten as Dexter Haven, Van Heflin as Mike Connor and she then convinced MGMs Mayer to buy them from her for only $250,000 in return for Hepburn having veto over producer, director, screenwriter and cast. Hepburn wanted Clark Gable to play Dexter Haven and Spencer Tracy to play Mike Connor, Grant agreed to play the part on condition that he be given top billing and that his salary would be $137,000, which he donated to the British War Relief Society. The pairing of Cukor and Gable would have been problematic in any case, as they had not gotten along on the recent Gone with the Wind, the film was in production from 5 July to 14 August 1940 at MGMs studios in Culver City
4.
George Cukor
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George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations and his career flourished at RKO when David O. Selznick, the studios Head of Production, assigned Cukor to direct several of RKOs major films, including What Price Hollywood. A Bill of Divorcement, Our Betters, and Little Women, when Selznick moved to MGM in 1933, Cukor followed and directed Dinner at Eight and David Copperfield for Selznick and Romeo and Juliet and Camille for Irving Thalberg. He was replaced as the director of Gone with the Wind, but he went on to direct The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adams Rib, Born Yesterday, A Star Is Born, Bhowani Junction and he continued to work into the 1980s. Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, the child and only son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants Viktor, an assistant district attorney. His parents selected his middle name in honor of Spanish–American War hero George Dewey, as a result, he was ambivalent about his faith and dismissive of old world traditions from childhood, and as an adult he embraced Anglophilia to remove himself even further from his roots. As a teenager, Cukor frequently was taken to the New York Hippodrome by his uncle, infatuated with theatre, he often cut classes at DeWitt Clinton High School to attend afternoon matinees. During his senior year, he worked as a supernumerary with the Metropolitan Opera, earning 50¢ per appearance, following his graduation in 1917, Cukor was expected to follow in his fathers footsteps and pursue a career in law. He halfheartedly enrolled in the City College of New York, where he entered the Students Army Training Corps in October 1918 and his military experience was limited, Germany surrendered in early November, and Cukors duty ended after only two months. In 1925 he formed the C. F. and Z, Production Company with Walter Folmer and John Zwicki, which gave him his first opportunity to direct. Following their first season, he made his Broadway directorial debut with Antonia by Hungarian playwright Melchior Lengyel, then returned to Rochester, lasting only one season with the company was Bette Davis. Cukor later recalled, Her talent was apparent, but she did buck at direction and she had her own ideas, and though she only did bits and ingenue roles, she didnt hesitate to express them. For the next decades, Davis claimed she was fired. For the next few years, Cukor alternated between Rochester in the months and Broadway in the winter. His direction of a 1926 stage adaptation of The Great Gatsby by Owen Davis brought him to the attention of the New York critics. Writing in the Brooklyn Eagle, drama critic Arthur Pollock called it a piece of work by a director not nearly so well known as he should be. Cukor directed six more Broadway productions before departing for Hollywood in 1929, when Hollywood began to recruit New York theater talent for sound films, Cukor immediately answered the call. In December 1928, Paramount Pictures signed him to a contract that reimbursed him for his airfare and he arrived in Hollywood in February 1929, and his first assignment was to coach the cast of River of Romance to speak with an acceptable Southern accent
5.
Michael Curtiz
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Michael Curtiz was a Hungarian-born American film director, recognized as one of the most prolific directors in history. He directed classic films from the silent era and numerous others during Hollywoods Golden Age, Curtiz was already a well-known director in Europe when Warner Bros. invited him to Hollywood in 1926, when he was 38 years of age. He had already directed 64 films in Europe, and soon helped Warner Bros. become the movie studio. He directed 102 films during his Hollywood career, mostly at Warners, James Cagney and Joan Crawford won their only Academy Awards under Curtizs direction. He put Doris Day and John Garfield on screen for the first time, and he made stars of Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Bette Davis. He himself was nominated five times and won twice, once for Best Short Subject for Sons of Liberty and he introduced to Hollywood a unique visual style using artistic lighting, extensive and fluid camera movement, high crane shots, and unusual camera angles. He was versatile and could handle any kind of picture, melodrama, comedy, love story, film noir, musical, war story, Western, or historical epic. He always paid attention to the human interest aspect of story, stating that the human. Curtiz helped popularize the swashbuckler with films such as Captain Blood. He directed many dramas which today are considered classics, Angels with Dirty Faces, The Sea Wolf, Casablanca. He directed leading musicals, including Yankee Doodle Dandy, This Is the Army and White Christmas, Curtiz was born Mihaly Kertesz to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary in 1886, where his father was a carpenter and his mother an opera singer. Curtiz had a lower to middle-class upbringing and he recalled during an interview that his familys home was a cramped apartment, where he had to share a small room with his two brothers and a sister. Many times we are hungry, he added, after graduating high school, he studied at Markoszy University, followed by the Royal Academy of Theater and Art, in Budapest, before beginning his career. Curtiz became attracted to the theater when he was a child in Hungary and he built a little theater in the cellar of his house when he was 8 years old, where he and five of his friends reenacted plays. They set up the stage, with scenery and props, after he graduated college at age 19, he took a job as an actor with a traveling theater company where he began working as one their traveling players. From that job, he became a pantomimist with a circus for a while and they played Ibsen and Shakespeare in various languages, depending on what country they were in. They performed throughout Europe, including France, Hungary, Italy and Germany and he had various responsibilities, We had to do everything—make bill posters, print programs, set scenery, mend wardrobe, sometimes even arrange chairs in the auditoriums. Sometimes we traveled in trains, sometimes in stage coaches, sometimes on horseback, sometimes we played in town halls, sometimes in little restaurants with no scenery at all
6.
Ernst Lubitsch
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Ernst Lubitsch was a German American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywoods most elegant and sophisticated director, as his prestige grew, in 1946, he received an Honorary Academy Award for his distinguished contributions to the art of the motion picture. Ernst Lubitsch was born on January 29,1892 in Berlin, Germany, the son of Anna and Simon Lubitsch and his family was Ashkenazi Jewish, his father born in Grodno in the Russian Empire and his mother from Wriezen, outside Berlin. He turned his back on his fathers tailoring business to enter the theater, in 1913, Lubitsch made his film debut as an actor in The Ideal Wife. He gradually abandoned acting to concentrate on directing and he appeared in approximately thirty films as an actor between 1912 and 1920. His last film appearance as an actor was in the 1920 drama Sumurun, opposite Pola Negri and Paul Wegener, in 1918, he made his mark as a serious director with Die Augen der Mumie Ma, starring Pola Negri. Lubitsch alternated between escapist comedies and large-scale historical dramas, enjoying international success with both. His reputation as a master of world cinema reached a new peak after the release of his spectacles Madame Du Barry. Both of these films found American distributorship by early 1921 and they, along with Lubitschs Carmen were selected by The New York Times on its list of the 15 most important movies of 1921. With glowing reviews under his belt, and American money flowing his way, Lubitsch formed his own production company, however, with World War I still fresh, and with a slew of German New Wave releases encroaching on American movie workers livelihoods, Lubitsch was not gladly received. He cut his trip short after little more than three weeks and returned to Germany, but he had already seen enough of the American film industry to know that its resources far outstripped the spartan German companies. Lubitsch finally left Germany for Hollywood in 1922, contracted as a director by Mary Pickford, settling in America, Lubitsch established his reputation for sophisticated comedy with such stylish films as The Marriage Circle, Lady Windermeres Fan, and So This Is Paris. But his films were only marginally profitable for Warner Brothers, and Lubitschs contract was dissolved by mutual consent, with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His first film for MGM, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, was well regarded, the Patriot, produced by Paramount, earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Directing. Lubitsch seized upon the advent of talkies to direct musicals, with his first sound film, The Love Parade, starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, Lubitsch hit his stride as a maker of worldly musical comedies. The Love Parade, Monte Carlo, and The Smiling Lieutenant were hailed by critics as masterpieces of the emerging musical genre. Lubitsch served on the faculty of the University of Southern California for a time and his next film was a romantic comedy, written with Samson Raphaelson, Trouble in Paradise. Later described as amoral by critic David Thomson, the cynical comedy was popular both with critics and with audiences
7.
The Sun Also Rises
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An early and enduring modernist novel, it received mixed reviews upon publication. Hemingway biographer Jeffrey Meyers writes that it is recognized as Hemingways greatest work, the novel was published in the United States in October 1926 by the publishing house Scribners. A year later, the London publishing house Jonathan Cape published the novel with the title of Fiesta, since then it has been continuously in print. Hemingway began writing the novel on his birthday in 1925, finishing the draft manuscript barely two months later in September, after setting aside the manuscript for a short period, he worked on revisions during the winter of 1926. The basis for the novel was Hemingways 1925 trip to Spain, the setting was unique and memorable, showing seedy café life in Paris, and the excitement of the Pamplona festival, with a middle section devoted to descriptions of a fishing trip in the Pyrenees. Hemingways sparse writing style, combined with his use of description to convey characterizations and action. The novel is a roman à clef, the characters are based on people of Hemingways circle. In the novel, Hemingway presents his notion that the Lost Generation, considered to have been decadent, dissolute and irretrievably damaged by World War I, was resilient, additionally, Hemingway investigates the themes of love, death, renewal in nature, and the nature of masculinity. In the 1920s Hemingway lived in Paris, was foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star, with his wife Hadley Richardson, Hemingway first visited the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona, Spain, in 1923, where he was following his recent passion for bullfighting. The couple returned to Pamplona in 1924—enjoying the trip immensely—this time accompanied by Chink Dorman-Smith, John Dos Passos, the two returned a third time in June 1925 and stayed at the hotel of his friend Juanito Quintana. In Pamplona, the group quickly disintegrated, Hemingway, attracted to Duff, was jealous of Loeb, who had recently been on a romantic getaway with her, by the end of the week the two men had a public fistfight. Against this background was the influence of the young matador from Ronda, Cayetano Ordóñez, Ordóñez honored Hemingways wife by presenting her, from the bullring, with the ear of a bull he killed. Outside of Pamplona, the trip to the Irati River was marred by polluted water. Hemingway had intended to write a book about bullfighting. A few days after the fiesta ended, on his birthday, by 17 August, with 14 chapters written and a working title of Fiesta chosen, Hemingway returned to Paris. He finished the draft on 21 September 1925, writing a foreword the following weekend, a few months later, in December 1925, Hemingway and his wife spent the winter in Schruns, Austria, where he began revising the manuscript extensively. Pauline Pfeiffer joined them in January, and—against Richardsons advice—urged him to sign a contract with Scribners, Hemingway left Austria for a quick trip to New York to meet with the publishers, and on his return, during a stop in Paris, began an affair with Pauline. He returned to Schruns to finish the revisions in March, in June, he was in Pamplona with both Richardson and Pfeiffer
8.
P. G. Wodehouse
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Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse KBE was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. Born in Guildford, the son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy years at Dulwich College. After leaving school he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and his early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular characters who became familiar to the public over the years. Although most of Wodehouses fiction is set in England, he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. During and after the First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern and he began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood. In a 1931 interview, his revelations of incompetence and extravagance at Hollywood studios caused a furore. In the same decade, his career reached a new peak. In 1934 Wodehouse moved to France for tax reasons, in 1940 he was prisoner at Le Touquet by the invading Germans. After his release he made six broadcasts from German radio in Berlin to the US, the talks were comic and apolitical, but his broadcasting over enemy radio prompted anger and strident controversy in Britain, and a threat of prosecution. From 1947 until his death he lived in the US, taking dual British-American citizenship in 1955 and he was a prolific writer throughout his life, publishing more than ninety books, forty plays, two hundred short stories and other writings between 1902 and 1974. He died in 1975, at the age of 93, in Southampton, Wodehouse worked extensively on his books, sometimes having two or more in preparation simultaneously. He would take up to two years to build a plot and write a scenario of about thirty thousand words, after the scenario was complete he would write the story. Early in his career he would produce a novel in three months, but he slowed in old age to around six months. Some critics of Wodehouse have considered his work flippant, but among his fans are former British prime ministers, the Wodehouses, who traced their ancestry back to the 13th century, belonged to a collateral branch of the family of the earls of Kimberley. Eleanor Wodehouse was also of ancient aristocratic ancestry and she was visiting one of her sisters in Guildford when Wodehouse was born there prematurely. The boy was baptised at the Church of St Nicolas, Guildford, Wodehouse wrote in 1957, If you ask me to tell you frankly if I like the name Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, I must confess that I do not. I was named after a godfather, and not a thing to show for it, the first name was rapidly elided to Plum, the name by which Wodehouse became known to family and friends. Mother and son sailed for Hong Kong, where for his first two years Wodehouse was raised by a Chinese amah, alongside his elder brothers Peveril and Armine
9.
Yale University
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Yale University is an American private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 in Saybrook Colony to train Congregationalist ministers, it is the third-oldest institution of education in the United States. The Collegiate School moved to New Haven in 1716, and shortly after was renamed Yale College in recognition of a gift from British East India Company governor Elihu Yale. Originally restricted to theology and sacred languages, the curriculum began to incorporate humanities and sciences by the time of the American Revolution. In the 19th century the school introduced graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first Ph. D. in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. Yale is organized into fourteen constituent schools, the undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. While the university is governed by the Yale Corporation, each schools faculty oversees its curriculum, the universitys assets include an endowment valued at $25.4 billion as of June 2016, the second largest of any U. S. educational institution. The Yale University Library, serving all constituent schools, holds more than 15 million volumes and is the third-largest academic library in the United States, Yale College undergraduates follow a liberal arts curriculum with departmental majors and are organized into a social system of residential colleges. Almost all faculty teach courses, more than 2,000 of which are offered annually. Students compete intercollegiately as the Yale Bulldogs in the NCAA Division I – Ivy League, Yale has graduated many notable alumni, including five U. S. Presidents,19 U. S. Supreme Court Justices,20 living billionaires, and many heads of state. In addition, Yale has graduated hundreds of members of Congress,57 Nobel laureates,5 Fields Medalists,247 Rhodes Scholars, and 119 Marshall Scholars have been affiliated with the University. Yale traces its beginnings to An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School, passed by the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut on October 9,1701, the Act was an effort to create an institution to train ministers and lay leadership for Connecticut. Soon thereafter, a group of ten Congregationalist ministers, Samuel Andrew, Thomas Buckingham, Israel Chauncy, Samuel Mather, the group, led by James Pierpont, is now known as The Founders. Originally known as the Collegiate School, the institution opened in the home of its first rector, Abraham Pierson, the school moved to Saybrook, and then Wethersfield. In 1716 the college moved to New Haven, Connecticut, the feud caused the Mathers to champion the success of the Collegiate School in the hope that it would maintain the Puritan religious orthodoxy in a way that Harvard had not. Cotton Mather suggested that the school change its name to Yale College, meanwhile, a Harvard graduate working in England convinced some 180 prominent intellectuals that they should donate books to Yale. The 1714 shipment of 500 books represented the best of modern English literature, science, philosophy and it had a profound effect on intellectuals at Yale. Undergraduate Jonathan Edwards discovered John Lockes works and developed his original theology known as the new divinity
10.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
11.
H. G. Wells
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Herbert George H. G. Wells was an English writer. He was prolific in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, social commentary, Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is called a father of science fiction, along with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. His most notable science fiction works include The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times. Wellss earliest specialised training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context and he was also from an early date an outspoken socialist, often sympathising with pacifist views. His later works became increasingly political and didactic, and he wrote science fiction. A diabetic, in 1934, Wells co-founded the charity The Diabetic Association, Herbert George Wells was born at Atlas House,46 High Street in Bromley, Kent, on 21 September 1866. Called Bertie in the family, he was the fourth and last child of Joseph Wells and his wife, Sarah Neal. An inheritance had allowed the family to acquire a shop in which they sold china and sporting goods, although it failed to prosper, the stock was old and worn out, and the location was poor. Joseph Wells managed to earn an income, but little of it came from the shop. Payment for skilled bowlers and batsmen came from voluntary donations afterwards, a defining incident of young Wellss life was an accident in 1874 that left him bedridden with a broken leg. To pass the time he started reading books from the local library and he soon became devoted to the other worlds and lives to which books gave him access, they also stimulated his desire to write. Later that year he entered Thomas Morleys Commercial Academy, a school founded in 1849 following the bankruptcy of Morleys earlier school. The teaching was erratic, the curriculum mostly focused, Wells later said, Wells continued at Morleys Academy until 1880. In 1877, his father, Joseph Wells, fractured his thigh, the accident effectively put an end to Josephs career as a cricketer, and his subsequent earnings as a shopkeeper were not enough to compensate for the loss of the primary source of family income. No longer able to support financially, the family instead sought to place their sons as apprentices in various occupations. From 1880 to 1883, Wells had an apprenticeship as a draper at the Southsea Drapery Emporium. Wellss parents had a turbulent marriage, owing primarily to his mother being a Protestant, when his mother returned to work as a ladys maid, one of the conditions of work was that she would not be permitted to have living space for her husband and children. Thereafter, she and Joseph lived separate lives, though they never divorced and remained faithful to each other, as a consequence, Herberts personal troubles increased as he subsequently failed as a draper and also, later, as a chemists assistant
12.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
