1.
Lausanne
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Lausanne is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and the capital and biggest city of the canton of Vaud. The city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva and it faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura Mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located 62 kilometres northeast of Geneva, Lausanne has a population of 146,372, making it the fourth largest city in Switzerland, with the entire agglomeration area having 420,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area of Lausanne-Geneva was over 1.2 million inhabitants in 2000, Lausanne is a focus of international sport, hosting the International Olympic Committee, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and some 55 international sport associations. It lies in a noted wine-growing region, the city has a 28-station metro system, making it the smallest city in the world to have a rapid transit system. Lausanne will host the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics, by the 2nd century AD it was known as vikanor Lousonnensium and in 280 as lacu Lausonio. By 400 it was civitas Lausanna and in 990 it was mentioned as Losanna, after the fall of the Roman Empire, insecurity forced the transfer of Lausanne to its current centre, a hilly site that is easier to defend. The city which emerged from the camp was ruled by the Dukes of Savoy, then it came under Bern from 1536 to 1798 and a number of its cultural treasures, including the hanging tapestries in the Cathedral, were permanently removed. Lausanne has made a number of requests to recover them, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Lausanne became a place of refuge for French Huguenots. In 1729 a seminary was opened by Antoine Court and Benjamin Duplan, by 1750 ninety pastors had been sent back to France to work clandestinely, this number would rise to four hundred. Official persecution ended in 1787, a faculty of Protestant theology was established at Montauban in 1808, during the Napoleonic Wars, the citys status changed. In 1803, it became the capital of a newly formed Swiss canton, in 1964 the city hosted the Swiss National Exhibition, displaying its newly found confidence to host major international events. From the 1950s to 1970s a large number of Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese immigrated, settling mostly in the district of Renens. The city has served as a refuge for European artists, while under the care of a psychiatrist at Lausanne, T. S. Eliot composed most of his 1922 poem The Wasteland. Hemingway also visited from Paris with his wife during the 1920s, in fact, many creative people - such as Edward Gibbon, an historian, and Romantic era poets Shelley and Byron - have sojourned, lived, and worked in Lausanne or nearby. The city has been quiet, but in the late 1960s. Later demonstrations took place to protest against the high cinema prices, the most important geographical feature of the area surrounding Lausanne is Lake Geneva. Lausanne boasts a dramatic panorama over the lake and the Alps, in addition to its generally southward-sloping layout, the centre of the city is the site of an ancient river, the Flon, which has been covered since the 19th century
2.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
3.
County Meath
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County Meath is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster and is part of the Mid-East Region and it is named after the historic Kingdom of Meath. Meath County Council is the authority for the county. The population of the county is 194,942 according to the 2016 census, the county is drained by the River Boyne. Meath is the 14th largest of Ireland’s 32 counties in area and it is the second largest of Leinster’s 12 counties in size and third largest in terms of population. The county town is Navan, where the county hall and government are located, although Trim, County Meath also has the only two Gaeltacht areas in the province of Leinster, at Ráth Cairn and Baile Ghib. There are eighteen historic baronies in the county and they include the baronies of Morgallion and Ratoath. While baronies continue to be officially defined units, they are no longer used for administrative purposes. Their official status is illustrated by Placenames Orders made since 2003, There are 40 elected members in Meath County Council. Fine Gael hold 13 seats, Fianna Fáil hold 10, Sinn Féin hold 8, There are 2 Dáil constituencies, Meath West and Meath East. Before, there was only one constituency, the two current constituencies are within the borders of the county. The constituencies also include part of the county of Westmeath. Together they return 6 deputies to Dáil Éireann, part of the county along the Irish Sea coast, known as East Meath which includes Julianstown and Laytown-Bettystown-Mornington are part of the Louth constituency for general elections. Fianna Fáil currently hold no seats, Fine Gael have 2 in each constituency, Labour has 1 in the East constituency, the county is colloquially known by the nickname The Royal County due to its history as the seat of the High King of Ireland. It formed from the part of the former Kingdom of Mide. The seat of the High King of Ireland was at Tara, the archaeological complex of Brú na Bóinne is 5,000 years old and includes the burial sites of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, in the north-east of the county. It is a UNESCO designated World Heritage Site, the Hill of Tara, an ancient historical site. Castles at Trim, Slane, Dunsany, Killeen, religious ruins at Trim, Bective, Slane, Dunsany, Skryne
4.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
5.
Painting
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Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture, composition, narration, or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive, Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature. A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by motifs and ideas. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action, the term painting is also used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders. What enables painting is the perception and representation of intensity, every point in space has different intensity, which can be represented in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. In practice, painters can articulate shapes by juxtaposing surfaces of different intensity, thus, the basic means of painting are distinct from ideological means, such as geometrical figures, various points of view and organization, and symbols. In technical drawing, thickness of line is ideal, demarcating ideal outlines of an object within a perceptual frame different from the one used by painters. Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music, color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, and Newton, have written their own color theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent, the word red, for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic, painters deal practically with pigments, so blue for a painter can be any of the blues, phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, and so on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music is analogous to light in painting, shades to dynamics and these elements do not necessarily form a melody of themselves, rather, they can add different contexts to it. Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, collage, some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer, there is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required, rhythm is important in painting as it is in music
6.
Calling the Roll After An Engagement, Crimea
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Calling the Roll After An Engagement, Crimea, better known as The Roll Call, is an 1874 oil-on-canvas painting by Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler. It became one of the most celebrated British paintings of the 19th century, the painting depicts a roll call of soldiers from the Grenadier Guards during the Crimean War. It was taken to depict an occasion following the Battle of Inkerman in 1854, an irregular line of private soldiers stand in the snow wearing their greatcoats and bearskins, many clearly exhausted or wounded. One of the privates has slumped forward onto the icy ground, an officer on horseback watches while a sergeant marks his muster roll. The coldness of the winter is evoked by the dominant tones of black, grey, white and brown, contrasting with small splashes of red from coatees and it measures 93.3 ×183.5 centimetres. After having read parts of Alexander William Kinglakes Invasion of the Crimea, Thompson - then 26 years old and almost unknown - submitted the painting to the Royal Academy for exhibition at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1874. The work was received favourably, the selection committee applauded when it was unveiled. A policeman was detailed stand by a railing to keep the crowds back, the painting toured the country, attracting large crowds. Artist William Holman Hunt noted in his book Pre-Raphaelitism that it touched the heart as few pictures have ever done. The work had been commissioned for £100 by a Manchester industrialist Charles Galloway, however, Queen Victoria insisted that she should buy it, and the work remains in the Royal Collection. Lady Butler developed a reputation for her military pictures after the reception of this painting. It was followed by a series of paintings, Quatre Bras in 1875. In 1879, Butler came within 2 votes of becoming the first woman to be elected as an Associate Member of the Royal Academy, the painting is the subject of the first episode of Malcolm Gladwells 2016 podcast, Revisionist History, in an episode entitled The Lady Vanishes. The Roll Call at the Royal Collection, but after that brilliant first effort, the artist all but disappeared. Malcom Gladwell podcast, Revisionist History - http, //revisionisthistory. com/episodes/01-the-lady-vanishes/
7.
28th Regiment at Quatre Bras (painting)
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The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras is an oil painting on canvas from 1875, painted by Elizabeth Thompson. The painting is 97.2 centimeters high and 216.2 centimeters wide and it is in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. Thompson based the painting on the account of the battle in a written by Captain William Siborne. The painting portrays the 28th Regiment of Foot, of the British Army, on 16 June 1815, the battle, part of the Waterloo Campaign of the Hundred Days, was just two days prior to the Battle of Waterloo. The regiment held off attacks from French cavalry at Quatre Bras, in July 1874, she arranged for 300 soldiers from the Royal Engineers to pose in a reconstruction of the square formation, and to fire their rifles, to recreate the smoky scene. Several of the soldiers also modelled in Thompsons studio, Thompson observed horses at Sangers Circus and the Horse Guards riding school, as models for the French cavalry. She also arrange for a group of children to trample down a field of rye in Henley-on-Thames and she had copies of the historic uniforms made by a government manufacturer in Pimlico. However, the shako she depicts the regiment wearing is incorrect, the older headwear can be seen clearly in William Barnes Wollens painting, 28th Gloucester Regiment at Waterloo. The heavy gold frame bears the inscription Egypt at the top, the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1875, the year after Elizabeth Thompson exhibited her acclaimed The Roll Call. It was bought by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, in 1884
8.
Scotland Forever!
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The painting has been reproduced many times and is considered an iconic representation of the battle itself, and of heroism more generally. Butler was inspired to paint the charge as a response to the paintings that she saw -. In reality however, it appears that the Scots Greys did not start the charge at a gallop, due to the broken ground, the horses which dominate the picture are the heavy grey mounts used by the regiment throughout its history until mechanisation. The title comes from the cry of the soldiers - the Greys called Now, my boys. The painting was exhibited at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly in 1881, in 1888 Colonel Thomas Walter Harding gifted the painting to the Leeds Art Gallery, where it is still held. It was used as an inspiration for the depiction of the charge in the film Waterloo
9.
History painting
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History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than artistic style. History paintings usually depict a moment in a story, rather than a specific and static subject. The term is derived from the senses of the word historia in Latin and Italian, meaning story or narrative. Most history paintings are not of scenes from history, especially paintings from before about 1850, History paintings almost always contain a number of figures, often a large number, and normally show some type of action that is a moment in a narrative. The genre includes depictions of moments in religious narratives, above all the Life of Christ, as well as scenes from mythology. These groups were for long the most frequently painted, works such as Michelangelos Sistine Chapel ceiling are therefore history paintings, History painting may be used interchangeably with historical painting, and was especially so used before the 20th century. Where a distinction is made historical painting is the painting of scenes from secular history, in the 19th century historical painting in this sense became a distinct genre. In phrases such as historical painting materials, historical means in use before about 1900 and he placed emphasis on the ability to depict the interactions between the figures by gesture and expression. This view remained general until the 19th century, when artistic movements began to struggle against the establishment institutions of academic art, which continued to adhere to it. Scenes from ancient history had been popular in the early Renaissance, and once again became common in the Baroque and Rococo periods, and still more so with the rise of Neoclassicism. In some 19th or 20th century contexts, the term may refer specifically to paintings of scenes from history, rather than those from religious narratives. Scenes from ancient history and mythology were also popular, artists continued for centuries to strive to make their reputation by producing such works, often neglecting genres to which their talents were better suited. The large works of Raphael were long considered, with those of Michelangelo, un Peintre qui ne fait que des portraits, na pas encore cette haute perfection de lArt, & ne peut prétendre à lhonneur que reçoivent les plus sçavans. He who produces perfect landscapes is above another who only produces fruit, a painter who only does portraits still does not have the highest perfection of his art, and cannot expect the honour due to the most skilled. By the late 18th century, with religious and mytholological painting in decline, there was an increased demand for paintings of scenes from history. Classical history remained popular, but scenes from national histories were often the best-received, the unheroic nature of modern dress was regarded as a serious difficulty. When, in 1770, Benjamin West proposed to paint The Death of General Wolfe in contemporary dress and he ignored these comments and showed the scene in modern dress. Although George III refused to purchase the work, West succeeded both in overcoming his critics objections and inaugurating a more historically accurate style in such paintings. M. W, conveniently their clothes had been worn away to classical-seeming rags by the point the painting depicts
10.
Military art
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The genre of military art is characterized by its subject matter rather than by any specific style or material used. The battle scene is one of the oldest types of art in developed civilizations, as rulers have always been keen to celebrate their victories, the depiction of other aspects of warfare, especially the suffering of casualties and civilians, has taken much longer to develop. The term war art is used, mostly in relation to 20th century military art made during wartime. Art depicting military themes has existed throughout history, the Battlefield Palette, a cosmetic palette from the Protodynastic Period of Egypt is incomplete, but shows prisoners being led away, and wild animals feasting on the dead. The Stele of the Vultures, about 2,500 BC, is one of a number of Mesopotamian victory stelae. Also around 2,500 BC, the earliest known depiction of a city being besieged is found in the tomb of Inti, an official from the 21st nome of Upper Egypt, the scene shows Egyptian soldiers scaling the walls of a near eastern fortress on ladders. Although the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC appears to have been inconclusive, surviving Assyrian art mainly consists of large stone reliefs showing detailed scenes of either military campaigns or hunting. The ancient Greek Parthenon Marbles show lengthy parades of the volunteer cavalry force. In Han dynasty China, a stone relief of c. 150-170 AD from the Wu family shrines shows a battle between forces in the Campaign against Dong Zhuo. The Alexander Mosaic is a large and dramatic battle scene showing Alexander the Great defeating Darius III of Persia, it is a floor mosaic excavated from Pompeii, such scenes had a great influence on Renaissance battle scenes. By the Late Roman Empire the reverse of coins often showed soldiers and carried an inscription praising our boys. Soldier saints, shown in military dress, were extremely popular, some illuminated manuscripts illustrated the many battles in the Old Testament. The Siege of the Castle of Love, often found on Gothic ivory mirror-cases, showed knights attacking a castle defended by ladies, all of these depicted frankly minor actions where Florence had defeated neighbouring cities, but important battles from distant history were equally popular. The Battle of the Milvian Bridge by Giulio Romano brought a huge and it was the most detailed and panoramic battle picture of its day, and its aerial viewpoint was to be very widely followed over the next centuries, though rarely to such dramatic effect. Vroom had also worked for English patrons, designing a set of tapestries of the defeat of the Spanish Armada which was destroyed when the Houses of Parliament burnt down in 1834. The paintings of Salvator Rosa, essentially landscapes, often showed groups variously described as bandits or soldiers lurking in the countryside of Southern Italy. The Surrender of Breda by Velázquez shows a scene as the two sides meet peacefully to surrender the town, a theme more often copied in naval painting than land-based military art
11.
Napoleonic Wars
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The wars resulted from the unresolved disputes associated with the French Revolution and the Revolutionary Wars, which had raged on for years before concluding with the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. Napoleon became the First Consul of France in 1799, then Emperor five years later, inheriting the political and military struggles of the Revolution, he created a state with stable finances, a strong central bureaucracy, and a well-trained army. The British frequently financed the European coalitions intended to thwart French ambitions, by 1805, they had managed to convince the Austrians and the Russians to wage another war against France. At sea, the Royal Navy destroyed a combined Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in October 1805, Prussian worries about increasing French power led to the formation of the Fourth Coalition in 1806. France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July, although Tilsit signified the high watermark of the French Empire, it did not bring a lasting peace for Europe. Hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, Napoleon invaded Iberia, the Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support. The Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, the Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia. Unwilling to bear the consequences of reduced trade, the Russians routinely violated the Continental System. The French launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse and retreat of the Grand Army along with the destruction of Russian lands. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France, a lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813. The Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814 and he was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power. However, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again, the Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June. The Congress of Vienna, which started in 1814 and concluded in 1815, established the new borders of Europe and laid out the terms, Napoleon seized power in 1799, creating a de facto military dictatorship. The Napoleonic Wars began with the War of the Third Coalition, Kagan argues that Britain was irritated in particular by Napoleons assertion of control over Switzerland. Furthermore, Britons felt insulted when Napoleon stated that their country deserved no voice in European affairs, for its part, Russia decided that the intervention in Switzerland indicated that Napoleon was not looking toward a peaceful resolution of his differences with the other European powers. The British quickly enforced a blockade of France to starve it of resources. Napoleon responded with economic embargoes against Britain, and sought to eliminate Britains Continental allies to break the coalitions arrayed against him, the so-called Continental System formed a league of armed neutrality to disrupt the blockade and enforce free trade with France
12.
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
13.
William Butler (British Army officer)
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Lieutenant General Sir William Francis Butler GCB, PC was an Irish 19th-century British Army officer, writer, and adventurer. He was born at Ballyslatteen, Golden, County Tipperary, Ireland, the great famine of 1847 and scenes of suffering and eviction were amongst his earliest recollections. He was educated chiefly by the Jesuits at Tullabeg College and he entered the army as an ensign of the 69th Foot at Fermoy Barracks in 1858, becoming captain in 1872 and major in 1874. He took part with distinction in the Red River expedition and the Ashanti operations of 1873–74 under Wolseley and received the Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1874. He married on 11 June 1877 Elizabeth Thompson, a painter of battle scenes, notably The Roll Call, Quatre Bras, Rorkes Drift, The Camel Corps. He again served with General Wolseley in the Zulu War, the campaign of Tel-el-Kebir, in the latter year he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. In 1898 he succeeded General William Howley Goodenough as commander-in-chief in South Africa and he also held the Aldershot Command for a brief period from 1900 to 1901. Sir William Butler was promoted to lieutenant-general in 1900 and continued to serve, in October 1905, having reached the age limit of sixty-seven, he was placed on the retired list. The few years of life remained to him he spent at Bansha Castle in Ireland. He was a frequent lecturer both in Dublin and the provinces on historical, social, and economic questions, Butler was known as a Home Ruler and an admirer of Charles Stewart Parnell. He was a member of the senate of the National University of Ireland, in June 1906, he was appointed Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and in 1909 he was made a member of the Irish Privy Council. He died at Bansha Castle and was buried at the cemetery of Killaldriffe and he had long been known as a descriptive writer, since his publication of The Great Lone Land and other works and he was the biographer of Sir George Colley. He had started work on his autobiography a few years before his death and his youngest daughter, Eileen, Viscountess Gormanston, completed the work and had it published in 1911. Eileen found among his papers a poem he had written, which began, Give me but six-foot-three Of Irish earth, the Great Lone Land, a Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America. The Wild North Land, Being the Story of a Winter Journey, with Dogs, Red Cloud, the Solitary Sioux, A Story of the Great Prairie. The Story of Sir William Butler, martin Ryan William Francis Butler, a life 1838–1910. Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online Works by William Butler at Project Gutenberg Works by or about William Butler at Internet Archive
14.
Crimean War
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The Crimean War was a military conflict fought from October 1853 to March 1856 in which the Russian Empire lost to an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia. The immediate cause involved the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, the French promoted the rights of Roman Catholics, while Russia promoted those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The longer-term causes involved the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the unwillingness of Britain and France to allow Russia to gain territory and power at Ottoman expense. While the churches eventually worked out their differences and came to an agreement, Nicholas I of Russia, Nicholas issued an ultimatum that the Orthodox subjects of the Empire be placed under his protection. Britain attempted to mediate and arranged a compromise that Nicholas agreed to, when the Ottomans demanded changes, Nicholas refused and prepared for war. Having obtained promises of support from France and Britain, the Ottomans declared war on Russia in October 1853. The war started in the Balkans, when Russian troops occupied the Danubian Principalities, until then under Ottoman suzerainty and now part of modern Romania, led by Omar Pasha, the Ottomans fought a strong defensive campaign and stopped the advance at Silistra. A separate action on the town of Kars in eastern Anatolia led to a siege. Fearing an Ottoman collapse, France and Britain rushed forces to Gallipoli and they then moved north to Varna in June, arriving just in time for the Russians to abandon Silistra. Aside from a skirmish at Köstence, there was little for the allies to do. Karl Marx quipped that there they are, the French doing nothing, after extended preparations, the forces landed on the peninsula in September 1854 and fought their way to a point south of Sevastopol after a series of successful battles. The Russians counterattacked on 25 October in what became the Battle of Balaclava and were repulsed, a second counterattack, ordered personally by Nicholas, was defeated by Omar Pasha. The front settled into a siege and led to conditions for troops on both sides. Smaller actions were carried out in the Baltic, the Caucasus, Sevastopol fell after eleven months, and neutral countries began to join the Allied cause. Isolated and facing a bleak prospect of invasion from the west if the war continued and this was welcomed by France and Britain, as their subjects were beginning to turn against their governments as the war dragged on. The war was ended by the Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 March 1856, Russia was forbidden from hosting warships in the Black Sea. The Ottoman vassal states of Wallachia and Moldavia became largely independent, Christians there were granted a degree of official equality, and the Orthodox Church regained control of the Christian churches in dispute. The Crimean War was one of the first conflicts to use technologies such as explosive naval shells, railways
15.
Battle of Waterloo
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The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday,18 June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Upon Napoleons return to power in March 1815, many states that had opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition, Wellington and Blüchers armies were cantoned close to the north-eastern border of France. Napoleon chose to attack them in the hope of destroying them before they could join in an invasion of France with other members of the coalition. Despite holding his ground at Quatre Bras, the defeat of the Prussians forced Wellington to withdraw to Waterloo, Napoleon sent a third of his forces to pursue the Prussians, who had withdrawn parallel to Wellington. This resulted in the separate and simultaneous Battle of Wavre with the Prussian rear-guard, upon learning that the Prussian army was able to support him, Wellington decided to offer battle on the Mont-Saint-Jean escarpment, across the Brussels road. Here he withstood repeated attacks by the French throughout the afternoon, in the evening Napoleon committed his last reserves to a desperate final attack, which was narrowly beaten back. With the Prussians breaking through on the French right flank, Wellingtons Anglo-allied army counter-attacked in the centre, Waterloo was the decisive engagement of the Waterloo Campaign and Napoleons last. According to Wellington, the battle was the thing you ever saw in your life. Napoleon abdicated four days later, and on 7 July coalition forces entered Paris, the defeat at Waterloo ended Napoleons rule as Emperor of the French, and marked the end of his Hundred Days return from exile. This ended the First French Empire, and set a chronological milestone between serial European wars and decades of relative peace, the battlefield is located in the municipalities of Braine-lAlleud and Lasne, about 15 kilometres south of Brussels, and about 2 kilometres from the town of Waterloo. The site of the battlefield today is dominated by a large monument, as this mound was constructed from earth taken from the battlefield itself, the contemporary topography of the battlefield near the mound has not been preserved. On 13 March 1815, six days before Napoleon reached Paris, four days later, the United Kingdom, Russia, Austria, and Prussia mobilised armies to defeat Napoleon. Crucially, this would have bought him time to recruit and train more men before turning his armies against the Austrians and Russians, an additional consideration for Napoleon was that a French victory might cause French speaking sympathisers in Belgium to launch a friendly revolution. Wellingtons initial dispositions were intended to counter the threat of Napoleon enveloping the Coalition armies by moving through Mons to the south-west of Brussels and this would have pushed Wellington closer to Blücher, but may have cut Wellingtons communications with his base at Ostend. In order to delay Wellingtons deployment, Napoleon spread false intelligence which suggested that Wellingtons supply chain from the ports would be cut. By June, Napoleon had raised a total strength of about 300,000 men. The force at his disposal at Waterloo was less than one third that size, Napoleon divided his army into a left wing commanded by Marshal Ney, a right wing commanded by Marshal Grouchy and a reserve under his command. Crossing the frontier near Charleroi before dawn on 15 June, the French rapidly overran Coalition outposts and he hoped this would prevent them from combining, and he would be able to destroy first the Prussians army, then Wellingtons
16.
The Roll Call
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Calling the Roll After An Engagement, Crimea, better known as The Roll Call, is an 1874 oil-on-canvas painting by Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler. It became one of the most celebrated British paintings of the 19th century, the painting depicts a roll call of soldiers from the Grenadier Guards during the Crimean War. It was taken to depict an occasion following the Battle of Inkerman in 1854, an irregular line of private soldiers stand in the snow wearing their greatcoats and bearskins, many clearly exhausted or wounded. One of the privates has slumped forward onto the icy ground, an officer on horseback watches while a sergeant marks his muster roll. The coldness of the winter is evoked by the dominant tones of black, grey, white and brown, contrasting with small splashes of red from coatees and it measures 93.3 ×183.5 centimetres. After having read parts of Alexander William Kinglakes Invasion of the Crimea, Thompson - then 26 years old and almost unknown - submitted the painting to the Royal Academy for exhibition at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1874. The work was received favourably, the selection committee applauded when it was unveiled. A policeman was detailed stand by a railing to keep the crowds back, the painting toured the country, attracting large crowds. Artist William Holman Hunt noted in his book Pre-Raphaelitism that it touched the heart as few pictures have ever done. The work had been commissioned for £100 by a Manchester industrialist Charles Galloway, however, Queen Victoria insisted that she should buy it, and the work remains in the Royal Collection. Lady Butler developed a reputation for her military pictures after the reception of this painting. It was followed by a series of paintings, Quatre Bras in 1875. In 1879, Butler came within 2 votes of becoming the first woman to be elected as an Associate Member of the Royal Academy, the painting is the subject of the first episode of Malcolm Gladwells 2016 podcast, Revisionist History, in an episode entitled The Lady Vanishes. The Roll Call at the Royal Collection, but after that brilliant first effort, the artist all but disappeared. Malcom Gladwell podcast, Revisionist History - http, //revisionisthistory. com/episodes/01-the-lady-vanishes/
17.
Queen Victoria
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Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she adopted the title of Empress of India. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, both the Duke of Kent and King George III died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne aged 18, after her fathers three brothers had all died, leaving no surviving legitimate children. The United Kingdom was already a constitutional monarchy, in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments, publicly, Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together, after Alberts death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength and her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration. Her reign of 63 years and seven months is known as the Victorian era and it was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover and her son and successor, Edward VII, belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father. Victorias father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, until 1817, Edwards niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, was the only legitimate grandchild of George III. Her death in 1817 precipitated a crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent. In 1818 he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed German princess with two children—Carl and Feodora —by her first marriage to the Prince of Leiningen and her brother Leopold was Princess Charlottes widower. The Duke and Duchess of Kents only child, Victoria, was born at 4.15 a. m. on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace and she was baptised Alexandrina, after one of her godparents, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina, Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of the Dukes eldest brother, George, the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of Kent married on the same day in 1818, but both of Clarences daughters died as infants. Victorias father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old, a week later her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son, George IV. The Duke of York died in 1827, when George IV died in 1830, he was succeeded by his next surviving brother, William IV, and Victoria became heir presumptive
18.
Royal Scots Greys
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The Royal Scots Greys was a cavalry regiment of the British Army from 1707 until 1971, when they amalgamated with the 3rd Carabiniers to form The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. The regiments history began in 1678, when three independent troops of Scots Dragoons were raised, in 1681, these troops were regimented to form The Royal Regiment of Scots Dragoons, numbered the 4th Dragoons in 1694. They were already mounted on horses by this stage and were already being referred to as the Grey Dragoons. In 1707, they were renamed The Royal North British Dragoons and they were also sometimes referred to, during the first Jacobite uprising, as Portmores Dragoons. In 1877, their nickname was made official when they became the 2nd Dragoons. They kept this title until 2 July 1971, when they amalgamated with the 3rd Carabiniers, the Royal Scots Greys originated as three troops of dragoons. The first two were formed on 21 May 1678 under the commands of Captain John Strachan and Captain John Inglis, the third, under the command of Captain Viscount Kingstoun, was formed on 23 September 1678. These were the first mounted troops raised for the British crown in Scotland, in 1681, by Royal Warrant, these three troops were combined, with the addition of three further troops, into what would be named the Royal Regiment of Scots Dragoons. Lieutenant-General Thomas Dalziel would be the regiments first colonel, in its original configuration, the Scots Greys were configured as a true dragoon regiment. Although mounted, as regiments were, their armament was closer to that carried by infantry units. Troopers of the Scots Greys were authorised, during the late 17th century, to carry matchlock muskets with bayonets, while their sergeants and corporals carried halberds, only the officers were authorised swords, though the lieutenants were to be armed with a partisan. Interestingly, the original uniform called for the troopers to wear grey coats, between its formation in 1681 and 1685, the Scots Greys were employed primarily in keeping civil order in Scotland. The regiment participated in expeditions against various fractious clans which resisted the monarchs rule, in 1688, the regiment was quartered in London at the start of the Glorious Revolution. Upon the landing of William of Orange, the regiment took the side of William and Mary, ordered back to Scotland, the Scots Greys took part in the Battle of Killiecrankie against the Jacobites. For their service, the title as a Royal regiment was confirmed. Prior to 1693, there is no record that the regiment used grey horses exclusive to others, however, when inspected in London in 1693 by King William III, people took note that the regiment was mounted on all grey horses. Some have offered the theory that the grey horses originated with the Dutch Horse Guards, when they left to return to the Netherlands, the horses were turned over to the Scots Greys. Although there is no reason, some of the men also wore either fur caps or broad-brimmed hats
19.
Leeds Art Gallery
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Leeds Art Gallery in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, is a museum whose collection of 20th-century British Art is recognised by the British government as a collection of national importance. Its collection also includes 19th-century and earlier art works, the gallery opened on 3 October 1888 as Leeds City Art Gallery and was paid for by public subscription, collected in honour of Queen Victorias Golden Jubilee in 1887. The artist Hubert von Herkomer formally opened the building, and presented an example of his work to the collection, in 1912, the Leeds Art Collections Fund was formed to support the gallery’s acquisitions, which it continues to do today. The gallery is owned and administered by Leeds City Council, since January 2016 the gallery has been closed for renovation, and is planning to re-open in October 2017. The gallery was built between 1886–88 by W. H. Thorp, as an extension to the Municipal Buildings to the west, a major renovation was completed in June 2007, including opening up the magnificent Victorian tiled hall which links the gallery and the library. At first floor there is direct access from the gallery to the Art Library. The gallery includes a ground floor lecture theatre which is used for a variety of events, in front of the gallery is Victoria Square, at the eastern end of which is the citys war memorial. This square is used for rallies and demonstrations because of the speakers dais provided by the raised entrance to the gallery. A Henry Moore sculpture, Reclining Woman, Elbow, stands in front of the entrance, works on display in the galleries include, Paintings The Shadow of Death, William Holman Hunt Scotland Forever. Elizabeth Thompson The Bridesmaid, James Tissot The Lady of Shalott, J. W
20.
Alice Meynell
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Alice Christiana Gertrude Meynell was an English writer, editor, critic, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet. Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson was born in Barnes, London, to Thomas James, the family moved around England, Switzerland, and France, but she was brought up mostly in Italy, where a daughter of Thomas from his first marriage had settled. Preludes was her first poetry collection, illustrated by her elder sister Elizabeth, the work was warmly praised by Ruskin, although it received little public notice. Ruskin especially singled out the sonnet Renunciation for its beauty and delicacy, after Alice, the entire Thompson family converted to the Catholic Church, and her writings migrated to subjects of religious matters. This eventually led her to the Catholic newspaper publisher and editor Wilfrid Meynell in 1876, a year later she married Meynell, and they settled in Kensington. They became the proprietors and editors of magazines as The Pen, the Weekly Register. Alice and Wilfrid Meynell had eight children, Sebastian, Monica, Everard, Madeleine, Viola, Vivian, Olivia, Viola Meynell became an author in her own right, and the youngest child Francis Meynell was a poet and printer, co-founding the Nonesuch Press. She was much involved in work on publications with her husband. She wrote regularly for The World, The Spectator, The Magazine of Art, the Scots Observer, The Tablet, The Art Journal, the Pall Mall Gazette, and The Saturday Review. The poet Francis Thompson, down and out in London and trying to recover from his opium addiction and his poems were first published in Wilfrids Merry England, and the Meynells became a supporter of Thompson. His 1893 book Poems was a Meynell production and initiative, another supporter of Thompson was the poet Coventry Patmore. Alice had a friendship with Patmore, lasting several years. At the end of the 19th century, in conjunction with uprisings against the British, many European scholars, writers and this led the Meynells and others in their circle to speak out for the oppressed. Alice Meynell was a vice-president of the Women Writers Suffrage League, founded by Cicely Hamilton, after a series of illnesses, including migraine and depression, she died 27 November 1922. She is buried at Kensal Green Catholic Cemetery, London, England, there is a London County Council commemorative blue plaque on the front wall of the property at 47 Palace Court, Bayswater, London, W2, where she and her husband once lived. The slender tree, a life of Alice Meynell, the Poems of Alice Meynell Essays by Alice Meynell at Quotidiana. Mahar, Aileen R. Contemporary criticism, personal and literary, of Alice Meynell - Thesis
21.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
22.
South Kensington
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South Kensington is an affluent district of West London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster. It is a built-up area 2.4 miles west- south-west of Charing Cross and it is hard to define boundaries for South Kensington, but a common definition is the commercial area around the South Kensington tube station and the adjacent garden squares and streets. Although the postcode SW7 mainly covers South Kensington, some parts of Knightsbridge are also covered, neighbouring the equally affluent centres of Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Kensington, South Kensington covers some of the most exclusive real estate in the world. It is home to numbers of French expatriates, but also Spanish, Italian, American. There are several French bookshops and cafes in the area and is sometimes referred to as Paris’s 21st arrondissement. Two London Underground stations are located in South Kensington, South Kensington, the area was largely undeveloped until the mid-19th century, being an agricultural area supplying London with fruit and vegetables. The area is the subject of Donovans song Sunny South Kensington, Kensington, California was given that name in 1911 by Robert Brousefield, an American surveyor who at an ealier time lived in the British South Kensington. Notable residents have included, Sir Henry Cole, campaigner, educator and first director of the South Kensington Museum, charles Booth, pioneer of social research, lived at 6 Grenville Place. George Wallis, FSA, artist, museum curator and art educator and his children, including Whitworth Wallis and Rosa Wallis. Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, actor-manager, lived at 31 Rosary Gardens. Sir J M Barrie, playwright and novelist, author of Peter Pan, virginia Woolf, writer, and her sister Vanessa Bell, painter and interior designer, lived at 22 Hyde Park Gate until 1904. Francis Bacon, Irish-born British artist, lived at 17 Queensberry Mews and 7 Reese Mews, benny Hill, comedian, lived at 1 &2 Queens Gate. Nicholas Freeman, OBE, controversial Leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, lived in Harrington Gardens, dennis Gabor, electrical engineer and physicist, most notable for inventing holography,1971 Nobel Prize in Physics. Peter Finch, English-born distinguished Australian actor, won 5 BAFTA acting awards and he was the first person to win a posthumous Academy Award in an acting category
23.
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
24.
Roman Catholic
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The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church or the Universal Church, is the largest Christian church, with more than 1.28 billion members worldwide. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, it has played a prominent role in the history, headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, the churchs doctrines are summarised in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed. Its central administration is located in Vatican City, enclaved within Rome, the Catholic Church is notable within Western Christianity for its sacred tradition and seven sacraments. It teaches that it is the one church founded by Jesus Christ, that its bishops are the successors of Christs apostles. The Catholic Church maintains that the doctrine on faith and morals that it declares as definitive is infallible. The Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as such as mendicant orders and enclosed monastic orders. Among the sacraments, the one is the Eucharist, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest the sacrificial bread and wine become the body, the Catholic Church practises closed communion, with only baptised members in a state of grace ordinarily permitted to receive the Eucharist. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Catholic Church as Queen of Heaven and is honoured in numerous Marian devotions. The Catholic Church has influenced Western philosophy, science, art and culture, Catholic spiritual teaching includes spreading the Gospel while Catholic social teaching emphasises support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of education and medical services in the world, from the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has been criticised for its doctrines on sexuality, its refusal to ordain women and its handling of sexual abuse cases. Catholic was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in the letter from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans, written about 110 AD. In the Catechetical Discourses of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, the name Catholic Church was used to distinguish it from other groups that call themselves the church. The use of the adjective Roman to describe the Church as governed especially by the Bishop of Rome became more widespread after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and into the Early Middle Ages. Catholic Church is the name used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church follows an episcopal polity, led by bishops who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders who are given formal jurisdictions of governance within the church. Ultimately leading the entire Catholic Church is the Bishop of Rome, commonly called the pope, in parallel to the diocesan structure are a variety of religious institutes that function autonomously, often subject only to the authority of the pope, though sometimes subject to the local bishop. Most religious institutes only have male or female members but some have both, additionally, lay members aid many liturgical functions during worship services
25.
Florence
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Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the Metropolitan City of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants, Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time. It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, from 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. The Historic Centre of Florence attracts 13 million tourists each year and it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture, the city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florences artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in 2008, the city had the 17th highest average income in Italy. Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe, the language spoken in the city during the 14th century was, and still is, accepted as the Italian language. Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War and they similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European historys most important noble families, Lorenzo de Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century, Leo X, catherine de Medici married king Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future king Louis XIII, the Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de Medici in 1737. The Etruscans initially formed in 200 BC the small settlement of Fiesole and it was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century, Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to again and commerce prospered
26.
Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze
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The Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze is an instructional art academy in Florence, in Tuscany, in central Italy. It was founded by Cosimo I de Medici in 1563, under the influence of Giorgio Vasari, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Benvenuto Cellini and other significant artists have been associated with it. The adjacent Galleria dellAccademia houses the original David by Michelangelo, the Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno, or academy and company of the arts of drawing, was founded on 13 January 1563 by Cosimo I de Medici, under the influence of Giorgio Vasari. At first, the Academy met in the cloisters of the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata, artists including Michelangelo Buonarroti, Lazzaro Donati, Francesco da Sangallo, Agnolo Bronzino, Benvenuto Cellini, Giorgio Vasari, Bartolomeo Ammannati, and Giambologna were members. Most members of the Accademia were male and it was housed in a former convent in via Ricasoli, premises which it still occupies. The Galleria dellAccademia was founded in 1784, it adjoins the Accademia di Belle Arti in via Ricasoli and it has housed the original David by Michelangelo since 1873. List of academies of art in Italy
27.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
28.
Ernest Meissonier
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Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier was a French Classicist painter and sculptor famous for his depictions of Napoleon, his armies and military themes. He documented sieges and manoeuvres and was the teacher of Édouard Detaille, Meissonier enjoyed great success in his lifetime, and was acclaimed both for his mastery of fine detail and assiduous craftsmanship. The English art critic John Ruskin examined his work at length under a glass, marvelling at Meissoniers manual dexterity. Meissoniers work commanded enormous prices and in 1846 he purchased a mansion in Poissy. Meissonier himself said that his house and temperament belonged to another age, Ernest Meissonier was born at Lyon. His father, Charles, had been a businessman, the proprietor of a factory in Saint-Denis, north of Paris. He expected Ernest, the eldest of his two sons, to him into the dye business. Yet from his schooldays Ernest showed a taste for painting, to some early sketches, dated 1823. After being placed with a druggist in the Rue des Lombards, at age seventeen, following the recommendation of a painter named Potier, himself a second class Prix de Rome, he was admitted to Léon Cogniets studio. He also formed his style after the Dutch masters as represented in the Louvre and it was the first attempt in France in the particular genre which was destined to make Meissonier famous, microscopic painting miniature in oils. Working hard for daily bread at illustrations for the publishers Curmer, Hetzel and Dubocherhe, Meissonier also exhibited at the Salon of 1836 with Chess Player and the Errand Boy. In 1838 Meissonier married a Protestant woman from Strasbourg named Emma Steinhel, two children were born in due course, Thérèse, and Charles. On the birth registration of his daughter he described himself as a painter of history, typical examples include Halt at an Inn, owned by the Duc de Morny and The Brawl, which was owned by Queen Victoria. After his Soldiers he began A Day in June, which was never finished, in 1855 he touched the highest mark of his achievement with The Gamblers and The Quarrel, which was presented by Napoleon III to the English Court. The Emperor Napoleon III at Solferino took Meissonier more than three years to complete, in autumn 1861 he was elected to a chair in the Institut de France when the members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts voted for him to join their number. To the Salon of 1861 he sent A Shoeing Smith, A Musician, A Painter, and M. Louis Fould, to that of 1864 The Emperor at Solferino and he subsequently exhibited A Gamblers Quarrel and Desaix and the Army of the Rhine. In June 1868 Meissonier travelled to Antibes with canvas and easel, together with his wife, son and daughter, the light of the south attracted Meissonnier. It is delightful to sun oneself in the brilliant light of the South instead of wandering about like gnomes in the fog, the view at Antibes is one of the fairest sights in nature
29.
Franco-Prussian War
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The conflict was caused by Prussian ambitions to extend German unification and French fears of the shift in the European balance of power that would result if the Prussians succeeded. On 16 July 1870, the French parliament voted to declare war on the German Kingdom of Prussia, the German coalition mobilised its troops much more quickly than the French and rapidly invaded northeastern France. The German forces were superior in numbers, had training and leadership and made more effective use of modern technology, particularly railroads. The German states proclaimed their union as the German Empire under the Prussian king Wilhelm I, the Treaty of Frankfurt of 10 May 1871 gave Germany most of Alsace and some parts of Lorraine, which became the Imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine. French determination to regain Alsace-Lorraine and fear of another Franco-German war, along with British apprehension about the balance of power, the causes of the Franco-Prussian War are deeply rooted in the events surrounding the unification of Germany. In the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Prussia had annexed numerous territories and this new power destabilized the European balance of power established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars. France was strongly opposed to any further alliance of German states, in Prussia, some officials considered a war against France both inevitable and necessary to arouse German nationalism in those states that would allow the unification of a great German empire. Bismarck also knew that France should be the aggressor in the conflict to bring the southern German states to side with Prussia, many Germans also viewed the French as the traditional destabilizer of Europe, and sought to weaken France to prevent further breaches of the peace. The immediate cause of the war resided in the candidacy of Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, France feared encirclement by an alliance between Prussia and Spain. The Hohenzollern princes candidacy was withdrawn under French diplomatic pressure, releasing the Ems Dispatch to the public, Bismarck made it sound as if the king had treated the French envoy in a demeaning fashion, which inflamed public opinion in France. They also argue that he wanted a war to resolve growing domestic political problems, other historians, notably French historian Pierre Milza, dispute this. According to Milza, the Emperor had no need for a war to increase his popularity, the Ems telegram had exactly the effect on French public opinion that Bismarck had intended. This text produced the effect of a red flag on the Gallic bull, gramont, the French foreign minister, declared that he felt he had just received a slap. Napoleons new prime minister, Emile Ollivier, declared that France had done all that it could humanly and honorably do to prevent the war, a crowd of 15–20,000 people, carrying flags and patriotic banners, marched through the streets of Paris, demanding war. On 19 July 1870 a declaration of war was sent to the Prussian government, the southern German states immediately sided with Prussia. The French Army consisted in peacetime of approximately 400,000 soldiers, some of them were veterans of previous French campaigns in the Crimean War, Algeria, the Franco-Austrian War in Italy, and in the Mexican campaign. Under Marshal Adolphe Niel, urgent reforms were made, universal conscription and a shorter period of service gave increased numbers of reservists, who would swell the army to a planned strength of 800,000 on mobilisation. Those who for any reason were not conscripted were to be enrolled in the Garde Mobile, however, the Franco-Prussian War broke out before these reforms could be completely implemented
30.
Royal Academy of Arts
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The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded through an act of King George III on 10 December 1768 with a mission to promote the arts of design in Britain through education and exhibition. Supporters wanted to foster a national school of art and to encourage appreciation, fashionable taste in 18th-century Britain was based on continental and traditional art forms, providing contemporary British artists little opportunity to sell their works. From 1746 the Foundling Hospital, through the efforts of William Hogarth, the success of this venture led to the formation of the Society of Artists of Great Britain and the Free Society of Artists. Both these groups were primarily exhibiting societies, their success was marred by internal factions among the artists. The combined vision of education and exhibition to establish a school of art set the Royal Academy apart from the other exhibiting societies. It provided the foundation upon which the Royal Academy came to dominate the art scene of the 18th and 19th centuries, supplanting the earlier art societies. Sir William Chambers, a prominent architect, used his connections with George III to gain royal patronage and financial support of the Academy, the painter Joshua Reynolds was made its first president. Francis Milner Newton was elected the first secretary, a post he held for two decades until his resignation in 1788, the instrument of foundation, signed by George III on 10 December 1768, named 34 founder members and allowed for a total membership of 40. William Hoare and Johann Zoffany were added to this list later by the King and are known as nominated members, among the founder members were two women, a father and daughter, and two sets of brothers. The Royal Academy was initially housed in cramped quarters in Pall Mall, although in 1771 it was given temporary accommodation for its library and schools in Old Somerset House, then a royal palace. In 1780 it was installed in purpose-built apartments in the first completed wing of New Somerset House, located in the Strand and designed by Chambers, the Academy moved in 1837 to Trafalgar Square, where it occupied the east wing of the recently completed National Gallery. These premises soon proved too small to house both institutions, in 1868,100 years after the Academys foundation, it moved to Burlington House, Piccadilly, where it remains. Burlington House is owned by the British Government, and used rent-free by the Royal Academy, the first Royal Academy exhibition of contemporary art, open to all artists, opened on 25 April 1769 and ran until 27 May 1769. 136 works of art were shown and this exhibition, now known as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, has been staged annually without interruption to the present day. In 1870 the Academy expanded its programme to include a temporary annual loan exhibition of Old Masters. The range and frequency of these exhibitions have grown enormously since that time. Britains first public lectures on art were staged by the Royal Academy, led by Reynolds, the first president, a program included lectures by Dr. William Hunter, John Flaxman, James Barry, Sir John Soane, and J. M. W. Turner
31.
Victorian era
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The Victorian era was the period of Queen Victorias reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities. Some scholars date the beginning of the period in terms of sensibilities, the era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period. The later half of the Victorian age roughly coincided with the first part of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe, culturally there was a transition away from the rationalism of the Georgian period and toward romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values, and arts. The end of the saw the Boer War. Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a number of shifts in the direction of political reform, industrial reform. Two especially important figures in period of British history are the prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. Disraeli, favoured by the queen, was a gregarious Conservative and his rival Gladstone, a Liberal distrusted by the Queen, served more terms and oversaw much of the overall legislative development of the era. The population of England and Wales almost doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901, Scotlands population also rose rapidly, from 2.8 million in 1851 to 4.4 million in 1901. However, Irelands population decreased sharply, from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in 1901, mostly due to the Great Famine. Between 1837 and 1901 about 15 million emigrants departed the UK permanently, in search of a life in the United States, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia. During the early part of the era, politics in the House of Commons involved battles between the two parties, the Whigs/Liberals and the Conservatives. These parties were led by such prominent statesmen as Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli, Victoria became queen in 1837 at age 18. Her long reign until 1901 was mainly a time of peace, Britain reached the zenith of its economic, political, diplomatic and cultural power. The era saw the expansion of the second British Empire, Historians have characterised the mid-Victorian era as Britains Golden Years. There was prosperity, as the income per person grew by half. There was peace abroad, and social peace at home, opposition to the new order melted away, says Porter. The Chartist movement peaked as a movement among the working class in 1848, its leaders moved to other pursuits, such as trade unions
32.
British Empire
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The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the population at the time. As a result, its political, legal, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread, during the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France, the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after the American War of Independence caused Britain to lose some of its oldest and most populous colonies. British attention soon turned towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, after the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution began to transform Britain, the British Empire expanded to include India, large parts of Africa and many other territories throughout the world. In Britain, political attitudes favoured free trade and laissez-faire policies, during the 19th Century, Britains population increased at a dramatic rate, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, which caused significant social and economic stresses. To seek new markets and sources of raw materials, the Conservative Party under Benjamin Disraeli launched a period of imperialist expansion in Egypt, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand became self-governing dominions. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britains economic lead, subsequent military and economic tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily upon its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on the military, financial and manpower resources of Britain, although the British Empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after World War I, Britain was no longer the worlds pre-eminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Britains colonies in Southeast Asia were occupied by Imperial Japan, despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British prestige helped to accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britains most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence as part of a larger movement in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 marked for many the end of the British Empire, fourteen overseas territories remain under British sovereignty. After independence, many former British colonies joined the Commonwealth of Nations, the United Kingdom is now one of 16 Commonwealth nations, a grouping known informally as the Commonwealth realms, that share a monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England, following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but nothing was ever heard of his ships again
33.
British Army
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The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom. As of 2017 the British Army comprises just over 80,000 trained Regular, or full-time, personnel and just over 26,500 trained Reserve, or part-time personnel. Therefore, the UK Parliament approves the continued existence of the Army by passing an Armed Forces Act at least once every five years, day to day the Army comes under administration of the Ministry of Defence and is commanded by the Chief of the General Staff. Repeatedly emerging victorious from these decisive wars allowed Britain to influence world events with its policies and establish itself as one of the leading military. In 1660 the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were restored under Charles II, Charles favoured the foundation of a new army under royal control and began work towards its establishment by August 1660. The Royal Scots Army and the Irish Army were financed by the Parliament of Scotland, the order of seniority of the most senior line regiments in the British Army is based on the order of seniority in the English army. At that time there was only one English regiment of dragoons, after William and Marys accession to the throne, England involved itself in the War of the Grand Alliance, primarily to prevent a French invasion restoring Marys father, James II. Spain, in the two centuries, had been the dominant global power, and the chief threat to Englands early transatlantic ambitions. The territorial ambitions of the French, however, led to the War of the Spanish Succession and the Napoleonic Wars. From the time of the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, Great Britain was the naval power. As had its predecessor, the English Army, the British Army fought the Kingdoms of Spain, France, and the Netherlands for supremacy in North America and the West Indies. With native and provincial assistance, the Army conquered New France in the North American theatre of the Seven Years War, the British Army suffered defeat in the American War of Independence, losing the Thirteen Colonies but holding on to Canada. The British Army was heavily involved in the Napoleonic Wars and served in campaigns across Europe. The war between the British and the First French Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte stretched around the world and at its peak, in 1813, the regular army contained over 250,000 men. A Coalition of Anglo-Dutch and Prussian Armies under the Duke of Wellington, the English had been involved, both politically and militarily, in Ireland since being given the Lordship of Ireland by the Pope in 1171. The campaign of the English republican Protector, Oliver Cromwell, involved uncompromising treatment of the Irish towns that had supported the Royalists during the English Civil War, the English Army stayed in Ireland primarily to suppress numerous Irish revolts and campaigns for independence. Having learnt from their experience in America, the British government sought a political solution, the British Army found itself fighting Irish rebels, both Protestant and Catholic, primarily in Ulster and Leinster in the 1798 rebellion. The Haldane Reforms of 1907 formally created the Territorial Force as the Armys volunteer reserve component by merging and reorganising the Volunteer Force, Militia, Great Britains dominance of the world had been challenged by numerous other powers, in the 20th century, most notably Germany
34.
County Tipperary
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County Tipperary is a county in Ireland. Tipperary County Council is the government authority for the county. It is located in the province of Munster, the county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early thirteenth century, shortly after the Norman invasion of Ireland. The population of the county was 160,441 at the 2016 census. The largest towns are Clonmel, Nenagh and Thurles, Tipperary is the sixth largest of the 32 counties by area and the 12th largest by population. It is the third largest of Munsters 6 counties by size and it is also the largest landlocked county in Ireland. The region is part of the plain of Ireland, but the diverse terrain contains several mountain ranges, the Knockmealdown, the Galtee, the Arra Hills. Most of the county is drained by the River Suir, the part by tributaries of the River Shannon, the eastern part by the River Nore. No part of the county touches the coast, the centre is known as the Golden Vale, a rich pastoral stretch of land in the Suir basin which extends into counties Limerick and Cork. Parishes were delineated after the Down Survey as a subdivision, with multiple townlands per parish. The civil parishes had some use in local taxation and were included on the nineteenth century maps of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, for poor law purposes, District Electoral Divisions replaced the civil parishes in the mid-nineteenth century. There are 199 civil parishes in the county, townlands are the smallest officially defined geographical divisions in Ireland, there are 3,159 townlands in the county. Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was claimed as a lordship, by 1210, the sheriffdom of Munster shired into the shires of Tipperary and Limerick. In 1328, Tipperary was granted to the Earls of Ormond as a county palatine or liberty, the grant excluded church lands such as the archiepiscopal see of Cashel, which formed the separate county of Cross Tipperary. The county was divided again in 1838. When the Local Government Act 1898 established county councils to replace the grand jury for civil functions and their names were changed from Tipperary North/South Riding to North/South Tipperary by the Local Government Act 2001, which redesignated all administrative counties as simply counties. The Local Government Reform Act 2014 has amalgamated the two counties and restored a single county of Tipperary, following the Local Government Reform Act 2014, Tipperary County Council is the local government authority for the county. The authority is a merger of two separate authorities North Tipperary County Council and South Tipperary County Council which operated up until June 2014
35.
Ireland
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Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, in 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.4 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland, the islands geography comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild, thick woodlands covered the island until the Middle Ages. As of 2013, the amount of land that is wooded in Ireland is about 11% of the total, there are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland. The Irish climate is moderate and classified as oceanic. As a result, winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area, however, summers are cooler than those in Continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant, the earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century CE, the island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. Following the Norman invasion in the 12th century, England claimed sovereignty over Ireland, however, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s and this subsided following a political agreement in 1998. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community while the United Kingdom, Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature. Alongside mainstream Western culture, an indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games, Irish music. The culture of the island shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football, rugby, horse racing. The name Ireland derives from Old Irish Eriu and this in turn derives from Proto-Celtic *Iveriu, which is also the source of Latin Hibernia. Iveriu derives from a root meaning fat, prosperous, during the last glacial period, and up until about 9000 years ago, most of Ireland was covered with ice, most of the time
36.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He is known for his works, particularly Vanity Fair. Thackeray, a child, was born in Calcutta, British India. His mother, Anne Becher, was the daughter of Harriet Becher and John Harman Becher. Richmond died in 1815, which caused Anne to send her son to England in 1816, the ship on which he travelled made a short stopover at St. Helena, where the imprisoned Napoleon was pointed out to him. Once in England he was educated at schools in Southampton and Chiswick, and then at Charterhouse School, Thackeray disliked Charterhouse, and parodied it in his fiction as Slaughterhouse. Nevertheless, Thackeray was honoured in the Charterhouse Chapel with a monument after his death, Thackeray then travelled for some time on the continent, visiting Paris and Weimar, where he met Goethe. He returned to England and began to study law at the Middle Temple and he also lost a good part of his fortune in the collapse of two Indian banks. The Thackerays had three children, all girls, Anne Isabella, Jane and Harriet Marian, who married Sir Leslie Stephen, editor, Thackeray now began writing for his life, as he put it, turning to journalism in an effort to support his young family. Between 1837 and 1840 he also reviewed books for The Times and he was also a regular contributor to The Morning Chronicle and The Foreign Quarterly Review. Later, through his connection to the illustrator John Leech, he began writing for the newly created magazine Punch, in which he published The Snob Papers and this work popularised the modern meaning of the word snob. Thackeray was a regular contributor to Punch between 1843 and 1854. Tragedy struck in Thackerays personal life as his wife, Isabella, succumbed to depression after the birth of their third child, in 1840. Finding that he could get no work done at home, he spent more and more time away until September 1840, struck by guilt, he set out with his wife to Ireland. During the crossing she threw herself from a water-closet into the sea and they fled back home after a four-week battle with her mother. From November 1840 to February 1842 Isabella was in and out of professional care and she eventually deteriorated into a permanent state of detachment from reality. Isabella outlived her husband by 30 years, in the end being cared for by a family named Thompson in Leigh-on-Sea at Southend until her death in 1894, after his wifes illness Thackeray became a de facto widower, never establishing another permanent relationship. He did pursue other women, however, in particular Mrs Jane Brookfield, in 1851 Mr Brookfield barred Thackeray from further visits to or correspondence with Jane. Baxter, an American twenty years Thackerays junior whom he met during a tour in New York City in 1852
37.
Royal Hibernian Academy
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The Royal Hibernian Academy is an artist-based and artist-oriented institution in Ireland, founded in Dublin in 1823. The RHA was founded as the result of 30 Irish artists petitioning the government for a charter of incorporation, according to the letters patent of 5 August 1823, The Royal Hibernian Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture was established, which included a National School of Art. The first elected president was the painter, William Ashford. In 1824 architect Francis Johnston was made president and he had provided headquarters for the RHA at Academy House in Lower Abbey Street at his own expense. The first exhibitions took place in May 1825 and were held annually from then on, to encourage interest in the arts works displayed at the RHA were distributed by lot as prizes among subscribers. Works by Frederick William Burton, Daniel Maclise, J. M. W. Turner and David Wilkie, the exhibitions and school prospered and by the end of the 19th century the RHA was the leading Irish institution involved in promoting visual arts. Academy House was destroyed by fire in 1916 during the Easter Rising, in 1970 the RHA constructed a new building in Ely Place in Dublin. This building houses four galleries, here the Academy mounts the annual exhibition, in addition, the Academy curates frequent exhibitions and frequently is responsible for major retrospectives of the work of Irish artists. The Academy has a collection of Irish art, but this is not on display. The Academy is funded by An Chomhairle Ealaíon, the Arts Council of Ireland, through revenue from its Annual Exhibition, and from Benefactors, Patrons and Friends of the Academy. On the weekend of 7–8 March 2009, an unknown person placed satirical naked paintings of Brian Cowen in the National Gallery of Ireland, the painter was subsequently discovered to be Conor Casby. This caused some controversy at the time, as the matter was investigated by the Gardaí, and the state broadcaster RTÉ was forced to apologise for showing the pictures in a news broadcast
38.
Palestine (region)
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Palestine is a geographic region in Western Asia between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It is sometimes considered to include adjoining territories, the name was used by Ancient Greek writers, and was later used for the Roman province Syria Palaestina, the Byzantine Palaestina Prima, and the Islamic provincial district of Jund Filastin. The region comprises most of the claimed for the biblical regions known as the Land of Israel. Historically, it has known as the southern portion of wider regional designations such as Canaan, Syria, ash-Sham. The boundaries of the region have changed throughout history, today, the region comprises the State of Israel and the Palestinian territories in which the State of Palestine was declared. Modern archaeology has identified 12 ancient inscriptions from Egyptian and Assyrian records recording likely cognates of Hebrew Pelesheth, the term Peleset is found in five inscriptions referring to a neighboring people or land starting from c.1150 BCE during the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt. Neither the Egyptian nor the Assyrian sources provided clear regional boundaries for the term, approximately a century later, Aristotle used a similar definition for the region in Meteorology, in which he included the Dead Sea. The term is accepted to be a translation of the Biblical name Peleshet. The term is used in the Septuagint, who used a transliteration Land of Phylistieim different from the contemporary Greek place name Palaistínē. Following the Muslim conquest, place names that were in use by the Byzantine administration generally continued to be used in Arabic, Modern archaeologists and historians of the region refer to their field of study as Levantine archaeology. The region was among the earliest in the world to see human habitation, agricultural communities, during the Bronze Age, independent Canaanite city-states were established, and were influenced by the surrounding civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Minoan Crete, and Syria. Between 1550–1400 BCE, the Canaanite cities became vassals to the Egyptian New Kingdom who held power until the 1178 BCE Battle of Djahy during the wider Bronze Age collapse. The region became part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from c.740 BCE, in 539 BCE, the Babylonian empire was replaced by the Achaemenid Empire. In the 330s BCE, Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great conquered the region and it ultimately fell to the Seleucid Empire between 219–200 BCE. In 116 BCE, a Seleucid civil war resulted in the independence of certain regions including the Hasmonean principality in the Judaean Mountains, from 110 BCE, the Hasmoneans extended their authority over much of Palestine, creating a Judaean–Samaritan–Idumaean–Ituraean–Galilean alliance. The Judaean control over the region resulted in it also becoming known as Judaea. Between 73–63 BCE, the Roman Republic extended its influence into the region in the Third Mithridatic War, conquering Judea in 63 BCE, and splitting the former Hasmonean Kingdom into five districts. The three-year Ministry of Jesus, culminating in his crucifixion, is estimated to have occurred from 28–30 CE, in 70 CE, Titus sacked Jerusalem, resulting in the dispersal of the citys Jews and Christians to Yavne and Pella
39.
Irish Civil War
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The civil war was waged between two opposing groups, Irish republicans and Irish nationalists, over the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The forces of the Provisional Government supported the Treaty, while the Republican opposition saw it as a betrayal of the Irish Republic, many of those who fought on both sides in the conflict had been members of the Irish Republican Army during the War of Independence. The Civil War was won by the Free State forces, which were armed with weapons provided by the British Government. The conflict may have claimed more lives than the War of Independence that preceded it, today, two of the main political parties in the Republic of Ireland, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, are direct descendants of the opposing sides of the war. The Anglo-Irish Treaty was agreed to end the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence between the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the treaty provided for a self-governing Irish state, having its own army and police. The Treaty also allowed Northern Ireland to opt out of the new state, the British suggested this dominion in secret correspondence even before treaty negotiations began, but Sinn Féin leader Éamon de Valera rejected the dominion. The treaty also stipulated that members of the new Irish Oireachtas would have to take the following Oath of Allegiance I and this oath was highly objectionable to many Irish Republicans. Furthermore, the partition of Ireland, which had already decided by the Westminster parliament in the Government of Ireland Act 1920, was effectively confirmed in the Anglo-Irish treaty. All these issues were the cause of a split in the IRA, however, anti-treaty militants in 1922 believed that the treaty would never deliver full Irish independence. The split over the treaty was deeply personal, many of the leaders on both sides had been close friends and comrades during the War of Independence. This made their disagreement over the treaty all the more bitter and he said that he felt deeply betrayed when de Valera refused to stand by the agreement that the plenipotentiaries had negotiated with David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. De Valera, for his part, was furious that Collins, Dáil Éireann narrowly passed the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64 votes to 57 on 7 January 1922. Following the Treatys ratification, in accordance with article 17 of the Treaty and its authority under the Treaty was to provide a provisional arrangement for the administration of Southern Ireland during the interval before the establishment of the Irish Free State. In accordance with the Treaty, the British Government transferred the powers, before the British Government transferred such powers, the members of the Provisional Government each signified in writing acceptance of. Upon the Treatys ratification, de Valera resigned as President of the Republic and he challenged the right of the Dáil to approve the treaty, saying that its members were breaking their oath to the Irish Republic. De Valera continued to promote a compromise whereby the new Irish Free State would be in association with the British Commonwealth rather than be a member of it. In early March, he formed the Cumann na Poblachta party while remaining a member of Sinn Féin and commenced a speaking tour of the more republican province of Munster on 17 March 1922. In a letter to the Irish Independent on 23 March, de Valera accepted the accuracy of their report of his comment about wading through blood, but deplored that the newspaper had published it
40.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
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Viscount Gormanston
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Viscount Gormanston is a title in the Peerage of Ireland held by the head of the Preston family. The holder is the senior Viscount of Ireland, as well as the bearer of the oldest vicomital title in either Britain or Ireland, the Preston family descends from Sir Robert Preston, who served as Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Sometime between 1365 and 1370 he was created Baron Gormanston in the Peerage of Ireland by writ and his son, the second Baron, played a prominent part in public affairs and was arrested for treason in 1418. His great-grandson, the fourth Baron, served as Lord Deputy of Ireland, in 1478 he was created Viscount Gormanston in the Peerage of Ireland. His great-great-great-great-grandson, the seventh Viscount, was a supporter of King James II and was outlawed after the Glorious Revolution, Jenico Preston helped to suppress the Irish Rebellion of 1798. In 1800 he had the outlawry reversed and was summoned to the Irish House of Lords as the twelfth Viscount Gormanston and he was the great-grandson of Anthony Preston, the de jure ninth Viscount Gormanston, the nephew of the seventh Viscount. The twelfth Viscount was succeeded by his son, the thirteenth Viscount, in 1868 he was created Baron Gormanston, in the County of Meath, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, which gave the Viscounts an automatic seat in the House of Lords. His son, the fourteenth Viscount, notably served as Governor of British Guiana, another member of the Preston family was Thomas Preston, 1st Viscount Tara. He was the son of the fourth Viscount Gormanston. Also, John Preston, 1st Baron Tara, was a descendant of a brother of the first Viscount Tara. The unusual first name Jenico derives from the Gascony-born soldier Sir Jenico dArtois and his daughter Jane married the 3rd Baron Gormanston, and was mother to the 1st Viscount. The family seat was Gormanston Castle, near Drogheda, County Meath, Jenico Francis Tara Preston Gormanston, County Meath Baron Tara Viscount Tara Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David. New York, St Martins Press,1990, tiernan, Sonja, ‘“A Zealous Catholic and a Notorious Trouble-Maker, ” The Gormanston Papers in the National Library of Ireland’ in Ríocht na Mídhe, Meath Archaeological and Historical Society. Catelogue for Gormanston Estate Papers at National Library of Ireland, http, //www. nli. ie/pdfs/mss%20lists/132_GormanstonPapers. pdf Leigh Rayments Peerage Pages Hansard 1803–2005, contributions in Parliament by Edward Anthony John Preston, 13th Viscount Gormanston
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Inkerman
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Inkerman is a city in the Crimean peninsula, currently subject to a territorial dispute between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. It is situated 5 kilometres east of Sevastopol, at the mouth of the Chernaya River that flows into Sevastopol Inlet, administratively, Inkerman is subordinate to the municipality of Sevastopol which does not constitute part of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Inkerman is said to mean a cave fortress in Turkish, the area has been inhabited since ancient times. The cave monastery of St. Clement was founded near Inkerman in the 8th century by Byzantine icon-venerators fleeing persecution in their homeland, the monastery was closed during the Soviet era and several of its churches destroyed but is now in restoration and brought back into use. Kalamita was a fortress built in the 8th-9th century on a strategic cliff overlooking the estuary. In 1475 Kalamita was taken by the Turks and named Inkerman, after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774 the fortress was abandoned and fell into ruin, but a small settlement at the base of the cliff remained. During the Soviet times, an underground ammunition warehouse of the Black Sea Fleet was situated under rocky cliffs in the Inkerman area. The storage was abandoned in the 1970s after an explosion damaged the facility. However, no efforts to secure the site were made until the 1990s when local residents began salvaging explosives which led to a number of deaths, ukrainian Army engineer corps started extracting and decommissioning outdated ammunition in 2000 under a special government program. Inkerman has since returned to its pre-war obscurity, serving as a suburb of Sevastopol linked to the downtown core by commuter ferries. One of the major Crimean wineries featuring the Inkerman label is located in the adjacent area, a popular hiking trail leading into Crimean Mountains begins just east of the town. A horse in the Household Cavalry Blues and Royals has been named after the town, the left flank company of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, which holds the traditions of the disbanded 3rd Battalion is named after the town and battle. Now known as the Inkerman Company, or by its nickname The Ribs, hicks Withers-Lancashire Official Sevastopol city website Inkerman Panoramas of Inkerman
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Ferens Art Gallery
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The Ferens Art Gallery is an art gallery in the English city of Kingston upon Hull. The site and money for the gallery were donated to the city by Thomas Ferens, the architects were S. N. Cooke and E. C. Opened in 1927, it was restored and extended in 1991, the gallery features an extensive array of both permanent collections and roving exhibitions. Among the exhibits is a portrait of a woman by Frans Hals. The building also houses a gallery and a popular cafe. The building is now a Grade II listed building, in 2009, an exhibition and live performance took place at the venue, to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the opening of The New Adelphi Club, a live music venue less than 2 miles north. In 2013, the gallery acquired a painting by Pietro Lorenzetti, depicting Christ Between Saints Paul. The acquisition was funded by the Ferens Endowment Fund, the Heritage Lottery Fund. In May 2015, it was announced that the gallery would get a £4.5 million makeover to enable it to host the Turner Prize in 2017 as part of the UK City of Culture programme, the gallery reopened on 13 January 2017. On 8 February 2017 the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall visited to gallery to view the completed refurbishment, media related to Ferens Art Gallery at Wikimedia Commons Ferens Art Gallery Historic England
44.
1842 retreat from Kabul
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The 1842 Kabul Retreat took place during the First Anglo-Afghan War. As the army and its numerous dependents and camp-followers began its march, many of the column died of exposure, frostbite or starvation or were killed during the fighting. The Afghans launched numerous attacks against the column as it made progress through the winter snows of the Hindu Kush. The final stand was made just outside a village called Gandamak on 13 January, out of more than 16,000 people from the column commanded by Elphinstone, only one European and a few Indian sepoys reached Jalalabad. Over one hundred British prisoners and civilian hostages were later released, around 2,000 of the Indians, many of whom were maimed by frostbite, survived and returned to Kabul to exist by begging or to be sold into slavery. Some at least returned to India after another British invasion of Kabul several months later, in 2013, a writer for The Economist called the retreat the worst British military disaster until the fall of Singapore exactly a century later. In 1838 the British East India Company feared an increased Russian influence in Afghanistan after Dost Mohammad Barakzai had seized power from former ruler Shuja Shah Durrani in 1834 and he began to assemble his forces in late 1838. The army, under the command of General Sir Willoughby Cotton, with Macnaghten as his chief adviser, in March 1839 they crossed the Bolan Pass and began their march to Kabul. They advanced through rough terrain, crossing deserts and mountain passes at a height of 4,000 metres but made good progress, an Afghan had betrayed his sovereign and the British troops managed to blow one city gate and marched into the city in a euphoric mood. The ample supplies acquired in Ghazni considerably aided the further advance, Dost Mohammad fled and sought refuge in the wilds of the Hindu Kush. Kabul fell without a fight on 6 August 1839, Shuja Shah returned and was proclaimed emir by the British. He established a court in the fortress of Bala Hissar above Kabul, more than a year later, Dost Mohammad surrendered to Macnaghten on 4 November 1840 and was exiled to India. In August 1839, the British refrained from occupying Kabuls citadel and this decision, made on diplomatic grounds, would prove to be a grave military error, as the garrison was sited in a defensively weak position. As political agent and envoy at the court of Shuja Shah, the city was described at the time as clean and pleasant with many spacious wooden houses surrounded by well-kept gardens. The occupiers enjoyed themselves arranging cricket matches, horse races and hunting parties, in the evenings amateur dramatics were staged by East India Company officers and their wives. Performances included Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream and it was considered a special honour to be invited to evening soirées hosted by Lady Florentia Sale, the wife of Brigadier-General Robert Henry Sale. Such social gatherings often saw the serving of salmon and stew with madeira wine, under these conditions, many of the East India Company troops were sent back to their garrisons in India. While the British enjoyed this lifestyle, some Afghans chafed under occupation by a foreign power, Britain had replaced Dost Mohammad, a popular ruler, with Shuja Shah, a weak puppet, who was seen as much more cruel and vindictive to his enemies than his predecessor
45.
Buckingham Palace
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Buckingham Palace is the London residence and administrative headquarters of the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and it has been a focal point for the British people at times of national rejoicing and mourning. It was acquired by King George III in 1761 as a residence for Queen Charlotte. During the 19th century it was enlarged, principally by architects John Nash and Edward Blore, Buckingham Palace became the London residence of the British monarch on the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. The palace chapel was destroyed by a German bomb during World War II, the original early 19th-century interior designs, many of which survive, include widespread use of brightly coloured scagliola and blue and pink lapis, on the advice of Sir Charles Long. King Edward VII oversaw a partial redecoration in a Belle Époque cream, many smaller reception rooms are furnished in the Chinese regency style with furniture and fittings brought from the Royal Pavilion at Brighton and from Carlton House. The palace has 775 rooms, and the garden is the largest private garden in London, the state rooms, used for official and state entertaining, are open to the public each year for most of August and September and on some days in winter and spring. In the Middle Ages, the site of the palace formed part of the Manor of Ebury. The marshy ground was watered by the river Tyburn, which flows below the courtyard. Where the river was fordable, the village of Eye Cross grew, ownership of the site changed hands many times, owners included Edward the Confessor and his queen consort Edith of Wessex in late Saxon times, and, after the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror. William gave the site to Geoffrey de Mandeville, who bequeathed it to the monks of Westminster Abbey, in 1531, King Henry VIII acquired the Hospital of St James from Eton College, and in 1536 he took the Manor of Ebury from Westminster Abbey. These transfers brought the site of Buckingham Palace back into royal hands for the first time since William the Conqueror had given it away almost 500 years earlier, various owners leased it from royal landlords and the freehold was the subject of frenzied speculation during the 17th century. By then, the old village of Eye Cross had long fallen into decay. Needing money, James I sold off part of the Crown freehold, clement Walker in Anarchia Anglicana refers to new-erected sodoms and spintries at the Mulberry Garden at S. Jamess, this suggests it may have been a place of debauchery. Eventually, in the late 17th century, the freehold was inherited from the property tycoon Sir Hugh Audley by the great heiress Mary Davies, possibly the first house erected within the site was that of a Sir William Blake, around 1624. The next owner was Lord Goring, who from 1633 extended Blakes house and he did not, however, obtain the freehold interest in the mulberry garden. Unbeknown to Goring, in 1640 the document failed to pass the Great Seal before King Charles I fled London and it was this critical omission that helped the British royal family regain the freehold under King George III. The improvident Goring defaulted on his rents, Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington obtained the mansion and was occupying it, now known as Goring House, Arlington House rose on the site—the location of the southern wing of todays palace—the next year
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