Marlene Dietrich
Marie Magdalene "Marlene" Dietrich was a German-American actress. Throughout her long career, which spanned from the 1910s to the 1980s, she continually reinvented herself. In 1920s Berlin, Dietrich acted in silent films, her performance as Lola-Lola in The Blue Angel brought her an international profile and a contract with Paramount Pictures. Dietrich starred in Hollywood films such as Morocco, Shanghai Express, Desire, she traded on her glamorous persona and "exotic" looks, became one of the highest-paid actresses of the era. Throughout World War II, she was a high-profile entertainer in the United States. Although she still made occasional films after the war, Dietrich spent most of the 1950s to the 1970s touring the world as a marquee live-show performer. Dietrich was known for her humanitarian efforts during the war, housing German and French exiles, providing financial support and advocating their U. S. citizenship. For her work on improving morale on the front lines during the war, she received several honors from the United States, France and Israel.
In 1999, the American Film Institute named Dietrich the ninth greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema. Dietrich was born on 27 December 1901 at Leberstraße 65 in the neighborhood of Rote Insel in Schöneberg, now a district of Berlin, her mother, Wilhelmina Elisabeth Josephine, was from an affluent Berlin family who owned a jewelry and clock-making firm. Her father, Louis Erich Otto Dietrich, was a police lieutenant. Dietrich had one sibling, one year older. Dietrich's father died in 1907, his best friend, Eduard von Losch, an aristocratic first lieutenant in the Grenadiers, courted Wilhelmina and married her in 1914, but he died soon afterwards, in July 1916, from injuries sustained during the First World War. Von Losch never adopted the Dietrich sisters, so Dietrich's surname was never von Losch, as has sometimes been claimed. Dietrich's family nicknamed her "Lena" and "Lene". Aged about 11, she combined her first two names to form the name "Marlene". Dietrich attended the Auguste-Viktoria Girls' School from 1907 to 1917 and graduated from the Victoria-Luise-Schule in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, in 1918.
She became interested in theater and poetry as a teenager. A wrist injury curtailed her dreams of becoming a concert violinist, but by 1922 she had her first job, playing violin in a pit orchestra for silent films at a Berlin cinema, she was fired after only four weeks. The earliest professional stage appearances by Dietrich were as a chorus girl on tour with Guido Thielscher's Girl-Kabarett vaudeville-style entertainments, in Rudolf Nelson revues in Berlin. In 1922, Dietrich auditioned unsuccessfully for theatrical director and impresario Max Reinhardt's drama academy, she did not attract any special attention at first. Dietrich's film debut was a small part in the film The Little Napoleon, she met her future husband, Rudolf Sieber, on the set of Tragedy of Love in 1923. Dietrich and Sieber were married in a civil ceremony in Berlin on 17 May 1923, her only child, daughter Maria Elisabeth Sieber, was born on 13 December 1924. Dietrich continued to work in film both in Berlin and Vienna throughout the 1920s.
On stage, she had roles of varying importance in Frank Wedekind's Pandora's Box, William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, as well as George Bernard Shaw's Back to Methuselah and Misalliance. It was in musicals and revues such as Broadway, Es Liegt in der Luft, Zwei Krawatten, that she attracted the most attention. By the late 1920s, Dietrich was playing sizable parts on screen, including roles in Café Elektric, I Kiss Your Hand and The Ship of Lost Souls. In 1929, Dietrich landed her breakthrough role of Lola Lola, a cabaret singer who caused the downfall of a hitherto respectable schoolmaster, in the UFA production of The Blue Angel, shot at Babelsberg film studios. Josef von Sternberg thereafter took credit for having "discovered" Dietrich; the film introduced Dietrich's signature song "Falling in Love Again", which she recorded for Electrola and made further recordings in the 1930s for Polydor and Decca Records. In 1930, on the strength of The Blue Angel's international success, with encouragement and promotion from Josef von Sternberg, established in Hollywood, Dietrich moved to the United States under contract to Paramount Pictures, the U.
S. film distributor of The Blue Angel. The studio sought to market Dietrich as a German answer to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Swedish sensation, Greta Garbo. Sternberg welcomed her with gifts, including a green Rolls-Royce Phantom II; the car appeared in their first U. S. film Morocco. Dietrich starred in six films directed by von Sternberg at Paramount between 1930 and 1935. Sternberg worked with Dietrich to create the image of a glamorous and mysterious femme fatale, he coached her intensively as an actress. She willingly followed his sometimes imperious direction in a way that a number of other performers resisted. In Morocco, Dietrich was again cast as a cabaret singer; the film is best remembered for the sequence in which she performs a song dressed in a man's white tie and kisses another woman, both provocative for the era. The film earned Dietrich her only Academy Award nomination. Morocco was followed by Dishonored, a major success with Dietrich cast as a Mata Hari-like spy. Shanghai
World War I
World War I known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history, it is one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide. On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb Yugoslav nationalist, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, leading to the July Crisis. In response, on 23 July Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia. Serbia's reply failed to satisfy the Austrians, the two moved to a war footing. A network of interlocking alliances enlarged the crisis from a bilateral issue in the Balkans to one involving most of Europe.
By July 1914, the great powers of Europe were divided into two coalitions: the Triple Entente—consisting of France and Britain—and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. Russia felt it necessary to back Serbia and, after Austria-Hungary shelled the Serbian capital of Belgrade on the 28th, partial mobilisation was approved. General Russian mobilisation was announced on the evening of 30 July; when Russia failed to comply, Germany declared war on 1 August in support of Austria-Hungary, with Austria-Hungary following suit on 6th. German strategy for a war on two fronts against France and Russia was to concentrate the bulk of its army in the West to defeat France within four weeks shift forces to the East before Russia could mobilise. On 2 August, Germany demanded free passage through Belgium, an essential element in achieving a quick victory over France; when this was refused, German forces invaded Belgium on 3 August and declared war on France the same day. On 12 August and France declared war on Austria-Hungary.
In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Alliance, opening fronts in the Caucasus and the Sinai Peninsula. The war was fought in and drew upon each power's colonial empire as well, spreading the conflict to Africa and across the globe; the Entente and its allies would become known as the Allied Powers, while the grouping of Austria-Hungary and their allies would become known as the Central Powers. The German advance into France was halted at the Battle of the Marne and by the end of 1914, the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, marked by a long series of trench lines that changed little until 1917. In 1915, Italy opened a front in the Alps. Bulgaria joined the Central Powers in 1915 and Greece joined the Allies in 1917, expanding the war in the Balkans; the United States remained neutral, although by doing nothing to prevent the Allies from procuring American supplies whilst the Allied blockade prevented the Germans from doing the same the U. S. became an important supplier of war material to the Allies.
After the sinking of American merchant ships by German submarines, the revelation that the Germans were trying to incite Mexico to make war on the United States, the U. S. declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917. Trained American forces would not begin arriving at the front in large numbers until mid-1918, but the American Expeditionary Force would reach some two million troops. Though Serbia was defeated in 1915, Romania joined the Allied Powers in 1916 only to be defeated in 1917, none of the great powers were knocked out of the war until 1918; the 1917 February Revolution in Russia replaced the Tsarist autocracy with the Provisional Government, but continuing discontent at the cost of the war led to the October Revolution, the creation of the Soviet Socialist Republic, the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by the new government in March 1918, ending Russia's involvement in the war. This allowed the transfer of large numbers of German troops from the East to the Western Front, resulting in the German March 1918 Offensive.
This offensive was successful, but the Allies rallied and drove the Germans back in their Hundred Days Offensive. Bulgaria was the first Central Power to sign an armistice—the Armistice of Salonica on 29 September 1918. On 30 October, the Ottoman Empire capitulated. On 4 November, the Austro-Hungarian empire agreed to the Armistice of Villa Giusti after being decisively defeated by Italy in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. With its allies defeated, revolution at home, the military no longer willing to fight, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated on 9 November and Germany signed an armistice on 11 November 1918. World War I was a significant turning point in the political, cultural and social climate of the world; the war and its immediate aftermath sparked numerous uprisings. The Big Four (Britain, the United States, It
2LO
2LO was the second radio station to broadcast in the United Kingdom. It began broadcasting on 11 May 1922, for one hour a day from the seventh floor of Marconi House in London's Strand, opposite Somerset House; the power was 100 watts on 350 metres. 2LO was allowed to transmit for seven minutes, after which the "operator" had to listen on the wavelength for three minutes for possible instructions to close down. On 14 November 1922 the station was transferred to the new British Broadcasting Company which in 1923 took up the nearby Savoy Hill for its broadcasting studios. In 1927 the company became the British Broadcasting Corporation. On 9 March 1930 2LO was replaced by the BBC National Programme; the letters LO continued to be used internally as a designation in the BBC for technical operations in the London area. The code LO was changed to LN in the early 1970s; the 2LO transmitter now belongs to the Science Museum, having been donated by Crown Castle International on 7 November 2002. It is now on show in the Information Age gallery on the second floor of the museum.
Marconi House was demolished in 2006, apart from the listed façade, which will be incorporated into a new hotel complex. A first-hand account of a broadcast from 2LO is given in The Spell of London by Henry Vollam Morton. The'LO' part of 2LO's callsign was adopted in 1924 by the metropolitan radio station in Melbourne which, since 1932, has been a part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; the station, 3LO, still has this callsign allocated to it, but since 2000 it has used different on-air names, first 774 ABC Melbourne and since 2017, Radio Melbourne. The amateur radio callsign G2LO is held by the staff association at Arqiva Crown Castle International the domestic part of BBC Transmitter Department. H. V, Morton. 1926, 18th Edition 1948,'The spell of London', Methuen & Co Ltd, London. The Science Museum: London Calling History of Marconi House where 2LO first broadcast Audio of 2LO station identification
Promenade concert
Promenade concerts were musical performances in the 18th and 19th century pleasure gardens of London, where the audience would stroll about while listening to the music. The term derives from the French se promener, "to walk". Today, the term promenade concert is associated with the Proms summer classical music concert series founded in 1895 by Robert Newman and the conductor Henry Wood. Pleasure gardens, which levied a small entrance fee and provided a variety of entertainment, had become popular in London by the eighteenth century. Music was provided from bandstands or more permanent buildings, was of the popular variety: ballroom dances, cornet solos etc. Other entertainments would have included fireworks and acrobatics. There were 38 gardens; the most famous of these were Vauxhall Gardens, south of the Thames. Known at first as New Spring Gardens this was the favourite haunt of diarists Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn; the music of Handel was popular here in the eighteenth century, in 1738 there was a statue erected of Handel playing the lyre.
The Gardens were described as fashionable in the late 18th and early 19th century by Fanny Burney and William Thackeray. Aristocracy and royalty mingled with the ordinary folk. On 21 April 1749 twelve thousand people paid 2s 6d each to hear Handel rehearsing his Music for the Royal Fireworks in Vauxhall Gardens, causing a three-hour traffic jam on London Bridge; the music had been commissioned by the king in celebration of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The performance six days in Green Park was more spectacular when the building caught fire; the composer Dr Thomas Arne was appointed composer of Vauxhall Gardens in 1745. It was here; the musicians were housed in a covered building. In the nineteenth century Sir Henry Bishop was the official composer to the Gardens. Many of his songs, which include Home! Sweet Home!, were performed there. Vauxhall Gardens remained a national institution until 1859. Another prestige venue for promenade concerts was Ranelagh Gardens. Here both musicians and audience were under cover in a gigantic Georgian rotunda which can be seen in a painting of Canaletto in the National Gallery.
It was here that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart performed on the harpsichord and organ as a child prodigy in 1764. Joseph Haydn, appeared here during his visits to London; the term "promenade concert" seems to have been first used in England in 1838 when London’s Lyceum Theatre announced ‘Promenade Concerts à la Musard’. Philippe Musard was a French musician who had introduced open-air concerts in the English style in Paris. Musard came to England in 1840 to conduct concerts in the Lyceum Theatre, his programmes consisted of overtures, popular instrumental solos and quadrilles. The success of these concerts led to further musical promenade concerts, both in London and other places including Bath and Birmingham; the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand gave a series of concerts with the band of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane under the direction of Henri Valentino. In 1840 Edward Eliason, leader of the orchestra of Drury Lane Theatre, started a series of Concerts d’été with an orchestra of nearly a hundred players.
Soon there was a series of ‘’Concerts d’hiver’’ under Louis Antoine Jullien. Jullien was a sound musician whose performances were combined with outrageous showmanship: Beethoven was conducted with a jewelled baton. With his extravagant clothing and long black hair and moustache he would go through a series of antics including having his white kid gloves brought to him on a silver salver, he conducted with his back to the orchestra in order to face his audience, his orchestra were joined by the bands of the Royal Artillery or drummers from the French Garde Nationale. He died in a lunatic asylum. Jullian was succeeded by the English conductor Alfred Mellon, Luigi Arditi. Another notable conductor was August Manns, associated with the Saturday concerts at London’s Crystal Palace, the enormous glass building which housed the Great Exhibition in 1851; the pleasure gardens were the chief institutions for the performance of music by English composers. Songs and vocal pieces were composed for them. Strophic ballads were the staple diet.
The songs were on pastoral subjects, or drinking songs, hunting songs or songs on morbid subjects. Two famous songs written for the gardens were Arne's Shakespeare setting Where the bee sucks, Charles Edward Horn's setting of Herrick’s Cherry Ripe. Opera started to influence the style of music, larger concerted pieces would be heard. Choruses from Handel's oratorios were included. Instrumental music included the popular concerto. Organ music was played between the acts of ballad operas. In the late 19th century concerts under August Manns explored works by well-known composers: Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Wagner. London audiences were starting to become more exploratory. In 1895 Henry Wood began the series of promenade concerts. From the middle of the 20th century, open-air summer concerts at English country houses have revived the original tradition of the London pleasure gardens. David Cox: The Henry Wood Proms.
Daily Herald (United Kingdom)
The Daily Herald was a British daily newspaper, published in London from 1912 to 1964. It was supported the Labour Party, it underwent several changes of management before ceasing publication in 1964, when it was relaunched as The Sun, in its pre-Murdoch form. In December 1910 the printers' union, the London Society of Compositors, became engaged in an industrial struggle to establish a 48-hour week and started a daily strike bulletin called The World. Will Dyson, an Australian artist in London, contributed a cartoon. From 25 January 1911 it was renamed the Daily Herald and was published until the end of the strike in April 1911. At its peak it had daily sales of 25,000. Ben Tillett, the dockers' leader, other radical trade unionists were inspired to raise funds for a permanent labour movement daily, to compete with the newspapers that championed the two main political parties, the Liberals and Conservatives, but independent of the official Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress, which were planning a daily of their own.
The initial organising group included Tillett, T. E. Naylor of the LSC, George Lansbury, socialist politician, Robert Williams of the Transport Workers, W. N. Ewer and Francis Meynell. Retaining the strike sheet name they formed a Daily Herald company. Readers and supporters formed local branches of the Daily Herald League, through which they had their say in the running of the paper; the first issue appeared on 15 April 1912. A key feature was Dyson's cartoons, its politics were broadly syndicalist: it gave unconditional support to strikers and argued for a socialist revolution based on workers' self-organisation in trade unions. It gave strong support to suffragettes and to anti-colonial struggles in Ireland. Early issues dealt with the loss of the RMS Titanic, emphasising the disproportionate loss of life among crew members and poor third-class passengers, demonstrating the distinct perspective of the new paper. Staff writers included Langdon Everard and George Slocombe. G. K. Chesterton was a frequent contributor.
His brother Cecil and Hilaire Belloc were occasional contributors. After Seed was removed as editor, Rowland Kenney, C. Sheridan Jones and Charles Lapworth held the position. In June 1913, the Daily Herald company was forced into liquidation. Lansbury and Lapworth formed the Limit Printing and Publishing Company; the shortfall in production costs was guaranteed by wealthy friends of Lansbury, Francis Meynell joined the board as their representative. From December 1912 until August 1914 one of the main financial supporters was H. D. Harben a founder of the New Statesman. From this point the members of the Daily Herald League had no formal influence on the paper. In late 1913, Lapworth was asked by the other two board members to resign as editor. Lansbury and the paper's financial backers were disturbed by Lapworth and other writers’ attacks on individuals, both in the establishment and the labour movement. "Hatred of conditions by all means, but not of persons" was. The aftermath was aired in the letter pages of The New Age between December 1913 and April 1914.
The new paper struggled financially but somehow survived, with Lansbury playing an ever-increasing role in keeping it afloat. Under Lansbury, the Herald took an eclectic but relentlessly militant political position and achieved sales of 50,000–150,000 a day, but war in August 1914 – or rather the subsequent split on the left whether to support or oppose the war – radically reduced its constituency. Lansbury and his colleagues, core of the anti-war left, decided to go weekly; the paper played a key role in the campaign against the war for the next four years. It supported conscientious objectors. There were notable journalistic scoops, most famously its story in 1917 on "How they starve at the Ritz", an exposé of conspicuous consumption by the rich at a time of national hardship that panicked the government into food-rationing; the Herald resumed daily publication in 1919, again played a role propagandising for strikes and against armed intervention in Russia amid the social turmoil of 1919–21.
When the radical wave subsided, the Herald found itself broke and unable to continue as an independent left daily. Lansbury handed over the paper to the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party in 1922; the newspaper had begun to publish the Bobby Bear cartoon strip in 1919. In August 1920 Lev Kamenev, a Bolshevik diplomat visiting London on official business, sent a telegram addressed to Lenin in Moscow, intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence; the telegram stated that Kamenev had paid £40,000.00 to the Daily Herald, a further payment of £10,000.00 would be made shortly. Historical copies of the Daily Herald are available to search and view in digitised form at the British Newspaper Archive; the Herald was official organ of the Trade Union Congress from 1922, during which point the fledgling Labour Party brought in Hamilton Fyfe who recruited prestigious journalists such as Douglas Cole and Evelyn Sharp who were supportive of socialism. He left in 1926 over disputes regarding what to publish, at which point Frederic Salusbury was appointed interim editor-in-chief.
Previous to Fyfe's resignation, Salusbury had served as an editor at the Daily Express during which
Paul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader, orchestral director, violist. As the leader of one of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s and early 1930s, Whiteman produced recordings that were immensely successful, press notices referred to him as the "King of Jazz"; some of his most popular recordings included "Whispering", "Valencia", "Three O'Clock In The Morning", "In A Little Spanish Town", "Parade Of The Wooden Soldiers", "Wang Wang Blues". Paul Whiteman led a large ensemble and explored many styles of music, such as blending symphonic music and jazz, as in his debut of Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin. Whiteman recorded many jazz and pop standards during his career, including "Wang Wang Blues", "Mississippi Mud", "Rhapsody in Blue", "Wonderful One", "Hot Lips", "Mississippi Suite", "Grand Canyon Suite", "Trav'lin' Light", he co-wrote the 1925 jazz classic "Flamin' Mamie". His popularity faded in the swing music era of the mid-1930s, by the 1940s he was semi-retired from music.
He experienced a revival and had a comeback in the 1950s with his own network television series, Paul Whiteman's Goodyear Revue, which ran for three seasons. He hosted the 1954 ABC talent contest show On the Boardwalk with Paul Whiteman. Whiteman's place in the history of early jazz is somewhat controversial. Detractors suggest that his ornately orchestrated music was jazz in name only, lacking the genre's improvisational and emotional depth, co-opted the innovations of black musicians. Defenders note, he worked with black musicians. His bands included many of the era's most esteemed white musicians, his groups handled jazz admirably as part of a larger repertoire. Critic Scott Yanow declares that Whiteman's orchestra "did play good jazz... His superior dance band used some of the most technically skilled musicians of the era in a versatile show that included everything from pop tunes and waltzes to semi-classical works and jazz. Many of his recordings have been reissued numerous times and are more rewarding than his detractors would lead one to believe."In his autobiography, Duke Ellington declared, "Paul Whiteman was known as the King of Jazz, no one as yet has come near carrying that title with more certainty and dignity.
Whiteman was born in Colorado. He came from a musical family: his father, Wilburforce James Whiteman was the supervisor of music for the Denver Public Schools, a position he held for fifty years, and his mother Elfrida was a former opera singer. His father insisted that Paul learn an instrument, preferably the violin, but the young man chose the viola.. According to Chris Popa, Whiteman was Protestant and of Scottish, Irish and Dutch ancestry, although he is listed as Jewish in an interview with Michael Lasser. Whiteman's skill at the viola resulted in a place in the Denver Symphony Orchestra by 1907, joining the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1914. In 1918, Whiteman conducted a 12-piece U. S. Navy band, the Mare Island Naval Training Camp Symphony Orchestra. After the war, he formed the Paul Whiteman Orchestra; that year he led a popular dance band in the city. In 1920 he moved with his band to New York City where they began recording for the Victor Talking Machine Company; the popularity of these records led to national fame.
In his first five recordings sessions for Victor, August 9 – October 28, 1920, he used the name "Paul Whiteman and His Ambassador Orchestra" because he had been playing at the Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City. From November 3, 1920, he started using "Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra."Whiteman became the most popular band director of that decade. In a time when most dance bands consisted of six to ten men, Whiteman directed a more imposing group that reached of up to 35 musicians. By 1922, Whiteman controlled some 28 ensembles on the East Coast and was earning over a $1,000,000 a year. In 1927 the Whiteman orchestra backed Hoagy Carmichael singing and playing on a recording of "Washboard Blues". Whiteman signed with Columbia Records in May 1928, leaving the label in September 1930 when he refused a pay cut, he returned to RCA Victor between September 1931 and March 1937. In the 1920s the media referred to Whiteman as "The King of Jazz". Whiteman emphasized the way he approached the well-established style of jazz music, while organizing its composition and style in his own fashion.
While most jazz musicians and fans consider improvisation to be essential to the musical style, Whiteman thought the genre could be improved by orchestrating the best of it, with formal written arrangements. Eddie Condon criticized him for trying to "make a lady" out of jazz. Whiteman's recordings were popular critically and commercially, his style of jazz was the first jazz of any form that many Americans heard during the era. Whiteman wrote more than 3000 arrangements. For more than 30 years Whiteman, referred to as "Pops", sought and encouraged promising musicians, composers and entertainers. In 1924 he commissioned George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, premiered by his orchestra with the composer at the piano. Another familiar piece in Whiteman's repertoire was Grand Canyon Suite by Ferde Grofé. Whiteman hired many of the best jazz musicians for his band, including Bix Beiderbecke, Frankie Trumbauer, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Steve Brown, Mike Pingitore, Gussie Mueller, Wilbur Hall, Jack Teagarden, Bunny Berigan.
He encouraged upcoming African American musical talents and planned to hire black musicians, but his mana
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester in North West England. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th century, introducing a wool and cotton-weaving tradition; the urbanisation and development of the town coincided with the introduction of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. Bolton was a 19th-century boomtown, at its zenith in 1929 its 216 cotton mills and 26 bleaching and dyeing works made it one of the largest and most productive centres of cotton spinning in the world; the British cotton industry declined after the First World War, by the 1980s cotton manufacture had ceased in Bolton. Close to the West Pennine Moors, Bolton is 10 miles northwest of Manchester, it is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages that together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the administrative centre. The town of Bolton has a population of 139,403, whilst the wider metropolitan borough has a population of 262,400.
Part of Lancashire, Bolton originated as a small settlement in the moorland known as Bolton le Moors. In the English Civil War, the town was a Parliamentarian outpost in a staunchly Royalist region, as a result was stormed by 3,000 Royalist troops led by Prince Rupert of the Rhine in 1644. In what became known as the Bolton Massacre, 1,600 residents were killed and 700 were taken prisoner. Bolton Wanderers football club play home games at the University of Bolton Stadium and the WBA World light-welterweight champion Amir Khan was born in the town. Cultural interests include the Octagon Theatre and the Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, as well as one of the earliest public libraries established after the Public Libraries Act 1850. Bolton is a common Northern English name derived from the Old English bothl-tun, meaning a settlement with a dwelling; the first recorded use of the name, in the form Boelton, dates from 1185 to describe Bolton le Moors, though this may not be in relation to a dwelling.
It was recorded as Bothelton in 1212, Botelton in 1257, Boulton in 1288, Bolton after 1307. Forms of Botheltun were Bodeltown, Botheltun-le-Moors, Boltune, Bolton-super-Moras, Bolton-in-ye-Moors, Bolton-le-Moors; the town's motto of Supera Moras means "overcome difficulties", is a pun on the Bolton-super-Moras version of the name meaning "Bolton on the moors". The name itself is referred to in the badge of the Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council using a form of visual pun, a rebus, in combining motifs of arrow for'bolt' and heraldic crown for'tun', the term for the central high point of a defensive position, the etymon of the suffix of Bolton. There is evidence of human existence on the moors around Bolton since the early part of the Bronze Age, including a stone circle on Cheetham Close above Egerton, Bronze Age burial mounds on Winter Hill. A Bronze Age mound was excavated in Victorian times outside Haulgh Hall; the Romans built roads from Manchester to Ribchester to the east and a road along what is now the A6 to the west.
It is claimed. Evidence of a Saxon settlement exists in the form of religious objects found when the Victorian parish church was built. In 1067 Great Bolton was the property of Roger de Meresheys, it became the property of the Pilkingtons who forfeited it in the Civil War and after that the Stanleys who became Earls of Derby. Great Bolton and Little Bolton were part of the Marsey fee, in 1212 Little Bolton was held by Roger de Bolton as plough-land, by the service of the twelfth part of a knight's fee to Randle de Marsey; the parish church in Bolton has an early foundation. A charter to hold a market in Churchgate was granted on 14 December 1251 by King Henry III of England. Bolton became a market town and borough by a charter from the Earl of Derby, William de Ferrers, on 14 January 1253, a market was held until the 18th century. Burgage plots were laid out on Churchgate and Deansgate in the centre of the medieval town close to where Ye Olde Man & Scythe public house, dating from 1251, is situated today.
In 1337 Flemish weavers introduced the manufacture of woollen cloth. More Flemish weavers, fleeing the Huguenot persecutions, settled here in the 17th century; the second wave of settlers wove fustian, a rough cloth made of cotton. Digging sea coal was recorded in 1374. There was an outbreak of the plague in the town in 1623. During the English Civil War, the people of Bolton were Puritans and supported the Parliamentarian cause. A parliamentary garrison in the town was attacked twice without success but on 28 May 1644 Prince Rupert's Royalist army with troops under the command of the Earl of Derby attacked again; the attack became known as the Bolton Massacre in which 1,500 died, 700 were taken prisoner and the town plundered. The attackers took to referring to the town as the "Geneva of the North", referencing Geneva's dominant Calvinism, although historian Malcolm Hardman says this was a description borne "more of irritation than accuracy". At the end of the Civil War, Lord Derby was condemned to death.
When his appeal for pardon to parliament was rejected he attempted to escape but was recaptured and executed for his part in the massacre outside Ye Olde Man & Scythe Inn on 15 October 1651. A tradition of cottage spinning and weaving and improvements to spinning technology by local inventors, Richard Arkwright and Samuel Crompton, led to rapid growth of the textile industry in the 19t
