The King Baudouin Stadium is a sports ground in north-west Brussels, Belgium. It was inaugurated on 23 August 1930. Crown Prince Leopold attended the opening ceremony. Located in the Heysel section of the Brussels municipality, it was built to embellish the Heysel plateau in view of the 1935 Brussels International Exposition; the stadium hosted 70,000 at the time. A wooden track for cycling races was added around the pitch; the original name was Jubilee Stadium because it was inaugurated days after Belgium's 100th anniversary, with an unofficial Belgium-Netherlands football match. In 1946 the stadium was renamed Heysel Stadium, it hosted European Cup finals in 1958, 1966, 1974, 1985 and Cup Winners' Cup finals in 1964, 1976 and 1980. The highest attendance at a European game was over 66,000 in 1958. Despite its status as Belgium's national stadium, Heysel was not well maintained; the stadium's poor condition manifested itself at the 1985 European Cup Final, it was in a poor state. For example, the outer wall had been made of cinder block, fans who did not have tickets were seen kicking holes in it to get in.

Additionally, the only escape route led upward, there were only three gates on each short side, nowhere near enough for the 22,000 standing places on each side. The stadium's inadequacies had been well known for some time; when Arsenal played there in the early 1980s, its supporters ridiculed it as a "dump." Indeed, the presidents of the two 1985 European finalists and Liverpool, had concluded that Heysel was in no condition to host a European Final. They urged UEFA to move the match to no avail, it emerged that UEFA had only spent half an hour inspecting the stadium. The Heysel Stadium disaster resulted in the deaths of 39 Juventus spectators after they were attacked by Liverpool fans before the match. Following the disaster, the ground was only used for athletics and it still hosts the Memorial Van Damme every year. In 1995, a decade after the disaster, the ground was rebuilt at a cost of BEF 1,500 million, at this time renamed King Baudouin Stadium, after the Belgian monarch who had died two years previously.

All that remains of the old stadium is a renovated gateway near the main entrance. The new structure combined the football ground with facilities for field events, it was re-opened on 23 August 1995 as the home of the Belgium national football team and is the largest stadium in Belgium. The remodeled stadium hosted the 1996 European Cup Winners Cup final, as well as the opening game for Euro 2000. On 26 May 2006, the Belgian Football Association decided not to use the King Baudouin Stadium anymore for the national team home matches and for the Cup final, because the gates of stand one were too narrow and the stadium was deemed unsafe; the next match of the national team was thus held at the Constant Vanden Stock Stadium. The city of Brussels complained that contrary to these claims the stadium was safe, this complaint was upheld in court. On 6 October 2006, the Belgian Football Association met with representatives of the city of Brussels and they agreed to renew the contract and extend it to 30 June 2008.

In March of 2019 the Belgian football association announced plans for a new redevelopment of the King Baudouin stadium. The stadium would be rebuilt to a reduced capacity of 40 000 spectators and renamed to the Golden Generation Arena with a prospective completion date of 2022. On 25 August 2007, Belgium played Argentina in rugby union as part of Argentina's 2007 Rugby World Cup preparations. Argentina defeated Belgium 36-8; the stadium was scheduled to witness a rugby union milestone on 19 December 2009, when the Parisian club Stade Français planned to take their Heineken Cup home match against Irish club Ulster to the stadium in a match that had sold more than 30,000 tickets. However, heavy snowfall in Brussels on the intended matchday forced the cancellation of what would have been the first Heineken Cup match held in Belgium; the stadium had another shot at hosting a Heineken Cup match in 2012. On 20 October 2012, English club Saracens took their Heineken Cup pool match against Racing Métro 92 to Brussels.

On 8 July 2010 the stadium played host to the Best of Belgium gala which featured a tennis match scheduled to be between Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters. Henin had to pull out and Serena Williams replaced her as the match was played in front of the largest crowd for a single match, beating the attendance set at the Battle of the Sexes. U2 performed at the stadium four times: the first one was on 10 June 2005 during their Vertigo Tour, in front of a sold out crowd of 60,299 people; the second and the third were on 22 and 23 September 2010 during their U2 360° Tour, in front of a total sold out crowd of 144,338 people. The performance of "Mercy" from the first 2010 show was recorded for the group's live EP Wide Awake in Europe; the performance of "I Will Follow" from the same show was recorded for the group's live album From the Ground Up: Edge's Picks from U2360°. Their fourth and last performance at the venue was on 1 August 2017 during their The Joshua Tree Tour 2017, in front of a sold out crowd of 51,951 people.

The Rolling Stones, Celine Dion, Mylène Farmer, Robbie Williams, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, One Direction, Johnny Hallyday and Coldplay have played concerts at the stadium. Metallica played a sold out concert at the stadium on June 16th 2019, an so did Rammstein on July 10th 2019. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the

The Cross Country Route is a long-distance rail route in the United Kingdom that has in its central part superseded the Midland Railway. It runs from Cornwall via Bristol, Derby and Leeds and the north east to Scotland, it facilitates some of the longest passenger journeys in the UK such as Aberdeen to Penzance. Summer services are provided to additional coastal stations such as Newquay; the line is classed as a high-speed line because its sections from Birmingham to Wakefield and from Leeds to York have a speed limit of 125 mph, though the section from Birmingham to Bristol is limited to 100 mph due to there being numerous level crossings half-barrier level crossings, the section from Wakefield to Leeds has the same limit owing to a number of curves. The Birmingham to Bristol section was built as the Birmingham and Gloucester and Bristol and Gloucester Railways before joining the Midland Railway, the southern forerunner to the cross-country route. From Birmingham to the north-northeast, the line had three separately owned sections, namely the: Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway to Derby, thence the North Midland Railway to Leeds, thence the York and North Midland Railway.

From the Labour Government's nationalisation in 1948 until privatisation in 1990 it ran through six regions of British Rail but had priority in none of them and therefore the services were poorly promoted and thus not always well-patronised. Most Derby-Nottingham local passenger trains were taken over by diesel units from 14 April 1958, taking about 34 minutes between the two cities. In the 1990s most services were operated by British Rail's InterCity business unit; as part of the privatisation of British Rail, these were taken over by Virgin CrossCountry in 1997 with the Class 47 hauled Mark 2 and High Speed Train sets replaced by Class 220 and Class 221 diesel multiple units in the early 2000s. The use of the route for freight has decreased, due to the bulk of haulage switching to roads and the building of the M5, M6 and M1 motorways. In the 1960s the route was considered for electrification. In the early 1980s, electrification was again discussed at length and documentation for various proposals was produced in 1981.

This would have been beneficial for climbing the Lickey Incline between Cheltenham and Birmingham, as many of the early diesels were under-powered. In 1977 the Parliamentary Select Committee on Nationalised Industries recommended considering electrification of more of Britain's rail network, by 1979 BR presented a range of options that included electrifying the cross-country route by 2000. Under the governments that succeeded the 1976–79 Labour government the proposal was not implemented; the route is well connected, aside from its own alignment it uses parts of the South Wales Main Line, Midland Main Line, Swinton–Doncaster line, the East Coast Main Line. Major cities and towns served along the route include: Bristol Cheltenham Birmingham Tamworth Derby Sheffield Leeds YorkNominal start-point at DerbyMilepost zero for the main predecessor Derby to Bristol route has always been Derby, hence a train travelling the whole route starts out going "up" becomes "down"; the Birmingham to Derby section of the route has a line speed of 125 mph, while Birmingham to Bristol is restricted to 100 mph due to a number of half-barrier level crossings.

The line is not electrified, but some sections are overhead electrified at 25 kV AC such as Bromsgrove to Grand Junction, with further electrified sections around Leeds and the East Coast Main Line near York. The section between Leeds and York is due to be electrified by 2022 with the electrification of the North TransPennine from Liverpool Lime Street to York via Manchester Piccadilly, as is the section between Westerleigh Junction and Bristol Temple Meads as part of the 21st-century modernisation of the Great Western main line. Network Rail stated in 2014 that the line between Derby and Sheffield would be electrified as part of the Midland Main Line upgrade. However, the electrification programme was cut back in July 2017. Most long distance services on the route are operated by Class 220/221 Voyagers, although a few services operate using High Speed Trains; these trains are capable of achieving 125 mph, compared to the previous Class 47s and Mk 2 coaching stock, which had a top speed of 95 mph.

Rail services in the West of England Transport in Wales Virgin CrossCountry CrossCountry Notes References

Minestrone is a thick soup of Italian origin made with vegetables with the addition of pasta or rice, sometimes both. Common ingredients include beans, celery, carrots and tomatoes. There is no set recipe for minestrone, since it can be made out of whatever vegetables one has, it can contain meat, or contain an animal bone-based stock. Angelo Pellegrini, argued that the base of minestrone is bean broth, that borlotti beans "are the beans to use for genuine minestrone"; some of the earliest origins of minestrone soup pre-date the expansion of the Latin tribes of Rome into what became the Roman Kingdom, when the local diet was "vegetarian by necessity" and consisted of vegetables, such as onions, cabbage, broad beans, carrots and turnips. During this time, the main dish of a meal would have been pulte, a simple but filling porridge of spelt flour cooked in salt water, to which whatever vegetables that were available would have been added, it was not until the 2nd century B. C. when Rome had conquered Italy and monopolized the commercial and road networks, that a huge diversity of products flooded the capital and began to change their diet, by association, the diet of Italy most notably with the more frequent inclusion of meats, including as a stock for soups.

Spelt flour was removed from soups, as bread had been introduced into the Roman diet by the Greeks, pulte became a meal for the poor. The ancient Romans recognized the health benefits of a simple or "frugal" diet and thick vegetable soups and vegetables remained a staple. Marcus Apicius's ancient cookbook De Re Coquinaria described polus, a Roman soup dating back to 30 AD made up of farro and fava beans, with onions, garlic and greens thrown in; as eating habits and ingredients changed in Italy, so did minestrone. Apicius updates the pulticulae with fancy trimmings such as cooked brains and wine; the introduction of tomatoes and potatoes from the Americas in the mid-16th century changed the soup by making available two ingredients which have since become staples. The tradition of not losing rural roots continues today, minestrone is now known in Italy as belonging to the style of cooking called "cucina povera" meaning dishes that have rustic, rural roots, as opposed to "cucina nobile" or the cooking style of the aristocracy and nobles.

The word minestrone, meaning a thick vegetable soup, is attested in English from 1871. It is from Italian minestrone, the augmentative form of minestra, "soup", or more "that, served", from minestrare, "to serve" and cognate with administer as in "to administer a remedy"; because of its unique origins and the absence of a fixed recipe, minestrone varies across Italy depending on traditional cooking times and season. Minestrone ranges from a thick and dense texture with boiled-down vegetables, to a more brothy soup with large quantities of diced and cooked vegetables. In modern Italian there are three words corresponding to the English word soup: zuppa, used in the sense of tomato soup, or fish soup. Minestrone alla Genovese is a variant typical of Liguria, which contains greater use of herbs, including pesto. Minestra is a variant from Malta, which prominently features kunserva, kohlrabi and sometimes spaghetti. Pasta e fagioli List of Italian soups List of legume dishes List of soups List of vegetable soups