Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. It was laid out in 1670 and is named after the contemporary Leicester House, itself named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester; the square was a gentrified residential area, with tenants including Frederick, Prince of Wales and the artists William Hogarth and Joshua Reynolds. It became more down-market in the late 18th century as Leicester House was demolished and retail developments took place, becoming a centre for entertainment. Several major theatres were built in the 19th century, which were converted to cinemas towards the middle of the next. Leicester Square holds a number of nationally significant cinemas such as the Odeon Leicester Square, Leicester Square, which are used for film premieres; the nearby Prince Charles Cinema is known for its screenings of cult films and marathon film runs. The square remains a tourist attraction, including for the Chinese New Year; the square has always had a park in its centre, Lammas land.

The park's fortunes have varied over the centuries, reaching near dilapidation in the mid-19th century after changing ownership several times. It was restored under the direction of Albert Grant, which included the construction of four new statues and a fountain of William Shakespeare; the square was extensively refurbished and remodelled for the 2012 London Olympics, at a cost of more than £15m taking over 17 months to complete. The square lies within an area bound to the north; the park at the centre of the Square is bound to the north. It is within the City of Westminster, north of Trafalgar Square, east of Piccadilly Circus, west of Covent Garden, south of Cambridge Circus; the nearest Underground station is Leicester Square, which opened in 1906. London bus routes 29 and 176 run on nearby Charing Cross Road. Leicester Square has been used as name for the immediate surrounding area corresponding with Coventry Street, Cranbourn Street, Charing Cross Road and St Martin's Street; this includes Bear Street, Hobhouse Court, Hunt's Court, Irving Street, Orange Street, Oxdendon Street, Panton Street, Trafalgar Square.

The land where Leicester Square now lies once belonged to the Abbot and Convent of Westminster Abbey and the Beaumont family. In 1536, Henry VIII took control of 3 acres of land around the square, with the remaining 4 acres being transferred to the king the following year; the square is named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, who purchased this land in 1630. By 1635, he had built himself Leicester House, at the northern end; the area in front of the house was enclosed, depriving inhabitants of St Martin in the Fields parish of their right to use the common land. The parishioners appealed to King Charles I, he appointed three members of the privy council to arbitrate. Lord Leicester was ordered to keep part of his land open for the parishioners; the square was developed in the 1670s. The area was entirely residential, with properties laid out in a similar style to nearby Pall Mall. In 1687, the northern part of the square became part of the new parish of Soho; the 7th Earl of Leicester took ownership of the property in 1728 and it was the residence of Frederick, Prince of Wales from 1742 until Leicester's death the following year.

The poet Matthew Prior lived at what is now No. 21 around 1700 and artist William Hogarth resided at No 30 between 1733 and 1764, where he produced some of his best known works including Gin Lane. The magistrate Thomas de Veil to found Bow Street Magistrates' Court, lived at No 40 between 1729 and 1737; the painter Joshua Reynolds lived at No 47 from 1760 until his death in 1792. At the end of the 17th century, Lord Leicester's heir, Philip Sidney, 3rd Earl of Leicester, permitted a small amount of retail development in booths along the front of Leicester House. A statue of King George I was built on the square in 1760 following the coronation of his great-grandson, George III; the square remained fashionable throughout most of the 18th century, with notable residents including the architect James Stuart at No 35 from 1766 to 1788 and the painter John Singleton Copley at No. 28 from 1776 to 1783. Leicester House was intermittently inhabited during the mid-18th century, was sold to the naturalist Ashton Lever in 1775.

Lever turned the house into a museum with a significant amount of natural history objects. In turn, the square began to serve as a venue for popular entertainments. Brothels began to appear around Leicester Square during the century, visitors could pay to watch the severed heads of traitors executed at Temple Bar through a telescope. Leicester House became, it was demolished in 1791–72 due to rising debts following the extinction of the Leicester peerage, replaced by Leicester Place. That in turn was converted into a church in 1865 and is now the

HMS G3 was a British G-class submarine built for the Royal Navy during World War I. The G-class submarines were designed by the Admiralty in response to a rumour that the Germans were building double-hulled submarines for overseas duties; the submarines had a length of 187 feet 1 inch overall, a beam of 22 feet 8 inches and a mean draft of 13 feet 4 inches. They displaced 703 long tons on the surface and 837 long tons submerged; the G-class submarines had a crew of other ranks. They had a partial double hull. For surface running, the boats were powered by two 800-brake-horsepower Vickers two-stroke diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft; when submerged each propeller was driven by a 420-horsepower electric motor. They could reach 14.25 knots on 9 knots underwater. On the surface, the G class had a range of 2,400 nautical miles at 16 knots; the boats were intended to be armed with one 21-inch torpedo tube in the bow and two 18-inch torpedo tubes on the beam. This was revised, while they were under construction, the 21-inch tube was moved to the stern and two additional 18-inch tubes were added in the bow.

They carried two 21-inch and eight 18-inch torpedoes. The G-class submarines were armed with a single 3-inch deck gun. Like the rest of her class, G3's role was to patrol an area of the North Sea in search of German U-boats. In December 1921 G3, out of commission, was being towed north to be broken up for scrap when she broke her tether and came ashore at Scalby Mills, north of Scarborough; the submarine broke free from the shore and drifted back out to sea. She drifted south running aground under Buckton cliffs in Filey Bay, bow first. A local man, John Webster bought the salvage rights to the vessel and the wreck was scrapped. Lumps of the hulk were lifted up the sheer cliffs using ropes and pulleys, the salvers using rope ladders for access; the remains of the wreck lie under the cliffs at Buckton including about 60 feet of the base of the hull, two diesel engines and their drive gear. Colledge, J. J.. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy. London: Chatham Publishing.

ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. Gardiner, Robert & Gray, eds.. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906–1921. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-85177-245-5. McCartney, Innes. British Submarines of World War I. New Vanguard. 145. Oxford, UK: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84603-334-6. History and description of wreck

The People's Party is a conservative, liberal-conservative, Christian-democratic political party in Spain. The People's Party was a 1989 re-foundation of People's Alliance, a party led by former minister of the dictatorship Manuel Fraga and founded back in 1976 as alliance of post-Francoist proto-parties; the new party combined the conservative AP with several small Christian democratic and liberal parties. In 2002, Manuel Fraga received the honorary title of "Founding Chairman"; the party's youth organization is New Generations of the People's Party of Spain. The PP is a member of the center-right European People's Party, in the European Parliament its 16 MEPs sit in the EPP Group; the PP is a member of the Centrist Democrat International and the International Democrat Union. The PP was one of the founding organizations of the Budapest-based Robert Schuman Institute for Developing Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. On 24 May 2018, the National Court found that the PP profited from the illegal kickbacks-for-contracts scheme of the Gürtel case, confirming the existence of an illegal accounting and financing structure that ran in parallel with the party's official one since the party's foundation in 1989 and ruling that the PP helped establish "a genuine and effective system of institutional corruption through the manipulation of central and local public procurement".

This prompted a no confidence vote on Mariano Rajoy's government, brought down on 1 June 2018 in the first successful motion since the Spanish transition to democracy. On 5 June 2018, Rajoy announced his resignation as PP leader; the party has its roots in the People's Alliance founded on 9 October 1976 by former Francoist minister Manuel Fraga. Although Fraga was a member of the reformist faction of the Franco regime, he supported an gradual transition to democracy. However, he badly underestimated the public's distaste for Francoism. Additionally, while he attempted to convey a reformist image, the large number of former Francoists in the party led the public to perceive it as both reactionary and authoritarian. In the June 1977 general election, the AP garnered only 8.3 percent of the vote, putting it in fourth place. In the months following the 1977 elections, dissent erupted within the AP over constitutional issues that arose as the draft document was being formulated. Fraga had wanted from the beginning to brand the party as a traditional European conservative party, wanted to move the AP toward the political centre in order to form a larger centre-right party.

Fraga's wing won the struggle. The AP joined with other moderate conservatives to form the Democratic Coalition, it was hoped that this new coalition would capture the support of those who had voted for the Union of the Democratic Centre in 1977, but who had become disenchanted with the Adolfo Suárez government. In the March 1979 general election, the CD received 6.1 percent of the vote, again finishing a distant fourth. At the AP's Second Party Congress in December 1979, party leaders re-assessed their involvement in the CD. Many felt that the creation of the coalition had confused the voters, they sought to emphasise the AP's independent identity. Fraga resumed control of the party, the political resolutions adopted by the party congress reaffirmed the conservative orientation of the AP. In the early 1980s, Fraga succeeded in rallying the various components of the right around his leadership, he was aided in his efforts to revive the AP by the increasing disintegration of the UCD. In the general elections held in October 1982, the AP gained votes both from previous UCD supporters and from the far right.

It became the major opposition party to the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, securing 25.4 percent of the popular vote. Whereas the AP's parliamentary representation had dropped to 9 seats in 1979, the party allied itself with the small Christian democratic People's Democratic Party and won 106 seats in 1982; the increased strength of the AP was further evidenced in the municipal and regional elections held in May 1983, when the party drew 26 percent of the vote. A significant portion of the electorate appeared to support the AP's emphasis on law and order as well as its pro-business policies. Subsequent political developments belied the party's aspirations to continue increasing its base of support. Prior to the June 1986 elections, the AP joined forces with the PDP and the Liberal Party to form the People's Coalition, in another attempt to expand its constituency to include the centre of the political spectrum; the coalition called for stronger measures against terrorism, for more privatisation, for a reduction in public spending and in taxes.

The CP failed to increase its share of the vote in the 1986 elections, it soon began to disintegrate. When regional elections in late 1986 resulted in further losses for the coalition, Fraga resigned as AP chairman, although he retained his parliamentary seat. At the party congress in February 1987, Antonio Hernández Mancha was chosen to head the AP, declaring that under his leadership the AP would become a "modern right-wing European party", but Hernández Mancha lacked political experience at the national level, the party continued to decline. When support for the AP plummeted in the municipal and regional elections held in June 1987, it was clear that it would be overtaken as major opposition party by Suarez's Democratic and Social Centre. After the resignation of Manuel Fraga and the successive victories o