New Year is the time or day at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner and the 1st day of January is marked as a national holiday. In the Gregorian calendar, the most used calendar system today, New Year occurs on January 1; this was the first day of the year in the original Julian calendar and of the Roman calendar.. During the Middle Ages in western Europe, while the Julian calendar was still in use, authorities moved New Year's Day, depending upon locale, to one of several other days, including March 1, March 25, September 1, December 25. Beginning in 1582, the adoptions of the Gregorian calendar has meant that many national or local dates in the Western World and beyond have changed to using one fixed date for New Year's Day, January 1. Other cultures observe their traditional or religious New Years Day according to their own customs, sometimes in addition to a civil calendar. Chinese New Year, the Islamic New Year, the traditional Japanese New Year and the Jewish New Year are the more well-known examples.

India and other countries continue to celebrate New Year on different dates. January 1: The first day of the civil year in the Gregorian calendar used by most countries. Contrary to common belief in the west, the civil New Year of January 1 is not an Orthodox Christian religious holiday; the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar makes no provision for the observance of a New Year. January 1 is itself a religious holiday, but, because it is the feast of the circumcision of Christ, a commemoration of saints. While the liturgical calendar begins September 1, there is no particular religious observance attached to the start of the new cycle. Orthodox nations may, make civil celebrations for the New Year; those that adhere to the revised Julian calendar, including Bulgaria, Egypt, Romania and Turkey, observe both the religious and civil holidays on January 1. In other nations and locations where Orthodox churches still adhere to the Julian calendar, including Georgia, Russia, the Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Ukraine, the civil new year is observed on January 1 of the civil calendar, while those same religious feasts occur on January 14 Gregorian, in accord with the liturgical calendar.

The Japanese New Year is celebrated on January 1st, with the holiday being observed until the 3rd, while other sources say that Shōgatsu lasts until January 6th. In 1873, five years after the Meiji Restoration, Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar; the Sámi celebrated Ođđajagemánnu. The Chinese New Year known as the Lunar New Year, occurs every year on the new moon of the first lunar month, about the beginning of spring; the exact date can fall February 21 of the Gregorian Calendar. Traditionally, years were marked by one of twelve Earthly Branches, represented by an animal, one of ten Heavenly Stems, which correspond to the five elements; this combination cycles every 60 years. It is the most important Chinese celebration of the year; the Korean New Year is a Lunar New Year's Day. Although January 1 is, in fact, the first day of the year, the first day of the lunar calendar, is more meaningful for Koreans. A celebration of the Lunar New Year is believed to have started to let in good luck and ward off bad spirits all throughout the year.

With the old year out and a new one in, people gather at home and sit around with their families and relatives, catching up on what they have been doing. The Vietnamese New Year is the Tết Nguyên Đán which most times is the same day as the Chinese New Year due to the Vietnamese using a lunar Calendar similar to the Chinese calendar; the Tibetian New Year falls between January and March. Babylonian New Year began with the first New Moon after the Northward equinox. Ancient celebrations lasted for eleven days. Nava Varsha is celebrated in India in various regions from March-April; the Iranian New Year, called Nowruz, is the day containing the exact moment of the Northward equinox, which occurs on March 20 or 21, marking the start of the spring season. The Zoroastrian New Year coincides with the Iranian New Year of Nowruz and is celebrated by the Parsis in India and by Zoroastrians and Persians across the world. In the Bahá'í calendar, the new year occurs on the vernal equinox on March 20 or 21 and is called Naw-Rúz.

The Iranian tradition was passed on to Central Asian countries, including Kazakhs and Uighurs, there is known as Nauryz. It is celebrated on March 22; the Balinese New Year, based on the Saka Calendar, is called Nyepi, it falls on Bali's Lunar New Year. It is a day of silence and meditation: observed from 6 AM until 6 AM the next morning, Nyepi is a day reserved for self-reflection and as such, anything that might interfere with that purpose is restricted. Although Nyepi is a Hindu holiday, non-Hindu residents of Bali observe the day of silence as well, out of respect for their fellow citizens. Tourists are not exempt; the only exceptions granted are for emergency vehicles carrying those with life-threatening conditions and women about to give birth. The Javanese people celebrate their Satu Suro on this day. Ugadi.

A botanical garden or botanic garden is a garden dedicated to the collection, cultivation and display of a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names. It may contain specialist plant collections such as cacti and other succulent plants, herb gardens, plants from particular parts of the world, so on. Visitor services at a botanical garden might include tours, educational displays, art exhibitions, book rooms, open-air theatrical and musical performances, other entertainment. Botanical gardens are run by universities or other scientific research organizations, have associated herbaria and research programmes in plant taxonomy or some other aspect of botanical science. In principle, their role is to maintain documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation and education, although this will depend on the resources available and the special interests pursued at each particular garden; the origin of modern botanical gardens is traced to the appointment of professors of botany to the medical faculties of universities in 16th century Renaissance Italy, which entailed the curation of a medicinal garden.

However, the objectives and audience of today's botanic gardens more resembles that of the grandiose gardens of antiquity and the educational garden of Theophrastus in the Lyceum of ancient Athens. The early concern with medicinal plants changed in the 17th century to an interest in the new plant imports from explorations outside Europe as botany established its independence from medicine. In the 18th century, systems of nomenclature and classification were devised by botanists working in the herbaria and universities associated with the gardens, these systems being displayed in the gardens as educational "order beds". With the rapid rise of European imperialism in the late 18th century, botanic gardens were established in the tropics, economic botany became a focus with the hub at the Royal Botanic Gardens, near London. Over the years, botanical gardens, as cultural and scientific organisations, have responded to the interests of botany and horticulture. Nowadays, most botanical gardens display.

The role of major botanical gardens worldwide has been considered so broadly similar as to fall within textbook definitions. The following definition was produced by staff of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium of Cornell University in 1976, it covers in some detail the many functions and activities associated with botanical gardens: A botanical garden is a controlled and staffed institution for the maintenance of a living collection of plants under scientific management for purposes of education and research, together with such libraries, herbaria and museums as are essential to its particular undertakings. Each botanical garden develops its own special fields of interests depending on its personnel, extent, available funds, the terms of its charter, it may include greenhouses, test grounds, an herbarium, an arboretum, other departments. It maintains a scientific as well as a plant-growing staff, publication is one of its major modes of expression; this broad outline is expanded: The botanic garden may be an independent institution, a governmental operation, or affiliated to a college or university.

If a department of an educational institution, it may be related to a teaching program. In any case, it is not to be restricted or diverted by other demands, it is not a landscaped or ornamental garden, although it may be artistic, nor is it an experiment station or yet a park with labels on the plants. The essential element is the intention of the enterprise, the acquisition and dissemination of botanical knowledge. A contemporary botanic garden is a protected natural urban green area, where a managing organization creates landscaped gardens and holds documented collections of living plants and/or preserved plant accessions containing functional units of heredity of actual or potential value for purposes such as scientific research, public display, sustainable use and recreational activities, production of marketable plant-based products and services for improvement of human well-being; the "New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening" points out that among the various kinds of organisations now known as botanical gardens are many public gardens with little scientific activity, it cites a more abbreviated definition, published by the World Wildlife Fund and IUCN when launching the ’'Botanic Gardens Conservation Strategy'’ in 1989: "A botanic garden is a garden containing scientifically ordered and maintained collections of plants documented and labelled, open to the public for the purposes of recreation and research."

This has been further reduced by Botanic Gardens Conservation International to the following definition which "encompasses the spirit of a true botanic garden": "A botanic garden is an institution holding documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation and education." Worldwide, there are now about 1800 botanical gardens and arboreta in about 150 countries of which about 550 are in Europe, 2

Willis' Magazine is an 18th-century large magazine in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The magazine sits on a plateau with several artillery batteries; this magazine is said to be the "largest of its type" remaining anywhere in the world. It has been in a derelict state for decades; the general layout consisting of four large magazine chambers surrounded by a two level lighting corridor. This would have provided light through windows along the walls whilst preventing any naked flame from oil lamps from getting near to the magazine's gunpowder; the magazine sits on Willis's Plateau, a historic place for the placement of Gibraltar's northern defences. The batteries include Princess Anne's Battery, Princess Amelia's Battery and Princess Royal's Battery and behinds these are the start of the World War Two Tunnels of Gibraltar; the magazine is named for Captain Willis who made such a contribution in the Twelfth Siege of Gibraltar in 1704-5 that this magazine was named for him. He gave his name to Willis' Road, Willis' Battery, Willis' Cave and Guard.

This article contains text from Discover-Gibraltar.com

Youth for Multilateral Disarmament was a campaigning organisation set up by the National Young Conservatives to counter Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament activities with young voters. The National Chairman of the Young Conservatives, Iain Picton, tasked Vice Chairman, Phil Pedley with the creation of a front organisation to highlight the perceived naivety of unilateral disarmament given the hostile nature of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact; the campaign included support for the siting of cruise missiles in the UK to counter Soviet SS 20 missiles. In the 1980s, CND enjoyed a significant revival; the deployment of SS20s in the Soviet Bloc countries led to a counter positioning of American Cruise Pershing II missiles in Western Europe, including Britain which led to a huge growth in CND membership. Pedley liaised with John Nott, Minister of Defence and Nott's PPS, David Hunt MP to agree the scope and nature of the organisation which included monitoring CND activity across the country, the training of anti-CND activists and the production of anti-CND material.

Pedley informed the Young Conservative National Advisory Committee. "I have assured John Nott MP, that the YC's will discuss the matter with him, that any YC campaign will be thought out and he will be kept informed of our activities throughout the year". Picton and Pedley moved to counter Youth CND activity in Young Conservative Branches; the CND Magazine Sanity, claimed. CND has been invited to dozens of Young Tory meetings in London and the South East, at least one Young Tory branch has donated funds to CND's limited funds". Pedley arranged for the offending YC branch to be closed down. Sanity quoted Pedley as admitting some YC's supported CND but, "there are none on the National Executive". Pedley became the first Director/Chairman of YMD with Mark Worrall acting as the General Secretary; when Pedley succeeded Picton as National YC Chairman, he appointed Nick Robinson as Director/Chairman as his successor at YMD. The address was given as 1a Whitehall Place London SW1 National YC Report 1982–83.

YMD produced a range of stickers and leaflets highlighting the risk of unilateral disarmament. Materials included: A comprehensive range of information to assist speakers debating at public meetings or appearing on media outlets. Written by Pedley and revamped by Robinson in 1985. A 1985 poster highlighting the perceived dangers of appeasement and featuring concentration camp victims. A leaflet warning that unilateral disarmament would give the Soviet Union a military advantage and leave liberal democracies weakened and unable to resist encroachment; the re-election of a Conservative government in 1983, threw the CND on the defensive and the defeat of left-wing parties in continental Europe "made the deployment of Cruise missiles inevitable and the movement again began to lose steam"

The Newton Abbot power station was a power station built in 1898 at Jetty Marsh, Newton Abbot as a small station to serve the local community. It was subsequently expanded, changed from direct current to alternating current when bought by the Torquay corporation in the 1920s to provide power across a wider area towards the coast, it reached its peak capacity of 52.5 megawatts in 1948 - the same year that it was nationalised in to the South Western Electricity Board. The station was used less from the mid 1960s as more efficient plant was used via the national grid, it was closed in 1974 with demolition following shortly after; the site is now a housing estate. From the late 1890s, both Newton Abbot and Torquay developed their own electricity generating capacity to serve the local areas; the Newton Abbot Electricity Generating Station was established with all direct current supply, being used for industrial loads. The site was located at Jetty Marsh, adjacent to the Moretonhampstead and South Devon Railway branch of the Great Western Railway, between the River Teign and River Lemon.

This allowed the station to receive coal deliveries both by rail, by barge at the jetty. The power station drew water from the Teign, before discharging it again in the Lemon. In the 1920s, the Torquay Corporation acquired the Newton Abbot power station, built a new station to replace their aging unit at Beacon Quay on Torquay seafront; the new station, serving both Newton Abbot and Torquay, was opened in 1924, was continually expanded until the last major investment in 1948. During the development of the high pressure section of the power station in 1940 a single, large cooling tower was built to satisfy the condenser demands or the new boilers, this was a dominant feature of the Newton Abbot Skyline. In 1948, electricity supply was nationalised, the station became the responsibility of the South Western Electricity Board. Once connected to the national grid, it was a smaller and less efficient station, usage declined, including long periods of'cold' shutdown. In 1972 the output from the station was 27.106 GWh, the load as a percentage of the output capacity was 8.8 per cent.

The station was closed in 1974, demolished shortly after. A Bellis and Morcom steam generating engine was preserved and survives at Poldark Mine museum in Cornwall where it has been since 1972. Of the triple expansion type its believed to date from 1920

The United States Professional Tennis Association is an organization which offers certification and professional development for professional tennis teachers and tennis coaches. The organization has 13,500 members in the United States, promotes excellence in the tennis industry; the on-court component of the certification exam, offered at various locations across the U. S. requires players to demonstrate proper grip and the ability to hit to specific areas of the court with each stroke. The organization's newsletter, USPTA ADDvantage, offers news, professional development materials, video for coaches and teaching professionals. Since 2006, USPTA has partnered with ThanksUSA for "Tennis Thanks the Troops" to raise money for tennis scholarships for US military family members. United States Tennis Association American Tennis Association United States Professional Tennis Association