1.
Order of the British Empire
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There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order. Recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire were at first made on the nomination of the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions of the Empire, nominations continue today from Commonwealth countries that participate in recommending British honours. Most members are citizens of the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth realms that use the Imperial system of honours and awards. Honorary knighthoods are appointed to citizens of nations where the Queen is not head of state, occasionally, honorary appointees are, incorrectly, referred to as Sir or Dame – Bill Gates or Bob Geldof, for example. In particular, King George V wished to create an Order to honour many thousands of those who had served in a variety of non-combatant roles during the First World War, when first established, the Order had only one division. However, in 1918, soon after its foundation, it was divided into Military. The Orders motto is For God and the Empire, at the foundation of the Order, the Medal of the Order of the British Empire was instituted, to serve as a lower award granting recipients affiliation but not membership. In 1922, this was renamed the British Empire Medal, in addition, the BEM is awarded by the Cook Islands and by some other Commonwealth nations. The British monarch is Sovereign of the Order, and appoints all members of the Order. The next most senior member is the Grand Master, of whom there have been three, Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales, Queen Mary, and the current Grand Master, the Duke of Edinburgh. The Order is limited to 300 Knights and Dames Grand Cross,845 Knights and Dames Commander, and 8,960 Commanders. There are no limits applied to the number of members of the fourth and fifth classes. Foreign recipients, as members, do not contribute to the numbers restricted to the Order as full members do. Though men can be knighted separately from an order of chivalry, women cannot, and so the rank of Knight/Dame Commander of the Order is the lowest rank of damehood, and second-lowest of knighthood. Because of this, Dame Commander is awarded in circumstances in which a man would be created a Knight Bachelor, for example, by convention, female judges of the High Court of Justice are created Dames Commander after appointment, while male judges become Knights Bachelor. The Order has six officials, the Prelate, the Dean, the Secretary, the Registrar, the King of Arms, the Bishop of London, a senior bishop in the Church of England, serves as the Orders Prelate. The Dean of St Pauls is ex officio the Dean of the Order, the Orders King of Arms is not a member of the College of Arms, as are many other heraldic officers. From time to time, individuals are appointed to a higher grade within the Order, thereby ceasing usage of the junior post-nominal letters
2.
Epsom
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Epsom is a market town in Surrey, England,13.6 miles south south-west of London, located between Ashtead and Ewell. The town straddles chalk downland and the upper Thanet Formation, Epsom Downs Racecourse holds The Derby, now a generic name for sports competitions in English-speaking countries. The town also gives its name to Epsom salts, extracted from mineral waters there, Epsom is the source of the Hogsmill River and includes the semi-rural Horton and Langley Vale. Epsom lies within the Copthorne Hundred used for periodic, strategic meetings of the wealthy and powerful in Anglo-Saxon England, the name of Epsom is early recorded as forms of Ebbas ham. Many Spring line settlements by springs in Anglo-Saxon England were founded at the foot of dry valleys such as here and Effingham, Bookham, Cheam, Sutton, Carshalton, Croydon, a relic from this period is a 7th-century brooch found in Epsom and now in the British Museum. Epsom appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Evesham, held by Chertsey Abbey. Its domesday assets were,11 hides,2 churches,2 mills worth 10 shillings,18 ploughs,24 acres of meadow, woodland worth 20 hogs, altogether it rendered £17 per year to its overlords. The town at the time of Domesday Book had 38 households, at various dates in the Middle Ages, manors were founded by subinfeudation at Epsom Court, Horton, Woodcote, Brettgrave and Langley Vale. Under Henry VIII and Queen Mary the manor passed to the Carew then related Darcy families and it passed via the Mynne, Buckle and Parkhurst families to Sir Charles Kemys Tynte and after his death to Sir Joseph Mawbey. By the end of the Georgian period, Epsom was known as a spa town, remnants of this are its water pump and multiple exhibits in the towns museum. There were entertainments at the Assembly Rooms, a green-buffered housing estate has now been built upon the wells in the south-west of the town. Epsom salts are named after the town, Epsom salt was originally prepared by boiling down mineral waters which sprung at Epsom. The towns market is built on the pond that existed in the Middle Ages, within the centuries-old boundaries is Epsom Downs Racecourse which features two of the five English Classic horse races, The Derby and The Oaks, which were first run in 1780 and 1779 respectively. On 4 June 1913, Emily Davison, a militant womens suffrage activist, stepped in front of King George Vs horse running in the Derby, sustaining fatal injuries. Lord Rosebery remained closely associated with the town throughout his life, leaving land to the borough, commemorated in the names of roads, Rosebery Park. A house was named after him at Epsom College, one of Britains public schools in Epsom. A bell was added in 1867, by 1902 the lions had been replaced by lanterns, and the toilet buildings added either side of the tower. The Epsom Playhouse was opened in 1984 and is run by Epsom, the Ashley Centre, a shopping mall, was built in the early 1980s and subsequently parts of the high street were pedestrianised as part of the construction of the towns one-way system
3.
Surrey
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Surrey is a county in the south east of England. It shares borders with Kent to the east, East Sussex to the south-east, West Sussex to the south, Hampshire to the west and south-west, Surrey County Council sits extraterritorially at Kingston upon Thames, administered as part of Greater London since 1965. With a resident population of 1.1 million, Surrey is the most densely populated and third most populated county in the South East region, after Kent, the London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Wandsworth, and parts of Lewisham and Bromley were in Surrey until 1889. The boroughs of Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Sutton and Richmond upon Thames south of the River Thames were part of Surrey until 1965, when they too were absorbed into Greater London. In the same year, the county was extended north of the Thames by the addition of Spelthorne, due to this expansion, modern Surrey also borders on the London boroughs of Hounslow and Hillingdon. It has the highest GDP per capita of any English county, Surrey is divided in two by the chalk ridge of the North Downs, running east-west. To the north of the Downs the land is mostly flat, the geology of this area is dominated by London Clay in the east, Bagshot Sands in the west and alluvial deposits along the rivers. Much of Surrey is in the Metropolitan Green Belt and it contains a good deal of mature woodland. Among its many notable beauty spots are Box Hill, Leith Hill, Frensham Ponds, Newlands Corner and Puttenham & Crooksbury Commons. Surrey is the most wooded county in England, with 22. 4% coverage compared to an average of 11. 8%. Box Hill has the oldest untouched area of woodland in the UK. Surrey also contains Englands principal concentration of lowland heath, on soils in the west of the county. Agriculture not being intensive, there are many commons and access lands, together with a network of footpaths and bridleways including the North Downs Way. Accordingly, Surrey provides much in the way of leisure activities. The highest elevation in Surrey is Leith Hill near Dorking and it is either 293,294 or 295 metres above sea level and is the second highest point in southeastern England after Walbury Hill 297 metres in West Berkshire. Surrey has a population of approximately 1.1 million people and its largest town is Guildford, with a population of 66,773, Woking comes a close second with 62,796. They are followed by Ewell with 39,994 people and Camberley with 30,155, towns of between 25,000 and 30,000 inhabitants are Ashford, Epsom, Farnham, Staines and Redhill. Guildford is the county town, although the county administration was moved to Newington in 1791
4.
Popular music
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Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training and it stands in contrast to both art music and traditional or folk music. Art music was historically disseminated through the performances of music, although since the beginning of the recording industry. Traditional music forms such as blues songs or hymns were passed along orally, or to smaller. The original application of the term is to music of the 1880s Tin Pan Alley period in the United States, although popular music sometimes is known as pop music, the two terms are not interchangeable. Popular music songs and pieces typically have easily singable melodies, in the 2000s, with songs and pieces available as digital sound files, it has become easier for music to spread from one country or region to another. Some popular music forms have become global, while others have an appeal within the culture of their origin. Through the mixture of genres, new popular music forms are created to reflect the ideals of a global culture. The examples of Africa, Indonesia and the Middle East show how Western pop music styles can blend with local traditions to create new hybrid styles. Sales of recordings or sheet music are one measure, middleton and Manuel note that this definition has problems because multiple listens or plays of the same song or piece are not counted. Manuel states that one criticism of music is that it is produced by large media conglomerates and passively consumed by the public. He claims that the listeners in the scenario would not have been able to make the choice of their favorite music, moreover, understandings of popular music have changed with time. A societys popular music reflects the ideals that are prevalent at the time it is performed or published, david Riesman states that the youth audiences of popular music fit into either a majority group or a subculture. The majority group listens to the commercially produced styles while the subcultures find a minority style to transmit their own values and this allows youth to choose what music they identify with, which gives them power as consumers to control the market of popular music. Form in popular music is most often sectional, the most common sections being verse, chorus or refrain, other common forms include thirty-two-bar form, chorus form *, and twelve-bar blues. Popular music songs are rarely composed using different music for each stanza of the lyrics, the verse and chorus are considered the primary elements. Each verse usually has the melody, but the lyrics change for most verses. The chorus usually has a phrase and a key lyrical line which is repeated
5.
Theatre music
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Theatre music refers to a wide range of music composed or adapted for performance in theatres. Genres of theatre music include opera, ballet and several forms of theatre, from pantomime to operetta and modern stage musicals. Another form of music is incidental music, which, as in radio, film. The physical embodiment of the music is called a score, which includes the music and, if there are lyrics, since the earliest days of the theatre, music has played an important part in stage drama. In Greek drama in the fifth century BC, choric odes were written to be chanted and danced between the sections of both tragedies and comedies. Only fragments of the music have survived, attempts to recreate the form for revivals from the Renaissance to modern times have branched in several directions. Composers from Andrea Gabrieli to Mendelssohn to Vaughan Williams have composed music for productions of plays by Sophocles, Aristophanes. Playwrights including Racine, Yeats and Brecht wrote original plays in styles derived from ancient drama, in late 16th century Florence, attempts to revive ancient Greek drama, with sung vocal contributions, developed into the modern genre of opera. Folk theatre has always deployed dance music and song, in the 16th and 17th centuries, theatre music was performed during the action of plays and as afterpieces. Christopher R. Wilson, discussing Shakespeares use of music, lists stage music, magic music, by the early 18th century, music was firmly established as part of practically all theatrical performances in Europe, whether of opera, dance, or spoken drama. Theatres were built with orchestra pits, and music was specially composed for the production or appropriated and arranged from existing material. In common with radio, cinema and television, the theatre has long made use of music to accompany spoken drama. Show tune Aria Sheet music Film score Theatre Musicians Association Green, new York, Dodd, Mead,1976 International Music Score Library Project — A public domain music library featuring original scores scanned to PDF. The European Library — digital images of the most important pieces of music published in Europe, free access
6.
Actor
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An actor is a person who portrays a character in a performance. Simplistically speaking, the person denominated actor or actress is someone beautiful who plays important characters, the actor performs in the flesh in the traditional medium of the theatre, or in modern mediums such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is ὑποκριτής, literally one who answers, the actors interpretation of their role pertains to the role played, whether based on a real person or fictional character. Interpretation occurs even when the actor is playing themselves, as in forms of experimental performance art, or, more commonly, to act, is to create. Formerly, in societies, only men could become actors. When used for the stage, women played the roles of prepubescent boys. The etymology is a derivation from actor with ess added. However, when referring to more than one performer, of both sexes, actor is preferred as a term for male performers. Actor is also used before the name of a performer as a gender-specific term. Within the profession, the re-adoption of the term dates to the 1950–1960s. As Whoopi Goldberg put it in an interview with the paper, Im an actor – I can play anything. The U. K. performers union Equity has no policy on the use of actor or actress, an Equity spokesperson said that the union does not believe that there is a consensus on the matter and stated that the. subject divides the profession. In 2009, the Los Angeles Times stated that Actress remains the term used in major acting awards given to female recipients. However, player remains in use in the theatre, often incorporated into the name of a group or company, such as the American Players. Also, actors in improvisational theatre may be referred to as players, prior to Thespis act, Grecian stories were only expressed in song, dance, and in third person narrative. In honor of Thespis, actors are commonly called Thespians, the exclusively male actors in the theatre of ancient Greece performed in three types of drama, tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans, as the Western Roman Empire fell into decay through the 4th and 5th centuries, the seat of Roman power shifted to Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. Records show that mime, pantomime, scenes or recitations from tragedies and comedies, dances, from the 5th century, Western Europe was plunged into a period of general disorder
7.
Composer
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A composer is a person who creates or writes music, which can be vocal music, instrumental music or music which combines both instruments and voices. The core meaning of the term refers to individuals who have contributed to the tradition of Western classical music through creation of works expressed in written musical notation, many composers are also skilled performers, either as singers, instrumentalists, and/or conductors. Examples of composers who are well known for their ability as performers include J. S. Bach, Mozart. In many popular genres, such as rock and country. For a singer or instrumental performer, the process of deciding how to perform music that has previously composed and notated is termed interpretation. Different performers interpretations of the work of music can vary widely, in terms of the tempos that are chosen. Composers and songwriters who present their own music are interpreting, just as much as those who perform the music of others, although a musical composition often has a single author, this is not always the case. A piece of music can also be composed with words, images, or, in the 20th and 21st century, a culture eventually developed whereby faithfulness to the composers written intention came to be highly valued. This musical culture is almost certainly related to the esteem in which the leading classical composers are often held by performers. The movement might be considered a way of creating greater faithfulness to the original in works composed at a time that expected performers to improvise. In Classical music, the composer typically orchestrates her own compositions, in some cases, a pop songwriter may not use notation at all, and instead compose the song in her mind and then play or record it from memory. In jazz and popular music, notable recordings by influential performers are given the weight that written scores play in classical music. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music. In the development of European classical music, the function of composing music initially did not have greater importance than that of performing it. The preservation of individual compositions did not receive attention and musicians generally had no qualms about modifying compositions for performance. In as much as the role of the composer in western art music has seen continued solidification, for instance, in certain contexts the line between composer and performer, sound designer, arranger, producer, and other roles, can be quite blurred. The term composer is often used to refer to composers of music, such as those found in classical, jazz or other forms of art. In popular and folk music, the composer is usually called a songwriter and this is distinct from a 19th-century conception of instrumental composition, where the work was represented solely by a musical score to be interpreted by performers
8.
Singing
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Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of sustained tonality, rhythm, and a variety of vocal techniques. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist, Singers perform music that can be sung with or without accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in an ensemble of musicians, such as a choir of singers or a band of instrumentalists, Singers may perform as soloists, or accompanied by anything from a single instrument up to a symphony orchestra or big band. Singing can be formal or informal, arranged or improvised and it may be done as a form of religious devotion, as a hobby, as a source of pleasure, comfort, or ritual, as part of music education, or as a profession. Excellence in singing requires time, dedication, instruction, and regular practice, if practice is done on a regular basis then the sounds can become more clear and strong. Professional singers usually build their careers around one specific genre, such as classical or rock. They typically take voice training provided by teachers or vocal coaches throughout their careers. Though these four mechanisms function independently, they are coordinated in the establishment of a vocal technique and are made to interact upon one another. During passive breathing, air is inhaled with the diaphragm while exhalation occurs without any effort, exhalation may be aided by the abdominal, internal intercostal and lower pelvis/pelvic muscles. Inhalation is aided by use of external intercostals, scalenes and sternocleidomastoid muscles, the pitch is altered with the vocal cords. With the lips closed, this is called humming, humans have vocal folds which can loosen, tighten, or change their thickness, and over which breath can be transferred at varying pressures. The shape of the chest and neck, the position of the tongue, any one of these actions results in a change in pitch, volume, timbre, or tone of the sound produced. Sound also resonates within different parts of the body and an individuals size, Singers can also learn to project sound in certain ways so that it resonates better within their vocal tract. This is known as vocal resonation, another major influence on vocal sound and production is the function of the larynx which people can manipulate in different ways to produce different sounds. These different kinds of function are described as different kinds of vocal registers. The primary method for singers to accomplish this is through the use of the Singers Formant and it has also been shown that a more powerful voice may be achieved with a fatter and fluid-like vocal fold mucosa. The more pliable the mucosa, the more efficient the transfer of energy from the airflow to the vocal folds, Vocal registration refers to the system of vocal registers within the voice. A register in the voice is a series of tones, produced in the same vibratory pattern of the vocal folds
9.
Pye Records
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Pye Records was a British record label. Its best known artists were Lonnie Donegan, Petula Clark, the Searchers, the label changed its name in 1980, but was briefly reactivated in 2006. The Pye Company originally manufactured televisions and radios and its main plant was situated off what used to be Haig Road, in Cambridge, and it entered the record business when it bought Nixa Records in 1953. In 1958, Pye International Records was established, the company licensed recordings from American and other foreign labels for the UK market, including Chess, A&M, Kama Sutra, Colpix, Warner Bros. Buddah, Cameo, 20th Century, and King and it also released recordings from British artist Labi Siffre which were produced outside the company. In 1959, Pye Nixa became Pye Records and ATV acquired 50% of the label, ATV bought the other half of the business in 1966. The company entered the album market in 1957, reissuing older Pye material on Pye Golden Guinea Records. This was closed in the seventies and eventually replaced by Marble Arch Records, Pye also offered a series of 4D quadraphonic albums, using the Sansui QS matrix system. In 1969, Pye launched a less mainstream label for folk, jazz, blues and progressive acts, Dawn Records, the most successful Dawn act being Mungo Jerry. When the rights to the name Pye expired in 1980, the changed its name to PRT. Postman Pat songs and music from the series were recorded at PRT Studios. PRTs parent company ACC was purchased by the Bell Group of Australia in 1982, in 1988 the Bell Group was purchased by the Bond Corporation. However, the Bond Corporation was suffering financial problems itself and proceeded to sell of most of its assets. PRTs record and cassette factory was sold to another record manufacturer, the masters of PRTs catalogue were sold to Castle Communications. Precision Records & Tapes Ltd, formerly Pye Records Ltd, was liquidated in December 2013. In July 2006, Pye Records was reactivated by Sanctuary Records as an indie and alternative label, however, plans for continued usage of the Pye name were abandoned when Universal Music Group bought Sanctuary in 2007. Pye Records was a company to the better known ATV Music Publishing. This company, which owned Beatles publisher Northern Songs, was bought by Michael Jackson in 1985, Records, Donovan to Hickory Records, the Searchers to Mercury Records, Liberty Records, and finally Kapp Records, and Status Quo to Chess Records
10.
Imperial Records
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Imperial Records is an American record company and label started in 1947 by Lew Chudd and reactivated in 2006 by EMI, which owned the label and back catalogue at the time. The current owner is Universal Music Group, when Imperial was founded in 1947, it concentrated on rhythm and blues and country music, Fats Domino, Frankie Ford, Ricky Nelson, and Slim Whitman. In the UK Imperial was distributed by London Records, Imperial bought Aladdin Records in 1960 and Minit Records in 1963. In 1963, after Imperial lost Fats Domino and Ricky Nelson to rival record companies, under Libertys management, the label enjoyed success with Irma Thomas, Johnny Rivers, Jackie DeShannon, Classics IV, and Cher. During the British Invasion, Liberty licensed The Hollies, Billy J. Kramer, the Dakotas, recordings by the Bonzo Dog Band and Kim Fowley were issued in the U. S. on the Imperial label. By 1970 the label had become part of Libertys merger with United Artists Records but was phased out shortly after, EMI acquired the Imperial Records catalogue with its acquisition of UA Records in 1979. This is not the same Imperial Records that exists currently in Japan or that was a division of EMIs Dutch arm, throughout the 1990s, EMI released CD compilations of Imperial artists that featured the original Imperial labels. The first signing to the imprint was Raptivism Records, fat Joe signed with Virgin Records and Imperial Records. Imperial provides resources for developing artists with EMIs major labels, including Capitol Records and Virgin Records. Universal Music Group acquired the Capitol Music Group as part of its acquisition of EMIs recorded music operations in 2012
11.
Decca Records
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Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U. S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis along with American Deccas first president Jack Kapp and later American Decca president Milton Rackmil. In 1937, as a result of anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca, the British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre. Both wings are now part of the Universal Music Group, which is owned by Vivendi, the US Decca label was the foundation company that evolved into UMG. The name Decca was coined by Wilfred S. Samuel by merging the word Mecca with the initial D of their logo Dulcet or their trademark Dulcephone, Samuel, a linguist, chose Decca as a brand name as it was easy to pronounce in most languages. The name dates back to a gramophone called the Decca Dulcephone patented in 1914 by musical instrument makers Barnett Samuel. That company was renamed the Decca Gramophone Co. Ltd. Within years, Decca Records Ltd. was the second largest record label in the world, Decca bought the UK branch of Brunswick Records and continued to run it under that name. In the 1950s the American Decca studios were located in the Pythian Temple in New York City, in classical music, Decca had a long way to go from its modest beginnings to catch up with the established HMV and Columbia labels. The pre-war classical repertoire on Decca was not extensive, but was select, heinrich Schlusnus made important pre-war lieder recordings for Decca. John Culshaw, who joined Decca in 1946 in a junior post and he revolutionised recording – of opera, in particular. Hitherto, the practice had been to put microphones in front of the performers, Culshaw was determined to make recordings that would be a theatre of the mind, making the listeners experience at home not second best to being in the opera house, but a wholly different experience. To that end he got the singers to move about in the studio as they would onstage, used sound effects and different acoustics. His skill, coupled with Decca engineering, took Decca into the first flight of recording companies and his pioneering recording of Wagners Der Ring des Nibelungen conducted by Georg Solti was a huge artistic and commercial success. In the wake of Deccas lead, artists such as Herbert von Karajan, Joan Sutherland, however, Culshaw was, strictly speaking, not the first to do this. Far from being a mere rendering of the score, the 3-LP album set used sound effects to recreate the production as if the listener were watching a stage performance of the work. Until 1947, American Decca issued British Decca classical music recordings, afterwards, British Decca took over distribution through its new American subsidiary London Records. American Decca actively re-entered the classical music field in 1950 with distribution deals from Deutsche Grammophon, American Decca began issuing its own classical music recordings in 1956 when Israel Horowitz joined Decca to head its classical music operations
12.
EMI Records
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The label was later launched worldwide. Records Ltd. legal entity was created in 1957 as the record manufacturing and it oversaw EMIs various labels, including The Gramophone Co. Ltd. Columbia Graphophone Company, and Parlophone Co. Ltd, in July 1965, the standalone EMI Record companies were extracted from E. M. I. Records Ltd. and folded into The Gramophone Company Ltd, on 1 July 1973, The Gramophone Co. Ltd. was renamed EMI Records Ltd. Records Ltd. was wound down and its activities were absorbed into EMI Records Ltd, earlier, on 1 January 1973, all of The Gramophone Company Ltd. pop labels had been rebranded as EMI. EMI Records then signed new acts that became global successes, Kraftwerk, Renaissance, Queen, Olivia Newton-John, Iron Maiden, Kate Bush, Sheena Easton, Pink Floyd, in 1997, EMI Records American division was folded into Virgin Records. In 2010, EMI Records opened a music division, EMI Records Nashville, which includes on its roster Troy Olsen, Alan Jackson, Kelleigh Bannen. EMI Records Nashville is a label to the Capitol Nashville unit of Universal Music Group. EMI Christian Music Group was renamed Capitol Christian Music Group, EMI Classics was sold to Warner Music Group on February 2013. After EU regulatory approval, EMI Classics was absorbed into Warner Classics on July 2013, abbey Road Studios List of record labels
13.
Warner Bros. Records
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Warner Bros. Records was established on March 19,1958, as the recorded-music division of the American film studio Warner Bros. For most of its existence it was one of a group of labels owned and operated by larger parent corporations. The sequence of companies that controlled Warner Bros. and its allied labels evolved through a series of corporate mergers. Over this period, Warner Bros. Records grew from a minor player in the music industry to become one of the top recording labels in the world. In 2003, these assets were divested by their then owner Time Warner. This independent company traded as the Warner Music Group before being bought by Access Industries in 2011, WMG is the smallest of the three major international music conglomerates and the worlds last publicly traded major music company. Cameron Strang serves as CEO of the company, artists currently signed to Warner Bros. At the end of the silent movie period, Warner Bros, pictures decided to expand into publishing and recording so that it could access low-cost music content for its films. This new group controlled valuable copyrights on standards by George and Ira Gershwin and Jerome Kern, the label signed rising radio and recording stars Bing Crosby, Mills Brothers, and Boswell Sisters. In December 1931, Warner Bros. offloaded Brunswick to the American Record Corporation for a fraction of its former value, in a lease arrangement which did not include Brunswicks pressing plants. Warner Bros. sold Brunswick a second time, this time along with the old Brunswick pressing plants Warner owned, to Decca Records in exchange for a financial interest in Decca. The studio stayed out of the business for more than 25 years. Warner Bros. reëntered the record business in 1958 with the establishment of its own recording division, by this time, the established Hollywood studios were reeling from multiple challenges to their former dominance - the most notable being the introduction of television in the late 1940s. Legal changes also had a impact on their business—lawsuits brought by major stars had effectively overthrown the old studio contract system by the late 1940s. Pictures sold off much of its library in 1948 and, beginning in 1949. Semenenko in particular had a professional interest in the entertainment business. With the record business booming - sales had topped US$500 million by 1958 - Semnenko argued that it was foolish for Warner Bros, another impetus for the labels creation was the brief music career of Warner Bros. actor Tab Hunter. In 1958, the studio signed Hunter as its first artist to its newly formed record division, to establish the label, the company hired former Columbia Records president James B
14.
MGM Records
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MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946 for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. It soon transitioned to a pop music label which continued into the 1970s, in one instance, it even released the highly successful soundtrack album of a film made by a rival studio, Columbia Picturess Born Free. Their first soundtrack was of Till the Clouds Roll By, a 1946 film based on the life of composer Jerome Kern and it was the first soundtrack album of a live-action film. The album was issued as a set of four 10-inch 78-rpm records. As in many early MGM soundtrack albums, only eight selections from the film were included on the version of the album. In order to fit the songs onto the sides the musical material needed editing. Needless to say, it was several generations removed from the original, also, the playback recordings were purposely recorded very dry otherwise it would come across as too hollow sounding in large movie theatres. This made these albums sound flat and boxy, MGM Records called these original cast albums in the style of Deccas Broadway show cast albums. They also coined the phrase recorded directly from the soundtrack, over the years the term soundtrack began to be commonly applied to any recording from a film, whether taken from the actual film soundtrack or re-recorded in studio. The phrase is sometimes incorrectly used for Broadway cast recordings. While it is correct to call a soundtrack a cast recording it is never correct to call a cast recording a soundtrack, by 1950, magnetic tape had been perfected for recording use, and this markedly improved the sound quality on the albums, beginning about 1951. MGM Records also released a soundtrack album of Quo Vadis. Beginning in the 1990s, authentic soundtrack albums of the scores to Ben-Hur. The Rhino Records editions of these albums featured literally the entire scores, Rhino also released a full-length two-disc album of the score of Gone With the Wind, recorded from the soundtrack in the original mono. Rhinos license expired at the end of 2011 and the albums Rhino issued are now out of print, Warner Bros. now owns the MGM soundtracks first issued by MGM Records and Warner Bros WaterTower Music unit now has the rights to release the MGM soundtracks. Kildare, Andy Hardy, Maisie, and Crime Does Not Pay, the MGM record pressing plant also manufactured the electrical transcriptions used to distribute the shows to local stations. The record manufacturing division was closed when MGM Records was sold to PolyGram and these Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer records were manufactured under contract with the studio by Columbia Records. In the early 1950s, MGM Records was considered one of the record companies due to owning its own manufacturing facilities
15.
Columbia Records
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Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. the United States division of Sony Corporation. It was founded in 1887, evolving from an enterprise named the American Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the sound business. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of singers, instrumentalists. It is one of Sony Musics three flagship record labels alongside RCA Records and Epic Records, rather, as above, it was connected to CBS, a broadcasting media company which had purchased the company in 1938, and had been co-founded in 1927 by Columbia Records itself. Though Arista Records was sold to Bertelsmann Music Group, it would become a sister label of Columbia Records through its mutual connection to Sony Music. The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by stenographer, lawyer and New Jersey native Edward Easton and it derived its name from the District of Columbia, where it was headquartered. At first it had a monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington. As was the custom of some of the regional companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own. Columbias ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Companys breakup, thereafter it sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced the XP record, a brown wax record. According to Gracyk, the molded brown waxes may have sold to Sears for distribution. Columbia began selling records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their Toy Graphophone of 1899. For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound. In order to add prestige to its catalog of artists. The firm also introduced the internal-horn Grafonola to compete with the extremely popular Victrola sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company, during this era, Columbia used the famous Magic Notes logo—a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle—both in the United States and overseas. Columbia was split into two companies, one to make records and one to make players, Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, and Ed Easton went with it. Eventually it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation, in late 1923, Columbia went into receivership
16.
BBC Radio
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BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The service provides national radio stations covering the majority of genres, as well as local radio stations covering local news, affairs. It also oversees online audio content, of the national radio stations, BBC Radio 1,2,3,4 and 5 Live are all available through analogue radio as well as on DAB Digital Radio and internet services through RealMedia, WMA and BBC iPlayer. The remaining stations, BBC Radio 1Xtra,4 Extra,5 Live Sports Extra and 6 Music, all of the BBCs national radio stations broadcast from bases in London, usually in or near to Broadcasting House in Marylebone. However, the BBCs network production units located in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, the BBCs radio services began in 1922. Today radio broadcasting still makes up a part of the corporations output - the title of the BBCs listings magazine, Radio Times. On 1 January 1927 the British Broadcasting Company was succeeded in control of the airwaves by the British Broadcasting Corporation. John Reith, who had been the managing director of the commercial company. He expounded firm principles of centralised, all-encompassing radio broadcasting, stressing programming standards and these he set out in his autobiography, Broadcast Over Britain, influencing modern ideas of public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom. To this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to inform, educate, although no other broadcasting organisation was licensed in the UK until 1973, commercial competition soon opened up from overseas. The English language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earliest commercial radio broadcasting to Britain. The IBC began leasing time on transmitters in continental Europe and then reselling it as sponsored English-language programming aimed at audiences in Britain and it was an important forerunner of pirate radio and modern commercial radio in the United Kingdom. The onset of World War II silenced all but one of the original IBC stations, at the start of the Second World War it was renamed The Overseas Service but is now known as the BBC World Service. Beginning in 1964 the first in what became a fleet of 10 offshore pirate radio stations began to ring the British coastline, by 1967 millions were tuning into these commercial operations and the BBC was rapidly losing its radio listening audience. The British government reacted by passing the Marine Offences Act, which all, One of the stations called Radio London was so successful that the BBC was told to copy it as best they could. This led to an overhaul by Frank Gillard the BBCs Director of Radio of the BBC output creating the four analogue channels that still form the basis of its broadcasting today. The creator of BBC Radio One told the press that his family had been fans of Radio London, the BBC hired many out-of-work broadcasting staff who had come from the former offshore stations. Tony Blackburn who presented the very first BBC Radio One morning show had previously presented the morning show on Radio Caroline
17.
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
18.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
19.
Downtown (Petula Clark song)
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Downtown is a song composed by Tony Hatch which, as recorded by Petula Clark in 1964, became an international hit, reaching No.1 in Billboard Hot 100 and No.2 in UK Singles Chart. Hatch received the 1981 Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically, the song has been covered by many singers, including Dolly Parton and Emma Bunton. Tony Hatch had first worked with Petula Clark when he assisted her regular producer Alan A. Freeman on her 1961 #1 hit Sailor. In 1963 Freeman had asked Hatch to take over as Clarks regular producer, in the autumn of 1964 Hatch had made his first visit to New York City, the purpose being to seek material from music publishers for the artists he was producing. Hatch would recall, I was staying at a hotel on Central Park and I wandered down to Broadway and to Times Square and, naively, forgetting that in New York especially, downtown is a lot further downtown getting on towards Battery Park. I loved the atmosphere there and the came to me very, very quickly. According to Hatch he was standing on the corner of 48th St waiting for the lights to change, looking towards Times Square when the melody first came to me. Hatch said of the meeting, she was not very enthusiastic about, Clark, who first heard Downtown from her kitchen having stepped away to make a pot of tea, told Hatch, Thats the one I want to record – Get that finished. Get a great arrangement and I think we’ll at least have a song we’re proud to record if it isn’t a hit. Downtown was recorded 16 October 1964 at the Pye Studios in Marble Arch, thirty minutes before the session was scheduled, Hatch was still touching up the songs lyrics in the studios washroom. Hatchs assistant Bob Leaper acted as conductor, according to Petula Clark, the session for Downtown consisted of three takes with the second take ultimately chosen as the completed track. Tony Hatch would recall playing the completed Downtown track for Pye Records executives saying, Nobody knew what to make of it, then Pyes general manager called and said Joe Smith – Warner Bros. head of A&R – was in London looking for British material. When Joe heard Pets record, he loved it and scheduled the single for urgent release in the States, when Hatch, surprised by Smiths enthusiasm for releasing Downtown in the US, asked if Smith didnt consider Downtown to be a very English record Smith replied, Its perfect. Its just an observation from outside of America and its just beautiful, in the wake of Smiths interest Downtown was released in the UK in November 1964. Downtown rose to No.2 UK in December 1964, remaining there for three weeks, kept out of the #1 position by the Beatles I Feel Fine, Downtown debuted at #87 on the Hot 100 chart in the Billboard issue dated 19 December 1964. The song became the first #1 hit for the year 1965, Downtown also made Clark the first UK female artist to have a single certified as a Gold record for US sales of one million units. In addition, the original 1964 recording was remixed and released in 1988 as Downtown 88, a Top Ten UK hit, Clark would recall, The first time I heard the 88 remix of Downtown I was in my car. And it turned out to be me, theyd wiped out the orchestra and put on some kind of ticka-ticka-tick thing
20.
I Know a Place
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I Know a Place is a song with music and lyrics by Tony Hatch. It was recorded in 1965 by Petula Clark at the Pye Studios in Marble Arch in a session which featured drummer Bobby Graham and the Breakaways vocal group. Released as the follow-up to Downtown, I Know a Place became Clarks second consecutive Top Ten hit in the United States, remaining on the charts for twelve weeks and peaking at #3. Its UK success was moderate with a #17 peak, establishing the mid-60s pattern of Clark generally having more hit impact in the US than in her homeland. Talking about I Know a Place, Clark told The Boston Globe in 1966 that No matter what anyone tells you, to make it in the United States is still the dream of every transatlantic performer. And I cant tell you how ecstatic I was when I Know a Place was nearly as big a hit as Downtown, the recording reached #1 in Canada and South Africa, #3 in Rhodesia, #7 in Australia, and #10 in India. Viens Avec Moi, Clarks French recording of the song, charted in France, the song is the opening theme for Bill Whittles weekly podcast, The Stratosphere Lounge. The song is featured in the film The Anniversary Party, the song is featured in a number of episodes of Heres Lucy including Mod, Mod Lucy. The song is used as the music to the Mike Jittlov animated short Animato. The song appeared on the CBS soap As the World Turns in 2000, a version of this song, with slightly altered lyrics, was used to promote the Pizza Hut restaurants in Australia during the 1970s. Julian Cope sampled I Know a Place as part of his remake of Five OClock World in 1990, live at Birdland as I Know a Place/ Downtown. The 1967 album release Pet Project by the Bob Florence Big Band features a version of I Know a Place. Vocal group Something Big also include I Know a Place on their 2012 Tony Hatch tribute EP Hatched, lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
21.
My Love (Petula Clark song)
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In casual conversation with the American sitting next to him Hatch was advised that this songs title would be meaningless to the American public. My Love was recorded at Western Studios and featured the backing of the Wrecking Crew. Petula Clark would recall, We recorded three songs on that session. I liked the two other songs quite a lot, but I really didnt like My Love. I thought it was a bit ordinary. I had got so used to these songs that Tony had been writing with all these different moods. Clark would describe her discouraging Warner Bros a&r man Joe Smith from issuing My Love as a single, hes a very small man physically. about the right height for me. I was able to get hold of his lapels, and I said to him, Joe, I dont care which you put out, and he said, Trust me, baby. Also a #1 hit in Canada, My Love returned Clark to the UK Top Ten for the first time since Downtown two years previous with a March 1966 peak of #4, in the UK the single earned a Silver disc for sales of 200,000 units. My Love also provided Clark with a hit in Australia, Finland, New Zealand, Rhodesia and South Africa, in Germany My Love became a hit first in its original English version and then again when rendered in German as Verzeih die dummen Tränen. Translated recordings by Clark also made My Love a hit in France and Italy, respectively as Mon amour, rakkauteni was also recorded by Laila Kinnunen whose version appears on the 2002 compilation Kadonneet Helmet. John Davidson covered it in 1966 for his album Time of My Life, the 1967 album release Pet Project by the Bob Florence Big Band features an instrumental version of My Love, the album being devoted to songs associated with Petula Clark. Sonny James covered My Love in 1970 and his version reached No.1 that May on the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles chart, in the midst of his then-record string of 16-straight No.1 singles in as many releases. Also in 1970 C&W singer Barbara Fairchild recorded My Love for her debut album Someone Special, Nancy Boyd remade My Love for her 1987 album of classic hit songs Lets Hang On credited to Nancy Boyd & Cappellos. Florence Henderson performed the song as a serenade on the famous 1969 Tonight Show segment in which Tiny Tim married Miss Vicky, lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
22.
Sign of the Times (Petula Clark song)
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Sign of the Times, also known as A Sign of the Times, is a song performed by Petula Clark and released from her album My Love in March of 1966. However, A Sign of the Times had a percussive sound than had been evident on Clarks previous singles. The song was recorded at the Pye Studios in Marble Arch in a session which featured guitarist Big Jim Sullivan, Clark introduced A Sign of the Times on The Ed Sullivan Show broadcast of February 27,1966. The single would debut on the Billboard Hot 100 dated March 26,1966 and it peaked at #2 on Billboards Easy Listening survey. Beginning with her American breakout, Downtown, Clarks singles had all had higher chart peaks in the US than the UK. A Sign of the Times became the most extreme example of this discrepancy by spending one week – that of April 23,1966 – in the UK Top 50 at #49. Although this trend was reversed with Clarks next single, I Couldnt Live Without Your Love, a Sign of the Times was a hit in Australia and South Africa. In 1969 B. F. Goodrich utilized the tune to A Sign of the Times for TV commercials advertising radial tires, in 1986, A Sign of the Times was played in the video documentary An Amazin Era, The New York Mets. The song was heard over films of Mets baseball fans carrying banners with messages on them, in 1999 Target department store ran a series of television commercials featuring A Sign of the Times. A brief clip of A Sign of the Times was used on Dickie Goodmans 1966 novelty record Batman, michèle Richard recorded a French rendering of the song, Si Tu Prenais Le Temps, for her 1966 album Action 66. Jazz guitarist Joe Pass recorded a version on his 1966 album A Sign of the Times
23.
I Couldn't Live Without Your Love
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I Couldnt Live Without Your Love is a 1966 single written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent and recorded by Petula Clark. It was inspired by the affair the songwriters were having at the time, Clark has cited I Couldnt Live Without Your Love and Dont Sleep in the Subway as her favorites of her hits. The single peaked at #6 on the UK Singles Chart and #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, I Couldnt Live Without Your Love was the first single by Clark to reach #1 on the US Easy Listening chart. I Couldnt Live Without Your Love has also recorded by Patti Brooks, John Davidson, Freda Payne. The 1967 album release Pet Project by the Bob Florence Big Band features a version of I Couldnt Live Without Your Love. The French rendering Jaimerais vieillir avec toi was recorded by Dave for his 2004 album Doux Tam-Tam, the song was also recorded in 1976 by Jugular Vein, a UK jug band, on their album Waterloo Road released on the Plastic Fantastic label, PFLR3001. List of number-one adult contemporary singles of 1966 The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 6th Edition,1996, Billboard Books, ISBN 978-0823076321 Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
24.
Colour My World (Petula Clark song)
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Colour My World is a song written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent recorded by Petula Clark in 1966. The album named for this failed UK single, Colour My World was similarly overlooked upon its January 1967 release and this boosted the Colour My World album to a #16 UK chart peak. In addition Colour My World gained a high UK profile by virtue of being used by BBC Television as the song for the July 1967 launch of colour service on BBC2. Billboard magazines original review of the song predicted it would make the top 20 of the Hot 100, chalk up another chart topper in this intriguing Hatch-Trent rhythm number featuring the popular Indian sitar sound and exceptional Clark vocal work. The Two of Each version of Colour My World was issued in January 1970 on a single featuring a version of Here Comes the Sun with neither track charting, UK furniture retailer DFS used the Petula Clark version in a UK television commercial campaign run in 2008. Colour My World is featured - with some additional lyrics - in the stage musical Priscilla Queen of the Desert which debuted 6 October 2006, the song appears on the 2007 cast recording performed by Daniel Scott, Tony Sheldon, Jeremy Stanford and the Company. Colour My World was used as the title for a BBC Radio 2 documentary on Tony Hatch broadcast in June 2009
25.
This Is My Song (1967 song)
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This Is My Song is a song written by Charlie Chaplin in 1966, and performed by Petula Clark. This is My Song was intended for the film A Countess from Hong Kong, Chaplin saw his film as a throwback to the shipboard romances that were popular in the 1930s, and wrote This Is My Song with the intent of evoking that era. Ultimately, the song would be featured in the film only as an instrumental, after being disillusioned with regard to Jolson, Chaplin considered having This Is My Song recorded by Petula Clark, who had a home in Switzerland near his residence. However, Clarks regular collaborator Tony Hatch was not impressed with the song, French label Vogue Records then commissioned a then successful French arranger Jacques Denjean whose work was judged unsuitable by Wolff. Clark recorded the song not only in English, but in French as Cest Ma Chanson, German as Love, So Heisst Mein Song, the recording session featured the backing of the Wrecking Crew. Instead, she found herself atop the UK Singles Chart for the first time in six years when This Is My Song reached no.1 on the chart dated 16 February 1967, a position it retained the next week. Certified Silver for sales of 250,000, the sales of This Is My Song in the UK would exceed 500,000. This Is My Song was also included on Clarks next album, These Are My Songs and this Is My Song also earned hit status in Finland, India, New Zealand, Norway, and Spain. The North American single release omitted the opening section, following the instrumental introduction. This Is My Song reached #3 in the U. S. the These Are My Songs album peaked at #27 in the U. S. becoming Clarks second—and final—US Top 30 album. In Germany, the English version competed with the German-language version with the more successful, reaching #16 while Love. In Italy, the rendering Cara Felicità reached #23, the two singles before This Is My Song, Who Am I. and Colour My World, had failed to reach the UK Top 50. This made the strong UK showing of This Is My Song—Clarks first single release since Downtown to be written nor produced by Hatch—the more remarkable. The follow-up single Dont Sleep in the Subway resumed the Clark/Hatch collaboration and was a UK hit but, like all Clarks releases after This Is My Song, the one published biography of Clark written to date is This Is My Song. The first recording of This Is My Song was made by Harry Secombe with Wally Stott responsible for arranging and conducting. Secombe himself found the lyrics risible, several takes were necessitated due to his bursting into laughter when he tried to sing the line, despite the eventual UK release of Clarks version as a single. This Is My Songs appeal was strong enough to sustain two versions high on the chart, secombes version debuted at number 44 on 25 February 1967 to rise as high as number two on the chart dated 1 April. Secombe was also afforded a hit with This Is My Song in Australia, Ireland, the Seekers also recorded a version of This Is My Song in 1967, however the track was unreleased until 1995 when it was included on The Seekers - Complete box set
26.
Don't Sleep in the Subway
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Dont Sleep in the Subway is a song written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent and recorded by Petula Clark, for whom it was an April 1967 single release. The song was constructed from three different sections of previously composed by Hatch, it changes in musical style from pop to symphonic and then, for the chorus. In the lyrics the narrator advises her sweetheart against storming out after an argument due to his foolish pride, if he does, he will sleep in the subway or stand in the pouring rain merely to prove his point. Although in Scotland there has existed the Glasgow Subway metro line. Hatch employed the term in the North American sense, according to the songs co-writer Jackie Trent the title lyric was suggested by the 1961-62 Broadway musical Subways Are For Sleeping. Dont Sleep in the Subway reached #3 in Rhodesia, #5 in Canada, #7 in New Zealand, #10 in South Africa and #16 in Germany. In Australia, it was at #1 on the charts dated 16 and 23 September 1967, a Spanish rendering, No duermas en el metro, was recorded by both Gelu and Los Stop. Siw Malmkvist recorded the Swedish rendering Sov Inte På Tunnelbanan in 1970 and it also makes a brief appearance in the Malcolm in the Middle episode Emancipation—Lois blasts the song on her car stereo to avoid confronting Francis about his legal emancipation. The song was performed by Rachel Berry and Artie Abrams in the 2014 Glee episode New New York, list of number-one adult contemporary singles of 1967 Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
27.
British Invasion
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Pop and rock groups such as the Beatles, the Dave Clark Five, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, Hermans Hermits, and the Animals were at the forefront of the invasion. The rebellious tone and image of US rock and roll and blues musicians became popular with British youth in the late 1950s, some observers have noted that US teenagers were growing tired of singles-oriented pop acts like Fabian. The Mods and Rockers, two gangs in mid-1960s Britain, also had an impact in British Invasion music. Bands with a Mod aesthetic became the most popular, but bands able to both were also successful. In October 1963, the first newspaper articles about the frenzy in England surrounding the group the Beatles appeared nationally in the US. The Beatles November 4 Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen Mother sparked music industry, during November a number of major American print outlets and two network television evening programs published and broadcast stories on the phenomenon that became known as Beatlemania. On December 17 James had Miss Albert introduce I Want to Hold Your Hand live on the air, wWDCs phones lit up, and Washington, D. C. area record stores were flooded with requests for a record they did not have in stock. James sent the record to disc jockeys around the country sparking similar reaction. On December 26 Capitol Records released the three weeks ahead of schedule. The release of the record during a time when teenagers were on vacation helped spread Beatlemania in the US, on December 29 The Baltimore Sun, reflecting the dismissive view of most adults, editorialized, America had better take thought as to how it will deal with the invasion. Indeed a restrained Beatles go home might be just the thing, in the next year alone, the Beatles would have 30 different listings on the Hot 100. On January 3,1964, The Jack Paar Program ran Beatles concert footage licensed from the BBC as a joke, while this piece was largely forgotten, Beatles producer George Martin has said it aroused the kids curiosity. I Want to Hold Your Hand ascended to one on the January 25,1964, edition of Cash Box magazine. Two days later appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Nielsen Ratings estimated that 45 percent of US television viewers that night saw their appearance, according to Michael Ross, It is somewhat ironic that the biggest moment in the history of popular music was first experienced in the US as a television event. The Ed Sullivan Show had for some time been a comfortable hearth-and-slippers experience, not many of the 73 million viewers watching in February 1964 would fully understand what impact the band they were watching would have. The Beatles soon incited contrasting reactions and, in the process, generated more novelty records than anyone - at least 200 during their 1964-1965 takeover and many more later. Among the many reactions, favoring the hysteria, British girl group The Carefrees We Love You Beatles and, on Tuff Records, disapproving the pandemonium, American group the Four Preps A Letter to the Beatles and American comedian Allan Shermans Pop Hates the Beatles
28.
South Wales
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South Wales is the region of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the southwest of the United Kingdom, the Brecon Beacons national park covers about a third of South Wales, containing Pen y Fan, the highest mountain south of Snowdonia. Areas to the north of the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains are generally considered part of Mid Wales, the expression south Wales is not officially defined, and its meaning has changed over time. Between the Statute of Rhuddlan of 1284 and the Laws in Wales Act 1535 and this was divided into a Principality of South Wales and a Principality of North Wales. The southern principality was made up of the counties of Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, the legal responsibility for this area lay in the hands of the Justiciar of South Wales based at Carmarthen. Other parts of southern Wales were in the hands of various Marcher Lords, the Laws in Wales Acts 1542 created the Court of Great Sessions in Wales based on four legal circuits. The Brecon circuit served the counties of Brecknockshire, Radnorshire and Glamorgan while the Carmarthen circuit served Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, Monmouthshire was attached to the Oxford circuit for judicial purposes. These seven southern counties were thus differentiated from the six counties of north Wales, the Court of the Great Sessions came to an end in 1830, but the counties survived until the Local Government Act 1972 which came into operation in 1974. The creation of the county of Powys merged one northern county with two southern ones, there are thus different concepts of south Wales. Glamorgan and Monmouthshire are generally accepted by all as being in south Wales, but the status of Breconshire or Carmarthenshire, for instance, is more debatable. In the western extent, from Swansea westwards, local people might feel that they live in both south Wales and west Wales, areas to the north of the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains are generally considered to be in Mid Wales. A further point of uncertainty is whether the first element of the name should be capitalized, as the name is a geographical expression rather than a specific area with well-defined borders, style guides such as those of the BBC and The Guardian use the form south Wales. The most densely populated region in the southwest of the United Kingdom, the Brecon Beacons national park covers about a third of South Wales, containing Pen y Fan, the highest mountain south of Snowdonia. This natural beauty changed to an extent during the early Industrial Revolution when the Glamorgan and Monmouthshire valley areas were exploited for coal. By the 1830s, hundreds of tons of coal were being transported by barge to ports in Cardiff, lord Bute then charged fees per ton of coal that was transported out using his railways. Whilst some of the left, many settled and established in the South Wales Valleys between Swansea and Abergavenny as English-speaking communities with a unique identity. Industrial workers were housed in cottages and terraced houses close to the mines and foundries in which they worked. The large influx over the years caused overcrowding which led to outbreaks of Cholera, and on the social and cultural side and this number is now very low, following the UK miners strike, and the last traditional deep-shaft mine, Tower Colliery, closed in January 2008
29.
Welsh language
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Welsh is a member of the Brittonic branch of the Celtic languages. It is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, historically it has also been known in English as the British tongue, Cambrian, Cambric and Cymric. The United Kingdom Census 2011 counted 3.1 million residents of Wales, 27% of whom had been born outside Wales, and 73% of whom reported having no Welsh language skills. Of residents of Wales aged three and over, 19% reported being able to speak Welsh, and 77% of these were able to speak, read and this can be compared with the 2001 Census, in which 20. 8% of the population reported being able to speak Welsh. 787,854 of residents in Wales aged three and over had one or more skills in Welsh, in surveys carried out between 2004 and 2006, 57% of Welsh speakers described themselves as fluent in the written language. An estimated 110,000 to 150,000 people speak Welsh in England, Welsh emerged in the 6th century from Common Brittonic, the common ancestor of Welsh, Breton, Cornish and the extinct language known as Cumbric. The Middle Welsh period is considered to have lasted from then until the 14th century, when the Modern Welsh period began, the name Welsh originated as an exonym given to its speakers by the Anglo-Saxons, meaning foreign speech. The native term for the language is Cymraeg, and for the name of the country of Wales it is Cymru, Welsh evolved from Common Brittonic, the Celtic language spoken by the ancient Celtic Britons. Classified as Insular Celtic, the British language probably arrived in Britain during the Bronze Age or Iron Age and was spoken throughout the island south of the Firth of Forth. During the Early Middle Ages the British language began to fragment due to increased dialect differentiation, evolving into Welsh and it is not clear when Welsh became distinct. Kenneth H. Jackson suggested that the evolution in syllabic structure and sound pattern was complete by around 550, Jackson, however, believed that the two varieties were already distinct by that time. The earliest Welsh poetry – that attributed to the Cynfeirdd or Early Poets – is generally considered to date to the Primitive Welsh period. However, much of this poetry was composed in the Hen Ogledd, raising further questions about the dating of the material. An 8th century inscription in Tywyn shows the language already dropping inflections in the declension of nouns, the next main period, somewhat better attested, is Old Welsh, poetry from both Wales and Scotland has been preserved in this form of the language. Both the works of Aneirin and the Book of Taliesin were in this era, Middle Welsh is the label attached to the Welsh of the 12th to 14th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This is the language of all surviving early manuscripts of the Mabinogion. It is also the language of the existing Welsh law manuscripts, Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible, albeit with some work, to a modern-day Welsh speaker. The famous cleric Gerald of Wales tells, in his Descriptio Cambriae, during one of the Kings many raids in the 12th century, Henry asked an old man of Pencader, Carmarthenshire whether the Welsh people could resist his army
30.
Abercanaid
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Abercanaid is a small village in the Welsh county borough of Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, Wales, United Kingdom with a population of about 5,060. It is situated 2.5 miles south of Merthyr town centre and is west of Pentrebach, across the River Taff and it forms part of three villages in the Plymouth Electoral Ward, along with Pentrebach and Troedyrhiw. Most of the Housing Estate was built in 1860 to sustain the collieries, the Waun Wilt colliery was opened as a level mine in 1824 and was later renamed the Abercanaid Colliery. Gethin Colliery was located close to the canal and was sunk in 1849, the Richards Arms boast the football side for the village, whereas The Colliers Arms and Llywnyreos are more notable for their involvement in local league darts. At one time, Abercanaid had a total of seven pubs, the Glamorganshire Canal passed along the edge of the Village. This was constructed around 1800 and fell into decline following the construction of the railways, Abercanaid was one of the stations on the Quakers Yard and Merthyr Railway. The line and the Station became disused in the 1960s and now the village is served by the nearby Pentrebach Train Station. Chapel Street was so named because of the three chapels that once stood in it, the existing one left being the Zion Chapel on the corner of Cardiff Street. Graig Chapel was demolished in the late 1990s, being replaced by houses, the local church is St. Peter and Paul. Work began on construction of a new, modern school, known as Abercanaid Community School in October 2001, the school is situated on the site of Abercanaid Park and is run by long-time headteacher Mike Sullivan. The school officially opened on 22 January 2003, the school acts as a feeder school to Afon Taf High School, Cyfarthfa High School and Bishop Hedley High School. A famous ex-pupil of the school is Petula Clark, who spent sometime as a child in the living with family. Another former Abercanaid pupil and resident is synth, FX and sampler Lyndon Jones of the now disbanded band Midasuno, the Gethin Pit, pictured on the right, was established in 1849, when sunk by William Crawshay II. The Pits remains can be two and a half miles from Merthyr Tydfil, situated next to the Merthyr Canal. Gethin Pit was a supplier of coal for Crawshay’s other business ventures, two major mining disasters occurred at Gethin Pit, one in 1862 and another in 1865. The disasters, although seen as dangerous in the modern day perspective, were an occurrence in the 19th Century. At the time of the disaster occurred in 1862, the mine was being managed by John Moody. Thomas Thomas, the fireman who ran the safety checks of the mine
31.
Merthyr Tydfil
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Merthyr Tydfil is a town in Wales, with a population of about 63,546, situated approximately 23 miles north of Cardiff. At one time the largest town in Wales, Merthyr Tydfil is today the fourth largest urban area by population. Situated in the county of Glamorgan, it is the main town in Merthyr Tydfil County Borough and is administered by Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council. Both the town and the county borough are often referred to as simply Merthyr, according to legend, the town is named after Saint Tydfil, a daughter of King Brychan of Brycheiniog. According to her legend, she was slain at Merthyr by pagans around 480, although merthyr generally means martyr in modern Welsh, the meaning here is closer to the Latin martyrium, the mausoleum or church built over the relics of a martyr. Similar examples, all from south Wales, include Merthyr Cynog, Merthyr Dyfan, the Cornish and Breton language equivalents, in place names, are merther and merzher. Peoples migrating north from Europe had lived in the area for thousands of years. The archaeological record starts from about 1000 BC with the Celts, from their language, the Welsh language developed. Hillforts were built during the Iron Age and the tribe that inhabited them in the south of Wales were called the Silures, according to Tacitus, the Romans arrived in Roman Wales by about 47–53 AD and established a network of forts, with roads to link them. They had to fight hard to consolidate their conquests, and in 74 AD they built a fortress at Penydarren. It covered an area of three hectares, and formed part of the network of roads and fortifications, remains were found underneath the football ground where Merthyr Tydfil FC play. A road ran north–south through the area, linking the southern coast with Mid Wales, parts of this and other roads, including Sarn Helen, can be traced and walked. The Silures resisted this invasion fiercely from their strongholds. In time, relative peace was established and the Penydarren fortress was abandoned by about 120 AD and this had an unfortunate effect upon the local economy, which had come to rely upon supplying the fortress with beef and grain, and imported items such as oysters from the coast. Intermarriage with local women had occurred and many auxiliary veterans had settled locally on farms, with the Decline of the Roman Empire, Roman legions were withdrawn around 380 AD. By 402 AD, the army in Britain comprised mostly Germanic troops and local recruits, sometime during this period, Irish Dalriadan and Picts attacked and breached Hadrians Wall. By about 490 AD hordes of Saxons invaded and settled in the east or lowland Britain, the Latin language and some Roman customs and culture became established before the withdrawal of the Roman army. The girl was considered a martyr after her death in around 480, Merthyr translates to Martyr in English, and tradition holds that, when the town was founded, the name was chosen in her honour
32.
Chapel
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The term chapel usually refers to a place of prayer and worship that is attached to a larger, often nonreligious institution or that is considered an extension of a primary religious institution. Chapel has also referred to independent or nonconformist places of worship in Great Britain—outside of the established church, the earliest Christian places of worship are now often referred to as chapels, as they were not dedicated buildings but rather a dedicated chamber within a building. Most larger churches had one or more secondary altars, which if they occupied a distinct space, in Russian Orthodox tradition, the chapels were built underneath city gates, where most people could visit them. The most famous example is the Iberian Chapel, although chapels frequently refer to Christian places of worship, they are also commonly found in Jewish synagogues and do not necessarily connote a specific denomination. In England—where the Church of England is established by law—non-denominational or inter-faith chapels in such institutions may nonetheless be consecrated by the local Anglican bishop, non-denominational chapels are commonly encountered as part of a non-religious institution such as a hospital, airport, university or prison. Many military installations have chapels for the use of military personnel, the earliest Christian places of worship were not dedicated buildings but rather a dedicated chamber within a building, such as a room in an individuals home. Here one or two people could pray without being part of a communion/congregation, people who like to use chapels may find it peaceful and relaxing to be away from the stress of life, without other people moving around them. The word, chapel, like the word, chaplain, is ultimately derived from Latin. The other half he wore over his shoulders as a small cape, the beggar, the stories claim, was Christ in disguise, and Martin experienced a conversion of heart, becoming first a monk, then abbot, then bishop. This cape came into the possession of the Frankish kings, the tent which kept the cape was called the capella and the priests who said daily Mass in the tent were known as the capellani. From these words, via Old French, we get the names chapel, the word also appears in the Irish language in the Middle Ages, as Welsh people came with the Norman and Old English invaders to the island of Ireland. While the traditional Irish word for church was eaglais, a new word, séipéal, in British history, chapel or meeting house, was formerly the standard designation for church buildings belonging to independent or Nonconformist religious societies and their members. As a result, chapel is used as an adjective in the UK to describe the members of such churches. A proprietary chapel is one that belonged to a private person. In the 19th century they were common, often being built to cope with urbanisation, frequently they were set up by evangelical philanthropists with a vision of spreading Christianity in cities whose needs could no longer be met by the parishes. Some functioned more privately, with a wealthy person building a chapel so they could invite their favorite preachers and they are anomalies in the English ecclesiastical law, having no parish area, but being able to have an Anglican clergyman licensed there. Historically many Anglican Churches were Proprietary Chapels, over the years they have often been converted into normal Parishes. While the usage of the chapel is not exclusively limited to Christian terminology
33.
Choir
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A choir is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical repertoire, which spans from the Medieval era to the present. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, a body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus. The former term is often applied to groups affiliated with a church and the second to groups that perform in theatres or concert halls. Choirs may sing without instrumental accompaniment, with the accompaniment of a piano or pipe organ, with a small ensemble, choirs are often led by a conductor or choirmaster. Other than four, the most common number of parts are three, five, six, and eight, choirs can sing with or without instrumental accompaniment. Singing without accompaniment is called a cappella singing, many choirs perform in one or many locations such as a church, opera house, or school hall. In some cases choirs join up to become one mass choir that performs for a special concert, in this case they provide a series of songs or musical works to celebrate and provide entertainment to others. Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance, such as a concert, by way of visible gestures with the hands, arms, face. The primary duties of the conductor or choirmaster are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble. The conductor or choral director typically stands on a raised platform, many choral conductors use their hands to conduct. In the 2010s, most conductors do not play an instrument when conducting, although in earlier periods of music history. In Baroque music from the 1600s to the 1750s, conductors performing in the 2010s may lead an ensemble while playing a harpsichord or the violin, conducting while playing a piano may also be done with musical theatre pit orchestras. Communication is typically non-verbal during a performance, however, in rehearsals, frequent interruptions allow the conductor to give verbal directions as to how the music should be sung. Conductors act as guides to the choirs they conduct and they choose the works to be performed and study their scores, to which they may make certain adjustments, work out their interpretation, and relay their vision to the singers. Choral conductors may also have to conduct instrumental ensembles such as if the choir is singing a piece for choir. They may also attend to matters, such as scheduling rehearsals, planning a concert season, hearing auditions
34.
Vera Lynn
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During the war she toured Egypt, India, and Burma as part of ENSA, giving outdoor concerts for the troops. The songs most associated with her are Well Meet Again, The White Cliffs of Dover, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square and Therell Always Be an England. She remained popular after the war, appearing on radio and television in the UK and her last single, I Love This Land, was released to mark the end of the Falklands War. In 2009, at age 92, she became the oldest living artist to top the UK Albums Chart, with Well Meet Again and she has devoted much time and energy to charity work connected with ex-servicemen, disabled children, and breast cancer. She is held in affection by veterans of the Second World War to this day. Vera Margaret Welch was born in East Ham, London, on 20 March 1917, to parents Bertram Samuel Welch and Annie Martin, who had married in 1913. She began performing publicly at the age of seven and adopted her grandmothers maiden name, Margaret Lynn. Her first radio broadcast, with the Joe Loss Orchestra, was in 1935, at this point she was being featured on records released by dance bands including those of Loss and of Charlie Kunz. In 1936 her first solo record was released on the Crown label and this label was absorbed by Decca Records in 1938. After a short stint with Loss she stayed with Kunz for a few years during which she recorded several musical pieces. In 1937 she moved to the aristocrat of British dance bands, during the Phoney War, the Daily Express asked British servicemen to name their favourite musical performers, Vera Lynn came out on top and as a result became known as the Forces Sweetheart. In 1941, during the darkest days of the Second World War, Lynn began her own programme, Sincerely Yours. She and her quartet performed songs most requested by the soldiers, Lynn also visited hospitals to interview new mothers and send personal messages to their husbands overseas. Her other great wartime hit was The White Cliffs of Dover, words by Nat Burton, in 1943 she appeared in the film Well Meet Again. The album itself was a follow-up to Hits of the Blitz produced by Norman Newell, during the war years she joined ENSA and toured Egypt, India and Burma, giving outdoor concerts for the troops. In March 1944 she went to Shamshernagar airfield in Bengal to entertain the troops before the Battle of Kohima and her host and lifelong friend Captain Bernard Holden recalled her courage and her contribution to morale. In 1985 it was announced that she would receive the Burma Star for entertaining British guerrilla units in Japanese-occupied Burma, Lynns Auf Wiedersehn Sweetheart in 1952 became the first record by a British performer to top the charts in the United States, remaining there for nine weeks. She also appeared regularly for a time on Tallulah Bankheads US radio programme The Big Show, Auf Wiedersehn Sweetheart, along with The Homing Waltz and Forget-Me-Not, gave Lynn a remarkable three entries on the first UK Singles Chart, a top 12
35.
Carmen Miranda
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Carmen Miranda, GCIH • OMC was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, dancer, Broadway actress, and film star who was popular from the 1930s to the 1950s. Nicknamed The Brazilian Bombshell, Carmen Miranda is noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in her American films, as a young woman, Miranda worked in a boutique designing hats before ultimately recording her first album with composer Josué de Barros in 1929. Throughout the 1930s, Miranda performed on Brazilian radio stations and appeared in five Brazilian sound films known as chanchadas, which celebrated Brazilian music, dance, and carnival culture. In 1939, Lee Shubert, a Broadway businessman, offered Carmen Miranda an eight-week contract to perform in The Streets of Paris on Broadway after seeing her at Cassino da Urca, in Rio de Janeiro. In 1940, she made her first Hollywood film, Down Argentine Way, with Don Ameche and Betty Grable, her exotic clothing and Latin accent became her trademark. In the same year, she was voted the third most popular personality in the United States and was invited to sing and dance for President Franklin Roosevelt, along with her group, Bando da Lua. In 1943, Miranda starred in Busby Berkleys The Gangs All Here, by 1945, she was the highest paid woman in the United States. Miranda made a total of fourteen Hollywood films between 1940 and 1953, though hailed as a talented performer, her popularity waned by the end of World War II. She later grew to resent the stereotypical Brazilian Bombshell image she cultivated and attempted to free of it with limited success. Carmen Miranda was the first Latin American star to be invited to imprint her hands and feet in the courtyard of Graumans Chinese Theatre and she became the first South American to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She is considered the precursor of Brazils Tropicalismo cultural movement of the 1960s, a museum was later constructed in Rio de Janeiro in her honor, and in 1995 she was the subject of the acclaimed documentary Carmen Miranda, Bananas is My Business. Carmen Miranda was born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha in Várzea da Ovelha e Aliviada and she was the second daughter of José Maria Pinto da Cunha and Maria Emília Miranda. In 1909 when she was ten months old, her father emigrated alone to Brazil and settled in Rio de Janeiro and her mother followed in 1910 with their daughters Olinda and Maria do Carmo. Maria do Carmo, later Carmen, never returned to Portugal, in Brazil, her parents had four more children, Amaro, Cecília, Aurora and Óscar. She was christened Carmen by her father because of his love for the opera comique and this passion for opera influenced his children, and Mirandas love for singing and dancing at an early age. She went to school at the Convent of Saint Therese of Lisieux and her father did not approve of her plans to enter show business. However, her mother supported her and was beaten when her husband discovered Miranda had auditioned for a radio show and she had previously sung at parties and festivals in Rio. Her older sister Olinda contracted tuberculosis and was sent to Portugal for treatment, Miranda went to work in a tie shop at age 14 to help pay her sisters medical bills
36.
Sophie Tucker
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Sophie Tucker was a Ukrainian-born American singer, comedian, actress, and radio personality. Known for her delivery of comical and risqué songs, she was one of the most popular entertainers in America during the first half of the 20th century. She was widely known by the nickname The Last of the Red Hot Mamas, Tucker was born Sonya Kalish in 1887 to a Jewish family en route to America from Tulchyn, Podolia Governorate, Russian Empire, now Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine. The family adopted the surname Abuza, settled in Hartford, Connecticut, at a young age, she began singing at her parents restaurant for tips. Between taking orders and serving customers, she would stand up in the space by the door. At the end of the last chorus, between me and the onions there wasnt a dry eye in the place, in 1903, at the age of 16, Tucker eloped with Louis Tuck, a beer cart driver, from whom she would later derive her professional surname. When she returned home, her parents arranged an Orthodox wedding for the couple, in 1906, she gave birth to a son, Albert. However, shortly after Albert was born, the couple separated, after she left her husband, Willie Howard gave Tucker a letter of recommendation to Harold Von Tilzer, a composer and theatrical producer in New York, but Tilzer did not want to hire her. Tucker found work in cafés and beer gardens, singing for food and she sent most of this money back home to Connecticut to support her son and family. In 1907, Tucker made her first theater appearance, singing at a night in a vaudeville establishment. It was here that she was first made to wear blackface during performance, as her producers thought that the crowd would tease her for being so big and ugly. By 1908, she had joined a show in Pittsburgh but was ashamed to tell her family that she was performing in a deep southern accent wearing burnt cork on her face. While touring later that year, luggage including her makeup kit was lost and she then stunned the crowd by saying, You all can see Im a white girl. Well, Ill tell you something more, Im not Southern, Im a Jewish girl and I just learned this Southern accent doing a blackface act for two years. And now, Mr. Leader, please play my song, Tucker also began integrating fat girl humor, which became a common thread in her acts. Her songs included I Dont Want to Get Thin and Nobody Loves a Fat Girl, in 1909, at the age of 22, Tucker performed with the Ziegfeld Follies. Though she was a hit, the female stars refused to share the spotlight with her. This caught the attention of William Morris, an owner and future founder of the William Morris Agency
37.
Flora Robson
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Dame Flora McKenzie Robson, DBE was an English actress and star of the theatrical stage and cinema, particularly renowned for her performances in plays demanding dramatic and emotional intensity. Her range extended from queens to murderesses, Robson was born in South Shields, County Durham, of Scottish descent to a family of six siblings. Many of her forebears were engineers, mostly in shipping and her father was a ships engineer who moved from Wallsend near Newcastle to Palmers Green in 1907 and Southgate in 1910, both in north London, and later to Welwyn Garden City. She was educated at the Palmers Green High School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and her father discovered that Flora had a talent for recitation and, from the age of five, she was taken around by horse and carriage to recite, and to compete in recitations. This established a pattern that remained with her, Robson made her stage debut in 1921. In films, her most notable role was that of Queen Elizabeth I in both Fire Over England and The Sea Hawk, in 1934, Robson played the Empress Elizabeth in Alexander Kordas Catherine the Great. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Ingrid Bergmans servant and that same year audiences in the U. K. and the U. S. It was the making of her. Her acting – as the stepdaughter in Pirandellos Six Characters in Search of an Author – made her the talk of Cambridge. These performances signalled the arrival of an actress who could either transmit emotional stress or simply hint at it, never again, in a career which was a constant struggle to achieve the roles worthy of her talents, would she have such a run of opportunities. In her second season, though, she had few dramatic opportunities, in the little club theatre, The Gate, near Charing Cross, she scored a direct hit with audiences and critics alike. It was, though, her brief, shocking appearance as the prostitute in James Bridies play The Anatomist that put her firmly on the road to success. If you are not moved by this performance, then you are immovable the Observer critic wrote. This success would lead to her famous 1933 season as leading lady at the Old Vic, by the end of it she was caught in the theatrical firmament as a star. She also performed for British television, including The Shrimp and the Anemone, in the 1960s she continued to act in the West End, in such plays as Ring Round the Moon, The Importance of Being Earnest and Three Sisters. Dame Floras career ran down after her curious decision to leave the stage after The Old Ladies, however she continued to act on film and television, though the roles were often not rewarding at all. She was last briefly seen a Stygian Witch in the fantasy adventure Clash of the Titans in 1981, both the BBC and ITV made special programmes to celebrate her 80th birthday in 1982 and the BBC ran a short season of her best films. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as Angelique Buiton and she was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1952, and raised to Dame Commander in 1960
38.
Mary Stuart (play)
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Mary Stuart is a verse play by Friedrich Schiller that depicts the last days of Mary, Queen of Scots. The play consists of five acts, each divided into several scenes, the play had its première in Weimar, Germany on 14 June 1800. The play formed the basis for Donizettis opera Maria Stuarda, Mary Stuart is imprisoned in England — nominally for the murder of her husband Darnley, but actually due to her claim to the throne of England held by Queen Elizabeth I. While Marys cousin, Elizabeth, hesitates over signing Marys death sentence, after Mary finds out that Mortimer, the nephew of her custodian, is on her side, she entrusts her life to him. Mortimer is supposed to give Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester and this is a delicate situation, for Leicester seems to support Queen Elizabeth. After numerous requests, Mary finally gains the opportunity to meet Queen Elizabeth and this meeting ends in an acrimonious argument, caused by Marys unwillingness to submit entirely to Elizabeths wish. The argument leads to the suspicion that the cause of reprieve will not succeed. To complicate matters further, Mortimer plans to free Mary from the prison by force, a version of the unsuccessful Babington Plot. Queen Elizabeth eventually persuades herself to sign Marys death warrant, Elizabeth insists that her only reason for signing is the pressure from her own people to do so. The signed warrant is handed to Queen Elizabeths undersecretary Davison without any instructions on what to do with it. In the process, Elizabeth transfers the burden of responsibility to him, fully aware that he in turn will hand over the warrant to Lord Burleigh, Burleigh demands the signed document from Davison, who — despite his uncertainty — eventually hands it to him. As a result, Burleigh has Mary executed, the play ends with Elizabeth blaming both Burleigh and Davison for Marys death, Lord Shrewsbury resigning his honors and Leicester leaving England for France. Elizabeth is left alone as the curtain falls. Using Peter Oswalds new translation, it was directed by Phyllida Lloyd and starred Janet McTeer as Mary, Queen of Scots, the production transferred to the Apollo Theatre in Londons West End, where it also played a sold-out engagement from late 2005 into January 2006. The production opened on Broadway on 30 March 2009, officially 19 April and it earned seven Tony Award nominations including Best Revival of a Play. The L. A. Morgan Sheppard as Talbot, Christopher Neame as Davison, Shellagh Cullen as Hanna Kennedy, the Faction Theatre Company, as part of a repertory season, staged an adaptation of Mary Stuart at the New Diorama Theatre in London in early 2012. The production was the third Schiller play translated and adapted by Daniel Millar and Mark Leipacher, on 23 September 2012, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a production translated by David Harrower, adapted for radio by Robin Brooks and produced/directed by Gaynor Macfarlane. The cast included Meg Fraser as Mary, Alexandra Mathie as Elizabeth, Matthew Pidgeon as Mortimer, Robin Laing as Leicester, Richard Greenwood as Burleigh, mortimers on-stage suicide has had its dangers
39.
Ingrid Bergman
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Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is best remembered for her roles as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca and as Alicia Huberman in Notorious, before becoming a star in American films, Bergman had been a leading actress in Swedish films. Her introduction to American audiences came with her role in the English-language remake of Intermezzo. Selznicks financial problems meant that Bergman was often loaned to other studios, apart from Casablanca, her performances from this period include Victor Flemings remake of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gaslight, and The Bells of St. Marys. Her last films for Selznick were Alfred Hitchcocks Spellbound and Notorious and her final film for Hitchcock was Under Capricorn. After a decade in American films, she starred in Roberto Rossellinis Stromboli, many of her personal and film documents can be seen in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives. According to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, Bergman quickly became the ideal of American womanhood, in 2007, the American Film Institute ranked Bergman as the fourth-greatest female screen legend of classic American cinema. Bergman, named after Princess Ingrid of Sweden, was born on 29 August 1915 in Stockholm, to a Swedish father, Justus Bergman, when she was two years old, her mother died. Her father, who was an artist and photographer, died when she was 13, in the years before he died, he wanted her to become an opera star, and had her take voice lessons for three years. But she always knew from the beginning that she wanted to be an actress, sometimes wearing her mothers clothes and her father documented all her birthdays with a borrowed camera. After his death, she was sent to live with an aunt and she then moved in with her Aunt Hulda and Uncle Otto, who had five children. Another aunt she visited, Elsa Adler, first told Ingrid, when she was 11, that her mother may have had some Jewish blood, but her aunt also cautioned her about telling others about her possible ancestry as there might be some difficult times coming. Biographer Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm, however, notes that the claim of Jewish blood was likely an embellishment, after being forced to do an in-depth genealogical investigation, Bergmans maternal cousin found there to be no Jewish ancestry on Bergmans mothers side. Later, she received a scholarship to the state-sponsored Royal Dramatic Theatre School, after several months she was given a part in a new play, Ett Brott, written by Sigfrid Siwertz. Chandler notes that this was totally against procedure at the school, during her first summer break, she was also hired by a Swedish film studio, which led to her leaving the Royal Dramatic Theatre after just one year, to work in films full-time. Her first film role after leaving the Royal Dramatic Theatre was a part in 1935s Munkbrogreven. She went on to act in a films in Sweden, including En kvinnas ansikte, which was later remade as A Womans Face with Joan Crawford
40.
Bentalls
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Bentalls is an English department store chain with branches in Kingston upon Thames, London, and Bracknell, Berkshire. The well regarded county department store began as a drapery shop, the company was formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange, but since 2001 has been owned by the private Fenwick group. Bentalls was established in 1867 by Frank Bentall who purchased a drapery shop in Kingston upon Thames, the principal buildings of the Kingston store were completed in 1935 to a design by architect Maurice Webb and inspired by Wrens design for Hampton Court. The fine stonework on the façade was the work of Eric Gill, between 1935 and 1976 it was the UKs largest department store outside central London. It became a Grade II listed building in 2011, the facade of the original store has been retained as part of the Bentall Centre shopping development which was opened in 1992, in which the principal Bentalls store is now located. The store previously occupied buildings covering the site of the development. The company was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1946, as a result, the groups turnover more than doubled from £14.5 million to £35.1 million. The company subsequently opened a store in Bristol and closed the stores in Chatham, in 2000, the chain rejected a £27 million offer from its rival Allders. In January 2001, Bentalls sold their loss-making Bristol store to rival House of Fraser for £16.35 million, in June of that year, the family-owned rival department store chain Fenwick purchased Bentalls for £70.8 million. The Bentall familys shareholding at the time was 38%, with Frank Bentalls great grandson Edward Bentall being the Chairman, the companys turnover was £108.2 million. The chain then consisted of six stores, in, Bracknell, Ealing, Kingston upon Thames, Lakeside, Tonbridge, Fenwick subsequently closed the Lakeside store and sold the leases of the Bentalls sites in Ealing, Tonbridge and Worthing to the Bournemouth based Beales group. However, it retained the successful stores in Kingston upon Thames, the Bracknell branch which opened in April 1973 is due to be re-located and re-branded as Fenwick in 2016. Kingston is one of the largest retail centres in the south-west, in the days approaching Christmas, Bentalls Kingston is said to take over £1 million per day. The only department store in Bracknell town centre at present is Bentalls, however, this will change in 2017 with the opening of a Marks & Spencer store. Bentalls is mentioned by the character Chubb in the Anthony Blunt episode of the stage play Single Spies by Alan Bennett, Bentalls features in the Ladybird Books People at Work series, appearing in In A Big Store Bentalls Department Stores Fenwick Department Stores
41.
Kingston upon Thames
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Kingston upon Thames, also known as Kingston, is the principal settlement of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in southwest London. It was the ancient market town where Saxon kings were crowned, Kingston is situated 10 miles southwest of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Kingston lies approximately 33 feet above sea level, Kingston was part of a large ancient parish in the county of Surrey and the town was an ancient borough, reformed in 1835. It has been the location of Surrey County Hall from 1893, most of the town centre is part of the KT1 postcode area, but some areas north of Kingston railway station have the postcode KT2 instead. The population of the town itself, comprising the four wards of Canbury, Grove, Norbiton, Kingston was called Cyninges tun in 838, Chingestune in 1086, Kingeston in 1164, Kyngeston super Tamisiam in 1321 and Kingestowne upon Thames in 1589. The name means the manor or estate from the Old English words cyning. It belonged to the king in Saxon times and was the earliest royal borough and it was first mentioned in 838 as the site of a meeting between King Egbert of Wessex and Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury. Kingston lay on the boundary between the ancient kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia, until in the tenth century when King Athelstan united both to create the kingdom of England. Probably because of the symbolic location, several tenth-century kings were crowned in Kingston, Æthelstan in 925, Eadred in 946. Other kings who may have been crowned there are Edward the Elder in 902, Edmund in 939, Eadwig in 956, Edgar in about 960 and Edward the Martyr in 975. It was initially used as a block, but in 1850 it was moved to a more dignified place in the market before finally being moved to its current location in the grounds of the guildhall. Well known aviation personalities Sydney Camm, Harry Hawker and Tommy Sopwith were responsible for much of Kingstons achievements in aviation. British Aerospace finally closed its Lower Ham Road factory in 1992, part of the site was redeveloped for housing but the riverside part houses a community centre. The growth and development of Kingston Polytechnic and its transformation into Kingston University has made Kingston a university town, Kingston upon Thames formed an ancient parish in the Kingston hundred of Surrey. The parish of Kingston upon Thames covered an area including Hook, Kew, New Malden, Petersham, Richmond, Surbiton, Thames Ditton. The town of Kingston was granted a charter by King John in 1200, but the oldest one to survive is from 1208, other charters were issued by later kings, including Edward IVs charter that gave the town the status of a borough in 1481. The borough covered a smaller area than the ancient parish, although as new parishes were split off the borough. The borough was reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, becoming the Municipal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames and it had been known as a Royal borough through custom and the right to the title was confirmed by George V in 1927
42.
Toffee
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Toffee is a confection made by caramelizing sugar or molasses along with butter, and occasionally flour. The mixture is heated until its reaches the hard crack stage of 149 to 154 °C. While being prepared, toffee is sometimes mixed with nuts or raisins, the process of making toffee requires the boiling of ingredients until the mix is stiff enough to be pulled into a shape which holds and has a glossy surface. The resulting mixture will typically be poured into a shallow tray, different mixes, processes, and most importantly, temperatures, will result in different textures and hardnesses, from soft and often sticky to a hard, brittle material. A brown color, and smoky taste, is imparted to the toffee by the caramelization of the sugars, a popular variant in the US is English toffee, which is a very buttery toffee often made with almonds. It is available in both chewy and hard versions, heath bars are a type of confection made with an English toffee core. Although named English toffee it bears resemblance to the wide range of confectionery known as toffee currently available in the United Kingdom. However, one can find this product in the UK under the name buttercrunch. Another variant is honeycomb toffee, which is a version with bubbles introduced by adding baking soda. These react to form carbon dioxide, which is trapped in the highly viscous mixture, in the UK and Canada, the most well known honeycomb confection is the Crunchie bar. A similar Australian chocolate bar is the Violet Crumble, in New Zealand, toffee flavoured ice cream is called hokey pokey. A particular application of toffee is in toffee apples, sometimes called candy apples, toffee apples are similar to taffy apples and caramel apples, which are both covered in caramel. The origins of the word are unknown, food writer Harold McGee claims it to be from the Creole for a mixture of sugar and molasses, but which creole language isnt specified. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first publication of the word to 1825 and identifies it as a variation of taffy, both of which are first recorded as English dialectical words
43.
The Blitz
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By September 1940—two months into the battle—faulty German intelligence suggested that the Royal Air Force was close to defeat at the hands of the Luftwaffe. The German air fleets were ordered to attack London, thereby drawing up the last remnants of RAF Fighter Command into a battle of annihilation, Adolf Hitler and commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, sanctioned the change in emphasis on 6 September 1940. From 7 September 1940, one year into the war, London was systematically bombed by the Luftwaffe for 56 out of the following 57 days, on 15 September 1940, a large daylight attack against London was repulsed with significant German losses. Thereafter, the Luftwaffe gradually decreased daylight operations in favour of nocturnal attacks, ports and industrial centres outside London were also attacked. The main Atlantic sea port of Liverpool was bombed, the North Sea port of Hull, a convenient and easily found target or secondary target for bombers unable to locate their primary targets, was subjected to raids in the Hull Blitz during the war. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, by May 1941, the threat of an invasion of Britain had ended, and Hitlers attention turned to Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The bombing failed to demoralise the British into surrender or significantly damage the war economy, the eight months of bombing never seriously hampered British production and the war industries continued to operate and expand. The German offensives greatest effect was forcing the dispersal of aircraft production, British wartime studies concluded that cities generally took 10 to 15 days to recover when hit severely but exceptions like Birmingham took three months. The German air offensive failed for several reasons, discussions in OKL revolved around tactics rather than strategy. Poor intelligence on British industry and economic efficiency was also a factor, in the 1920s and 1930s, air power theorists Giulio Douhet and Billy Mitchell espoused the idea that air forces could win wars, without a need for land and sea fighting. It was thought there was no defence against air attack, particularly at night, enemy industry, seats of government, factories and communications could be destroyed, taking away their means to resist. It was also thought the bombing of residential centres would cause a collapse of civilian will, democracies, where the populace was allowed to show overt disapproval of the state, were thought particularly vulnerable. This thinking was prevalent in both the RAF and the United States Army Air Corps, the policy of RAF Bomber Command became an attempt to achieve victory through the destruction of civilian will, communications and industry. In the Luftwaffe, there was a view of strategic bombing. OKL did not believe that air power alone could be decisive, contrary to popular belief, evidence suggests that the Luftwaffe did not adopt an official bombing policy in which civilians became the primary target until 1942. The vital industries and transport centres that would be targeted for shutdown were valid military targets and it could be claimed civilians were not to be targeted directly, but the breakdown of production would affect their morale and will to fight. German legal scholars of the 1930s carefully worked out guidelines for what type of bombing was permissible under international law. Wever outlined five points of air strategy, To destroy the air force by bombing its bases and aircraft factories
44.
Mighty Lak' a Rose
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Mighty Lak a Rose is a 1901 song with lyrics by Frank Lebby Stanton and music by Ethelbert Nevin. The lyrics are written in an approximation of an African-American accent, the title thus means Mighty like a rose, this assessment is addressed by a mother to her newborn son. The dialect has been modified by some singers, such as Frank Sinatra, audiences of various cultures and backgrounds have been able to identify with the narrator, the mother, and the child. The tune became a Tin Pan Alley hit, and it was a perennial of traditional pop music for generations, deanna Durbin sang it as a lullaby in the 1943 feature film The Amazing Mrs. Holliday. An orchestra arrangement was directed by Frank Chacksfield, bob Beckers xylophone rendition is available performed by McGill Universitys Amie Watson. In an episode of the British sitcom Are You Being Served, Mrs Slocombe, Miss Brahms and Mr Humphries sang it as a lullaby to two babies. In the play and movie Night Must Fall, the murderer, as played by Robert Montgomery, whistled, hummed, and sang portions of Mighty Lak a Rose, the song was Nevins final composition. He died on 17 February 1901, shortly after composing it, never living to realize the songs success
45.
Julie Andrews
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Dame Julia Elizabeth Julie Andrews, DBE is an English actress, singer, author, theatre director and dancer. Andrews, an actress and singer, appeared on the West End in 1948. She rose to prominence starring in Broadway musicals such as My Fair Lady, playing Eliza Doolittle, in 1957, Andrews starred in the premiere of Rodgers and Hammersteins written-for-television musical Cinderella, a live network broadcast seen by over 100 million viewers. Andrews made her film debut in Mary Poppins, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the title role. She starred in The Sound of Music, playing Maria, between 1964 and 1986, she starred in The Americanization of Emily, Hawaii, Torn Curtain, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Star. The Tamarind Seed,10, Victor/Victoria, Thats Life. in 2000, Andrews was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the performing arts. In 2002, she was ranked #59 in the BBCs poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, in 2003, she revisited her first Broadway success, this time as a stage director, with a revival of The Boy Friend. From 2001 to 2004, Andrews starred in The Princess Diaries, The Princess Diaries 2, from 2004 to 2010, she lent her voice to the Shrek animated films, and Despicable Me. She is an author of books and has published her autobiography, Home. Julia Elizabeth Wells was born on 1 October 1935 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey and her mother, Barbara Ward Wells was born in Chertsey and married Edward Charles Ted Wells, a teacher of metalwork and woodwork in 1932. However, Andrews was conceived as a result of an affair her mother had with a family friend. Andrews discovered her true parentage from her mother in 1950, although it was not publicly disclosed until her 2008 autobiography, with the outbreak of World War II, Barbara and Ted Wells went their separate ways and were soon divorced. Ted Wells assisted with evacuating children to Surrey during the Blitz, Andrews lived briefly with Ted Wells and her brother John in Surrey. In 1940, Ted Wells sent young Julia to live with her mother and stepfather, who, the Andrews family was very poor and we lived in a bad slum area of London, Andrews recalled, adding, That was a very black period in my life. According to Andrews, her stepfather was violent and an alcoholic, Ted Andrews twice, while drunk, tried to get into bed with his stepdaughter, resulting in Andrews fitting a lock on her door. The Andrews family took up residence at the Old Meuse, in West Grove, Hersham and she had an enormous influence on me, Andrews said of Stiles-Allen, adding, She was my third mother – Ive got more mothers and fathers than anyone in the world. In her memoir Julie Andrews – My Star Pupil, Stiles-Allen records, The range, accuracy and she had possessed the rare gift of absolute pitch. According to Andrews, Madame was sure that I could do Mozart and Rossini, of her own voice, she says I had a very pure, white, thin voice, a four-octave range – dogs would come for miles around
46.
George VI
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George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death. He was the last Emperor of India and the first Head of the Commonwealth, known as Albert until his accession, George VI was born in the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria, and was named after his great-grandfather Albert, Prince Consort. As the second son of King George V, he was not expected to inherit the throne and spent his life in the shadow of his elder brother. He attended naval college as a teenager, and served in the Royal Navy, in 1920, he was made Duke of York. He married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923 and they had two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, in the mid-1920s, he had speech therapy for a stammer, which he never fully overcame. Georges elder brother ascended the throne as Edward VIII upon the death of their father in 1936, however, later that year Edward revealed his desire to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin advised Edward that for political and religious reasons he could not marry a divorced woman, Edward abdicated in order to marry, and George ascended the throne as the third monarch of the House of Windsor. During Georges reign, the break-up of the British Empire and its transition into the Commonwealth of Nations accelerated, the parliament of the Irish Free State removed direct mention of the monarch from the countrys constitution on the day of his accession. The following year, a new Irish constitution changed the name of the state to Ireland, from 1939, the Empire and Commonwealth – except Ireland – was at war with Nazi Germany. War with Italy and Japan followed in 1940 and 1941, respectively, though Britain and its allies were ultimately victorious in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union rose as pre-eminent world powers and the British Empire declined. After the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, George remained king of countries, but relinquished the title of Emperor of India in June 1948. Ireland formally declared itself a republic and left the Commonwealth in 1949, George adopted the new title of Head of the Commonwealth. He was beset by problems in the later years of his reign. He was succeeded by his eldest daughter, Elizabeth II, George was born at York Cottage, on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria. His father was Prince George, Duke of York, the second and eldest-surviving son of the Prince and his mother was the Duchess of York, the eldest child and only daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Teck. His birthday was the 34th anniversary of the death of his great-grandfather, Albert, uncertain of how the Prince Consorts widow, Queen Victoria, would take the news of the birth, the Prince of Wales wrote to the Duke of York that the Queen had been rather distressed. Two days later, he again, I really think it would gratify her if you yourself proposed the name Albert to her. Consequently, he was baptised Albert Frederick Arthur George at St. Mary Magdalenes Church near Sandringham three months later, within the family, he was known informally as Bertie
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