1.
Cologne
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Cologne is the largest city in the German federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth-largest city in Germany. It is located within the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region, one of the major European metropolitan areas, and with more than ten million inhabitants, Cologne is located on both sides of the Rhine River, less than eighty kilometres from Belgium. The citys famous Cologne Cathedral is the seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Cologne, the University of Cologne is one of Europes oldest and largest universities. Cologne was founded and established in Ubii territory in the first century AD as the Roman Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, Cologne, the French version of the citys name, has become standard in English as well. The city functioned as the capital of the Roman province of Germania Inferior, during the Middle Ages it flourished on one of the most important major trade routes between east and west in Europe. Cologne was one of the members of the Hanseatic League and one of the largest cities north of the Alps in medieval. Up until World War II the city had several occupations by the French. Cologne was one of the most heavily bombed cities in Germany during World War II, the bombing reduced the population by 95%, mainly due to evacuation, and destroyed almost the entire city. With the intention of restoring as many buildings as possible. Cologne is a cultural centre for the Rhineland, it hosts more than thirty museums. Exhibitions range from local ancient Roman archeological sites to contemporary graphics, the Cologne Trade Fair hosts a number of trade shows such as Art Cologne, imm Cologne, Gamescom, and the Photokina. The first urban settlement on the grounds of modern-day Cologne was Oppidum Ubiorum, founded in 38 BC by the Ubii, in 50 AD, the Romans founded Colonia on the Rhine and the city became the provincial capital of Germania Inferior in 85 AD. The city was named Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium in 50 AD, considerable Roman remains can be found in present-day Cologne, especially near the wharf area, where a notable discovery of a 1900-year-old Roman boat was made in late 2007. From 260 to 271 Cologne was the capital of the Gallic Empire under Postumus, Marius, in 310 under Constantine a bridge was built over the Rhine at Cologne. Roman imperial governors resided in the city and it one of the most important trade. Cologne is shown on the 4th century Peutinger Map, maternus, who was elected as bishop in 313, was the first known bishop of Cologne. The city was the capital of a Roman province until occupied by the Ripuarian Franks in 462, parts of the original Roman sewers are preserved underneath the city, with the new sewerage system having opened in 1890. Early medieval Cologne was part of Austrasia within the Frankish Empire, Cologne had been the seat of a bishop since the Roman period, under Charlemagne, in 795, bishop Hildebold was promoted to archbishop
2.
Free State of Prussia
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The Free State of Prussia was a German state formed after the abolition of the Kingdom of Prussia in the aftermath of the First World War. It was the state of the German Reich during the time of the Weimar Republic, comprising almost 5⁄8 of its territory. Free state is another German term for republic that was coined in contrast to the Latin word, the democratic Free State of Prussia was rendered incapacitated when it was taken over by the Preußenschlag of 1932–33 and Otto Braun was forced from office. His government went to court over this ouster, but in 1933 the Nazi regime seized control of the Prussian government, from 1933, the Free State was deprived of parliamentary democracy and ruled exclusively under the leadership of the National Socialist German Workers Party. Initially, Prussia was administered by high-ranking Nazi Hermann Göring who was appointed Minister-President of Prussia, after the end of World War II Otto Braun approached US officials to reinstate the legal Prussian government. They and the other Allied Occupation forces, who had occupied all of Germany, were opposed to the idea, except for its overseas colonies, Alsace-Lorraine and the Bavarian portion of the Saargebiet, all German territorial losses as a result of World War I were Prussian losses. As specified in the Treaty of Versailles, the kingdom lost territory to Belgium, Denmark. The Saargebiet was administered by the League of Nations until 1935, the Rhine Province became a demilitarised zone. The bulk of Prussias losses were to Poland, including most of the provinces of Posen and West Prussia, Danzig was placed under the administration of the League of Nations as the Free City of Danzig. These losses separated East Prussia from the rest of the country, in particular, it was thought that the French would seek to annex the Rhineland. Both the Reich and Prussian governments in Berlin were dominated by traditionalist sentiment, essentially, apart from its territorial losses and having its government placed on a democratic footing, Prussia continued unchanged. It remained by far the largest state of the Reich, with more territory, during the 500 years of Hohenzollern rule, Prussia had been synonymous with authoritarianism. In contrast, Prussia was a bulwark of democracy during the Weimar Republic, the restrictive Prussian three-class franchise was abolished shortly after Kaiser William II abdicated. Power now passed from the Junker landowners and great industrialists to Red Berlin, Prussia now became a stronghold of the left. From 1919 to 1932, Prussia was governed by a coalition of the Social Democrats, Catholic Centre, unlike in other states of the German Reich, majority rule by democratic parties in Prussia was never endangered. Otto Braun, a Social Democrat from East Prussia, served as Prussian minister-president almost continuously from 1920 to 1932. A capable leader, he implemented several trend-setting reforms together with his minister of the interior, Carl Severing, for instance, a Prussian minister-president could be forced out of office only if there was a positive majority for a potential successor. This concept, known as the vote of no confidence, was carried over into the Basic Law of the FRG
3.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
4.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
5.
Booker Prize
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The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original novel, written in the English language and published in the UK. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured international renown and success, therefore, from its inception, only Commonwealth, Irish, and South African citizens were eligible to receive the prize, in 2014, however, this eligibility was widened to any English-language novel. A high-profile literary award in British culture, the Booker Prize is greeted with great anticipation and it is also a mark of distinction for authors to be selected for inclusion in the shortlist or even to be nominated for the longlist. The foundation is an independent registered charity funded by the profits of Booker Prize Trading Ltd. In 1970, Bernice Rubens became the first woman to win the Booker Prize, the rules of the Booker changed in 1971, previously, it had been awarded retrospectively to books published prior to the year in which the award was given. In 1971 the year of eligibility was changed to the same as the year of the award, in effect, this meant that books published in 1970 were not considered for the Booker in either year. The Booker Prize Foundation announced in January 2010 the creation of an award called the Lost Man Booker Prize. Alice Munro has a place in Booker Prize history, The Beggar Maid is the only short story collection to have been shortlisted. Before 2001, each years longlist of nominees was not publicly revealed, John Sutherland, who was a judge for the 1999 prize, has said, There is a well-established London literary community. Rushdie doesnt get shortlisted now because he has attacked that community and that is not a good game plan if you want to win the Booker. Norman Mailer has found the thing in the US – you have to be a citizen if you want to win prizes. The real scandal is that Amis has never won the prize, in fact, he has only been shortlisted once and that was for Times Arrow, which was not one of his strongest books. He pissed people off with Dead Babies and that lodged in the culture. There is also the feeling that he has looked towards America. In 1972, the winning writer John Berger, known for his Marxist worldview and he blamed Bookers 130 years of sugar production in the Caribbean for the regions modern poverty. Berger donated half of his £5,000 prize to the British Black Panther movement, because they had a socialist, in 1980, Anthony Burgess, writer of Earthly Powers, refused to attend the ceremony unless it was confirmed to him in advance whether he had won. His was one of two books considered likely to win, the other being Rites of Passage by William Golding, the judges decided only 30 minutes before the ceremony, giving the prize to Golding. Both novels had been seen as favourites to win leading up to the prize, 1983s judging produced a draw between J. M. Coetzees Life & Times of Michael K and Salman Rushdies Shame, leaving chair of judges Fay Weldon to choose between the two
6.
Heat and Dust
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Heat and Dust is a novel by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala which won the Booker Prize in 1975. The initial stages of the novel are told in the first person, from the voice of a woman who travels to India, to find out more about her step-grandmother. Through the use of analepses the reader experiences the story from Olivias point of view and we discover that Olivia, although at first glance she seems simply to be a proper Englishwoman, is actually smothered by British social restrictions, and longs for excitement. She meets the Nawab, who charms her, and gradually lets her into his life. Olivia is drawn to the charm and charisma of the Nawab, Harry is portrayed as weak due to his homosexuality and inability to withstand the Indian climate and food. Olivia eventually becomes pregnant with the Nawabs baby, and out of fear decides to abort the child and this causes scandal in the town of Satipur. She then resides in a town for her remaining years. The novel ends with the narrator also becoming pregnant, deciding to spend her years in Town X. 1975, Booker Prize The novel was made into a film in 1983 by Merchant Ivory Productions and it was an award winning film, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala based upon her novel, directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant. Summary from Merchant Ivory website Booker Prize Winners
7.
Heat and Dust (film)
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Heat and Dust is a 1983 romantic drama film with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala based upon her novel, Heat and Dust. It was directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant and it stars Greta Scacchi, Shashi Kapoor and Julie Christie. The plot of Heat and Dust follows two intertwined stories, the first is set in the 1920s and deals with an illicit affair between Olivia, the beautiful young wife of a British colonial official, and an Indian Nawab. The second, set in 1982, deals with Anne, Olivias great-niece, who travels to India hoping to find out about her great-aunts life, and while there also has an affair with an Indian man. Heat and Dust forms part of a cycle of film and television productions which emerged during the first half of the 1980s, in addition to Heat and Dust, this cycle included Gandhi, The Jewel in the Crown, The Far Pavilions and A Passage to India. In 1982, an Englishwoman named Ann begins an investigation into the fate of her great-aunt Olivia, whose letters and she interviews the elderly Harry Hamilton-Paul, who in his youth was Olivias close friend when they were both living in India. Anne’s search brings her to India, where the story of Olivias life is told in flashbacks. In 1923, during the British Raj, Olivia, recently married to Douglas Rivers, Douglas is an attentive husband and the couple seems to be very much in love. When he insists that Olivia spend the summer in Simla to avoid the extreme heat, however, the conventional narrow society of the English memsahibs bores her. Mrs Saunders, the wife of the local doctor, warns Olivia that all Indian men are potential rapists. Mrs Crawford, the Burra Memsahib, is kindly but equally conservative, the racist Doctor Saunders takes an instant dislike to Olivia. While the Anglo-Indian society seems to have little to offer Olivia, the British suspect him of being in league with a gang of bandits, allowing them to operate with impunity in exchange for a share of their booty. At the dinner, Olivia attracts the attention of the Nawab, Harry Hamilton-Paul enjoys a close intimacy with the Nawab and is a permanent guest at the palace. With his good humor and charm, Harry serves a sort of court jester and he is well liked even by the smoking and proud Begum Mussarat Jahan. In the midst of the summer heat, Harry falls ill. The Nawab easily seduces Olivia and they engage in an illicit affair, following in Olivia’s footsteps, Anne comes to Satipur to live in the same surroundings that framed Olivia’s story more than fifty years earlier. She stays as the guest of an Indian family, the head of the household, Inder Lal, is a polite civil servant who serves as her guide while she tries to get connected with the world that Olivia lived. Inder Lal is worried that their innocent relationship will be perceived as sexual
8.
A Room with a View (1985 film)
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A Room with a View is a 1985 British romance film, directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant, of E. M. Forsters 1908 novel of the same name. The film closely follows the novel by use of the titles to section the film into thematic segments. It stars Helena Bonham Carter as Lucy, Julian Sands as George and Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, the film was a success at the box office as well as receiving universal critical acclaim. At the 59th Academy Awards it was nominated for eight awards including Best Picture and it also won five British Academy Film Awards and one Golden Globe Award. In 1999 the British Film Institute voted A Room with a View the 73rd greatest British film of the 20th Century, Lucy Honeychurch is from an English village in Surrey and is on holiday in Italy with her much older cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett. Charlotte is conventionally English, with an extremely restrictive personality, Lucy has been brought up in an upper-middle class but loving and easygoing household, and has fewer inhibitions, which creates strong tension between herself and Charlotte. They are contrasted with the more free-thinking and free-spirited backdrop of Italy and these men, although also English, represent the forward-thinking ideals of the turn-of-the-century, seeking to leave behind the repression and caution that was the norm in Victorian times. At first, the Emersons seem strange and unfamiliar to Charlotte, the men seem sincere but unaware of finer upper-class Victorian manners. Mr. Emerson offers to switch rooms with the women, who desire a room with a view, Charlotte is offended, believing him to be rude and tactless for what she perceives to be indebting them with his offer. As Lucy begins her journey to maturity, she finds herself drawn to George due to his mysterious thinking, a number of people staying at the pension take a carriage ride in the country. A mischievous Italian driver gets back at Charlotte by misdirecting an unchaperoned Lucy to George in a field as he admires the view. George suddenly embraces and passionately kisses Lucy as she approaches him, Charlotte has followed Lucy, witnesses the act, and quickly stops the intimacy. Georges unreserved passion shocks Lucy, but also lights a secret desire, Charlotte suggests that George kissing her was the act of a rake. Charlotte makes reference to a heartbreak from her youth that occurred the way and has behaved accordingly with disgust. Charlotte uses guilt to coerce Lucy to secrecy to save both their reputations as a lady and a chaperone, but it is mostly for her own benefit. Normally, if a young man kissed a young lady, an engagement should be announced to preserve her reputation, upon returning to England, Lucy tells her mother nothing and pretends to forget the incident. She accepts a proposal from a wealthy and respectable but snobbish. Cecil seems lacking in personality or emotion, and instead of playing tennis with her, prefers to walk around outside, the appearance of George in the village soon disrupts Lucys plans and causes her suppressed feelings to resurface, complicated by the supposed need for secrecy
9.
Howards End (film)
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Howards End is a 1992 British romantic drama film based upon the novel of the same name by E. M. Forster, a story of class relations in turn-of-the-20th-century England. The film—produced by Merchant Ivory Productions as their third adaptation of a Forster novel —was the first film to be released by Sony Pictures Classics, the screenplay was written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant. Howards End was entered as Official selection for Cannes International Film Festival, in 1993, the film received nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture for Ismail Merchant and Best Director for James Ivory. The film won three awards, including for Best Art Direction, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala earned her second Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, while Emma Thompson won the 1992 Academy Award for Best Actress. The film asks the question Who will inherit England, and answers it through the ownership of the house, Howards End, as it passes from person to person. The younger sister, Helen Schlegel, briefly engaged to the younger Wilcox son. They realise their mistake and break it off by mutual consent, Ruth is descended from English yeoman stock and it is through her family that the Wilcoxes have come to own Howards End, a house she loves dearly. It stands symbolically above class distinction, representing rural England, the tapestry of its manifold traditions. Over the course of the few months, the two women become very good friends, and Ruth eventually regards Margaret as a kindred spirit. Hearing that the lease on the Schlegels London house is due to expire and this causes great consternation to the Wilcoxes, who refuse to believe that Ruth was in her right mind or could possibly have intended her home to go to a relative stranger. The Wilcoxes burn the piece of paper on which Ruths bequest is written, Henry Wilcox is aware, as Margaret is not, that he has prevented the Schlegels from finding a home at Howards End. Therefore, he offers to help Margaret look for a new place to live, as a result, they get to know each other quite well. Some time before this the Schlegels had befriended a young, poor, yet highly intellectual clerk, both sisters find him remarkable, infused with a spirit of romantic ambition as Margaret puts it. Wishing to improve his lot, they pass along advice from Henry to the effect that Leonard must leave his post, Leonard acts on this advice in good faith, but finds himself in a far worse position, indeed he is unable to find any employment. The two plot lines converge unexpectedly at the scene of the wedding party of Evie Wilcox. Helen has found the Basts destitute, on the verge of starvation, and brings them from London to Shropshire, where she storms into the garden party, jacky Bast overeats and gets drunk, Margaret approaches her with Henry trying to resolve the situation. Jacky recognises Henry immediately and Margaret learns that years previously. Humiliated and suspicious, Henry breaks off the engagement, nevertheless, he and Margaret make their peace with each other the same evening, and she forgives his moral transgression, valiantly determining, this is not going to trouble us
10.
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
11.
Academy Awards
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The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
12.
Collaboration
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Collaboration is the process of two or more people or organizations working together to realize or achieve something successfully. Collaboration is very similar to, but more closely aligned than, Most collaboration requires leadership, although the form of leadership can be social within a decentralized and egalitarian group. Teams that work collaboratively can obtain resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for finite resources. Structured methods of collaboration encourage introspection of behavior and communication and these methods specifically aim to increase the success of teams as they engage in collaborative problem solving. Forms, rubrics, charts and graphs are useful in situations to objectively document personal traits with the goal of improving performance in current. Collaboration is also present in opposing goals exhibiting the notion of adversarial collaboration, following are some examples of successful collaboration efforts in the past. Trade originated with the start of communication in prehistoric times, trading was the main facility of prehistoric people, who bartered goods and services from each other when there was no such thing as the modern day currency. Peter Watson dates the history of commerce from circa 150,000 years ago. Due to specialisation and division of labor, most people concentrate on an aspect of production. As such, trade at prices between locations benefits both locations. The members of an intentional community typically hold a social, political or spiritual vision. They also share responsibilities and resources, intentional communities include cohousing, residential land trusts, ecovillages, communes, kibbutzim, ashrams, and housing cooperatives. Typically, new members of a community are selected by the communitys existing membership. Hutterite, Austria Housing units are built and assigned to families but belong to the colony. Meals are taken by the colony in a common long room. The goal was to eliminate bad character traits, early Kibbutz settlements founded near Jerusalem A Kibbutz is an Israeli collective community. The movement combines socialism and Zionism in a form of practical Labor Zionism, forced by necessity into communal life, and inspired by their own ideology, the kibbutz members developed a pure communal mode of living that attracted interest from the entire world. Ayn Rand utterly rejected the notion that one should live an isolated life, Rand wrote hundreds of pages about the virtues and benefits of collaborating with others to mutual advantage
13.
Ismail Merchant
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Ismail Merchant was an Indian-born film producer and director. He worked for years in collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions which included director James Ivory as well as screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Their films won six Academy Awards, Merchant succeeded as an independent producer in Hollywood for more than 40 years. His strength lay in funding his projects, particularly in his ability to produce films for several million less than those of his contemporaries. Born Ismail hammad Abdul Rahman in Bombay, he was the son of Hazra and Noormohamed Rehman and he grew up bilingual in Gujarati and Urdu, and learned Arabic and English at school. When he was 11, he and his family were caught up in the 1947 partitioning of India and his father was president of the Muslim League, and refused to move to Pakistan. Merchant later said that he carried memories of the butchery and riots into adulthood. As a child at the age of 9, he delivered a riveting speech about partition, held at a political rally in front of a crowd of 10,000 people. It was she who inspired his ambitious rise to stardom and he studied higher education at St. Xaviers College, Bombay and it was here that he developed his love for film. When he was 22, he traveled to the United States to study at New York University and he supported himself by working as a messenger for the United Nations and used this opportunity to persuade Indian delegates to fund his film projects. He said of this experience I was not intimidated by anyone or anything, in 1961, he made a short film, The Creation of Woman. It was shown at the Cannes Film Festival and also received an Academy Award nomination, Merchant met director James Ivory, at a screening, in New York City, of Ivorys documentary The Sword and the Flute in 1959. In May 1961, Merchant and Ivory formed the production company Merchant Ivory Productions. Merchant and Ivory were long-term life partners and their professional and romantic partnership lasted 44 years, from 1961 until Merchants death in 2005. Their partnership has a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest partnership in independent cinema history, until Merchants death in 2005, they produced nearly 40 films, including a number of award winners. Novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was the screenwriter for most of their productions, in 1963, MIP premiered its first production, The Householder, based upon a novel by Jhabvala. This feature became the first Indian-made film to be distributed internationally by a major American studio, however, it wasnt until the 1970s that the partnership hit on a successful formula for studied, slow-moving pieces. Merchant Ivory became known for their attention to detail and the opulence of their sets
14.
Hazzan
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A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish musician, or precentor, trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer. In English, this prayer-leader is often referred to as cantor, the person leading the congregation in public prayers is called the shaliach tzibbur, a ħazzān or cantor. Jewish law restricts the role to adult Jews, see also, Cantor in Reform Judaism. In theory, any lay person can be a sheliach tzibbur, most synagogue-attending Jews will serve in this role every now, one who cannot or doesnt pronounce his words properly, including merging pharyngeals with glottals or uvulars, shouldnt be appointed unless no one else better is available. In practice, those with the best voice and the most knowledge of the prayers serve much more often, ashkenazic hazzanim are known to repeat words during prayer, Yemenite shluchei tzibbur, on the other hand, will never repeat words. There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, Jewish prayer services are collected in a prayerbook known as the siddur. The office of the increased in importance with the centuries. The hazzan was required to possess a pleasing appearance, to be married, sometimes, according to Isaac of Vienna, a young hazzan having only a slight growth of beard was tolerated. Even a person who had once litigated in a court, instead of to a Jewish court, in a disputed question could not act as hazzan on those days. However many authorities were lenient in this regard and as long as a cantor was merutzeh lkehal desired by the congregation, the doctor of music degree is sometimes awarded to honour a hazzan. Although traditionally a hazzan was always a man, today a woman can be a hazzan in all types of Judaism except for Orthodox Judaism. Julie Rosewald, called “Cantor Soprano” by her congregation, was America’s first female cantor, serving San Francisco’s Temple Emanu-El from 1884 until 1893, although she was not ordained. Became the first female cantor to be ordained in Reform Judaism in 1975, the Cantors Assembly, a professional organization of cantors associated with Conservative Judaism, did not allow women to join until 1990. Sharon Hordes became the first cantor in Reconstructionist Judaism in 2002, avitall Gerstetter, who lived in Germany, became the first female cantor in Jewish Renewal in 2002. Susan Wehle became the first American female cantor in Jewish Renewal in 2006, the first American women to be ordained as cantors in Jewish Renewal after Susan Wehles ordination were Michal Rubin and Abbe Lyons, both ordained on January 10,2010. In 2001 Deborah Davis became the first cantor in Humanistic Judaism, however, in 2009 Tannoz Bahremand Foruzanfar, who was born in Iran, became the first Persian woman to be ordained as a cantor in the United States. As of 2011, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the role of hazzanim as a respected full-time profession has become a reality in recent centuries. In the last two centuries Jews in a number of European communities, notably Germany and Britain, came to view professionally trained hazzanim as clergy, the hazzan therefore solemnized marriages and otherwise represented the congregation in the eyes of civil authorities
15.
Kristallnacht
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German authorities looked on without intervening. The name Kristallnacht comes from the shards of glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings. Estimates of the number of fatalities caused by the pogrom have varied, early reporting estimated that 91 Jewish people were murdered during the attacks. Modern analysis of German scholarly sources by historians such as Richard J. Evans puts the number much higher, when deaths from post-arrest maltreatment and subsequent suicides are included, the death toll climbs into the hundreds. Additionally,30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps, Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked, as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned and over 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed or damaged. The event which caused the attacks was the assassination of the Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, in the 1920s, most German Jews were fully integrated into German society as German citizens. They served in the German army and navy and contributed to every field of German business, science, from its inception, Hitlers régime moved quickly to introduce anti-Jewish policies. Nazi propaganda singled out the 500,000 Jews in Germany, the subsequent 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped German Jews of their citizenship and forbade Jews to marry non-Jewish Germans. These laws resulted in the exclusion of Jews from German social and political life, the international Évian Conference on 6 July 1938 addressed the issue of Jewish and Gypsy immigration to other countries. As the number of Jews and Gypsies wanting to leave increased, by 1938, Germany had entered a new radical phase in anti-Semitic activity. In a 1997 interview, the German historian Hans Mommsen claimed that a motive for the pogrom was the desire of the Gauleiters of the NSDAP to seize Jewish property. In the fall of 1938, the pressure on Jewish property nourished the partys ambition. This, however, was one aspect of the origin of the November 1938 pogrom. The Polish government threatened to extradite all Jews who were Polish citizens, the immediate reaction by the Gestapo was to push the Polish Jews—16,000 persons—over the borderline, but this measure failed due to the stubbornness of the Polish customs officers. The loss of prestige as a result of this abortive operation called for some sort of compensation, thus, the overreaction to Herschel Grynszpans attempt against the diplomat Ernst vom Rath came into being and led to the November pogrom. The background of the pogrom was signified by a sharp cleavage of interests between the different agencies of party and state, Heydrich and Himmler were interested in fostering Jewish emigration. In August 1938 the German authorities announced that permits for foreigners were being cancelled
16.
Nazism
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National Socialism, more commonly known as Nazism, is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and Nazi Germany, as well as other far-right groups. Nazism subscribed to theories of racial hierarchy and Social Darwinism, identifying Germans as part of what Nazis regarded as an Aryan or Nordic master race and it aimed to overcome social divisions and create a homogeneous society, unified on the basis of racial purity. The term National Socialism arose out of attempts to create a nationalist redefinition of socialism, the Nazi Partys precursor, the Pan-German nationalist and anti-Semitic German Workers Party, was founded on 5 January 1919. By the early 1920s, Adolf Hitler assumed control of the organisation, following the Holocaust and German defeat in World War II, only a few fringe racist groups, usually referred to as neo-Nazis, still describe themselves as following National Socialism. The full name of Adolf Hitlers party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the shorthand Nazi was formed from the first two syllables of the German pronunciation of the word national. The term was in use before the rise of the NSDAP as a colloquial and derogatory word for a peasant, characterizing an awkward. It derived from Ignaz, being a version of Ignatius, a common name in Bavaria. Opponents seized on this and shortened the first word of the name, Nationalsozialistische. The NSDAP briefly adopted the Nazi designation, attempting to reappropriate the term, the use of Nazi Germany, Nazi regime, and so on was popularised by German exiles abroad. From them, the spread into other languages and was eventually brought back to Germany after World War II. In English, Nazism is a name for the ideology the party advocated. The majority of scholars identify Nazism in practice as a form of far-right politics, far-right themes in Nazism include the argument that superior people have a right to dominate over other people and purge society of supposed inferior elements. Adolf Hitler and other proponents officially portrayed Nazism as being neither left- nor right-wing, but the politicians of the Right deserve exactly the same reproach. It was through their miserable cowardice that those ruffians of Jews who came into power in 1918 were able to rob the nation of its arms, a major inspiration for the Nazis were the far-right nationalist Freikorps, paramilitary organisations that engaged in political violence after World War I. The Nazis stated the alliance was purely tactical and there remained substantial differences with the DNVP, the Nazis described the DNVP as a bourgeois party and called themselves an anti-bourgeois party. After the elections in 1932, the alliance broke after the DNVP lost many of its seats in the Reichstag, the Nazis denounced them as an insignificant heap of reactionaries. The DNVP responded by denouncing the Nazis for their socialism, their violence. Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was pressured to abdicate the throne and flee into exile amidst an attempted communist revolution in Germany, there were factions in the Nazi Party, both conservative and radical
17.
Heinrich Heine
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Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was a German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his lyric poetry. Heines later verse and prose are distinguished by their satirical wit and he is considered part of the Young Germany movement. His radical political views led to many of his works being banned by German authorities, Heine spent the last 25 years of his life as an expatriate in Paris. Heine was born at Düsseldorf in what was then the Duchy of Berg and he was called Harry in childhood but became known as Heinrich after his conversion to Lutheranism in 1825. Heines father, Samson Heine, was a textile merchant and his mother Peira, née van Geldern, was the daughter of a physician. Heinrich was the eldest of four children, Heine was also a third cousin once removed of philosopher and economist Karl Marx, also born to a German Jewish family in the Rhineland, with whom he became a frequent correspondent in later life. Düsseldorf was then a town with a population of around 16,000. The French Revolution and subsequent Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars involving Germany complicated Düsseldorfs political history during Heines childhood and it had been the capital of the Duchy of Jülich-Berg, but was under French occupation at the time of his birth. It then went to the Elector of Bavaria before being ceded to Napoleon in 1806 and it was first ruled by Joachim Murat, then by Napoleon himself. Upon Napoleons downfall in 1815 it became part of Prussia, thus Heines formative years were spent under French influence. The adult Heine would always be devoted to the French for introduction of the Napoleonic Code and he glossed over the negative aspects of French rule in Berg, heavy taxation, conscription, and economic depression brought about by the Continental Blockade. Heines parents were not particularly devout, as a young child they sent him to a Jewish school where he learned a smattering of Hebrew, but thereafter he attended Catholic schools. Here he learned French, which would be his second language - although he spoke it with a German accent. He also acquired a love for Rhineland folklore. In 1814 Heine went to a school in Düsseldorf where he learned to read English. The most successful member of the Heine family was his uncle Salomon Heine, in 1816 Heine moved to Hamburg to become an apprentice at Heckscher & Co, his uncles bank, but displayed little aptitude for business. He learned to hate Hamburg with its ethos, but it would become one of the poles of his life alongside Paris
18.
The Queen's College, Oxford
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The Queens College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Queen Philippa of Hainault, the college is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassical architecture, which includes buildings designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor. In 2014, the college had an endowment of £206.1 million, the college was founded during the 14th century by Robert de Eglesfield, chaplain to Queen Philippa of Hainault, hence its name. The colleges coat of arms is that of the founder, it slightly from his familys coat of arms. The current coat of arms was adopted by dEglesfield because he was unable to use his familys arms, the frontage of the college was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, part of a substantial rebuilding in the 18th century during which the library was built. The medieval foundations, however, remain beneath the current 18th-century structure, in 2012, the college had net assets of £201.4 million. The college has had an association with the north of England, in part because of its founder. This connection was reinforced for many years until recently by the large number of Hastings Scholarships given to men from 20 schools in Yorkshire. Graduate students from the universities of Bradford, Hull, Leeds, Sheffield, the college is named for its first patroness, Queen Philippa of Hainault. Established in January 1341 under the name of the Hall of the Queens scholars of Oxford, an Act of 1585 sought to end this confusion by providing that it should be called by the one name the Queens College, in practice the definite article is usually omitted. The full name of the College, as indicated in its reports, is The Provost. Queens College in Cambridge positions its apostrophe differently and has no article, in April 2012, as part of the celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II, a series of commemorative stamps were released featuring A-Z pictures of famous British landmarks. The Queens Colleges front quad was used on the Q stamp, alongside other landmarks such as the Angel of the North on A, the college has one of the best-stocked college libraries in Oxford. The current lending library consists of around 50,000 volumes, the Upper Library has been a focal point for the College ever since its construction at the end of the 17th century. Unlike many other rooms in Oxford libraries, the Upper Library remains as a silent reading room for students open during staffed hours. The open cloister below the Upper Library was enclosed in the 19th century to form the Lower Library, the college has one of the largest and most diverse collections of rare books in Oxford. The chapel is noted for its Frobenius organ in the west gallery and it was installed in 1965, replacing a Rushworth and Dreaper organ from 1931. The earliest mention of an organ is 1826, the Chapel Choir has been described as Oxfords finest mixed-voice choir and continues to perform termly concerts, with recent examples including Handels Messiah and Bachs St. John Passion
19.
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
20.
Hendon
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Hendon is a London suburb in the Borough of Barnet,7 miles northwest of Charing Cross. Hendon was an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex and has part of Greater London since 1965. Hendon had a population of 52,972 in 2011 and includes the Hendon, Hendon West, Hendon was historically a civil parish in the county of Middlesex. The manor is described in Domesday, but the name Hendun – meaning at the highest hill – is of earlier origin. Evidence of Roman settlement was discovered by members of the Hendon and District Archaeological Society and others, the Midland Railway and the Great Northern Railways were built through Hendon in the 1860s. The underground arrived at Golders Green to the south in 1907, much of the area developed into a suburb of London and now the area is mostly built-up with some countryside in the Mill Hill area, such as the Copthall Playing fields. Hendons industry was centred on manufacturing, and included motor and aviation works. In 1931 the civil parish of Edgware was abolished and its area was added to the civil parish of Hendon. Hendon became an district in 1894. In 1932 the urban district became the Municipal Borough of Hendon, the municipal borough was abolished in 1965 and the area became part of the London Borough of Barnet. Hendon’s main claim to fame is in the days of flying. The area is associated with pioneer aviator Claude Grahame-White. Another part of the Aerodrome site is the Hendon Police College, the Metropolitan Police Book of Remembrance is displayed in the entrance of Simpson Hall at the centre. There is also a memorial garden and it is a former borough and ancient parish. The name means the place or down, and Hendons motto is Endeavour. The Burroughs is a centre for the London Borough of Barnet. The River Brent runs through Hendon, on 30 Nov 2009 the Environment Agency warned residents of flooding along River Brent from Hendon to Brentford, after a day of notably heavy rain. Several premises were flooded in Brentford and Perivale
21.
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
22.
Charles Dickens
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Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the worlds best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era and his works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity, born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors prison. Dickenss literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers, within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the publication of narrative fiction. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audiences reaction, and he modified his plot. For example, when his wifes chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities and his plots were carefully constructed, and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the poor chipped in hapennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up. Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age and his 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also adapted, and, like many of his novels. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London, Dickens has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for his realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of depth, loose writing. The term Dickensian is used to something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings. Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, at 1 Mile End Terrace, Landport in Portsea Island and his father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and was temporarily stationed in the district. He asked Christopher Huffam, rigger to His Majestys Navy, gentleman, Huffam is thought to be the inspiration for Paul Dombey, the owner of a shipping company in Dickenss eponymous Dombey and Son. In January 1815 John Dickens was called back to London, when Charles was four, they relocated to Sheerness, and thence to Chatham, Kent, where he spent his formative years until the age of 11. His early life seems to have been idyllic, though he himself a very small. Charles spent time outdoors but also read voraciously, including the novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding, as well as Robinson Crusoe
23.
Margaret Mitchell
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Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell was an American author and journalist. In more recent years, a collection of Mitchells girlhood writings, a collection of articles written by Mitchell for The Atlanta Journal was republished in book form. Margaret Mitchell was a Southerner and a resident and native of Atlanta. She was born in 1900 into a wealthy and politically prominent family and her father, Eugene Muse Mitchell, was an attorney, and her mother, Mary Isabel May Belle Stephens, was a suffragist. She had two brothers, Russell Stephens Mitchell, who died in infancy in 1894, and Alexander Stephens Mitchell and her grandfather, Russell Crawford Mitchell, of Atlanta, enlisted in the Confederate States Army on June 24,1861 and served in Hoods Texas Brigade. He was severely wounded at the Battle of Sharpsburg, demoted for inefficiency, after the Civil War, he made a large fortune supplying lumber for the rapid rebuilding of Atlanta. Russell Mitchell had thirteen children from two wives, the eldest was Eugene, who graduated from the University of Georgia Law School. Mitchells grandparents, married in 1863, were Annie Fitzgerald and John Stephens, John Stephens was a prosperous real estate developer after the Civil War and one of the founders of the Gate City Street Railroad, a mule-drawn Atlanta trolley system. John and Annie Stephens had twelve children together, the child was May Belle Stephens. May Belle Stephens had studied at the Bellevue Convent in Quebec and her family lived near her maternal grandmother, Annie Stephens, in a Victorian house painted bright red with yellow trim. Mrs. Stephens had been a widow for years prior to Margarets birth. After his death, she inherited property on Jackson Street where Margarets family lived, grandmother Annie Stephens was quite a character, both vulgar and a tyrant. After gaining control of her father Philip Fitzgeralds money after he died, she splurged on her daughters, including Margarets mother. There they learned that Irish Americans were not treated as equal to other immigrants, Margarets relationship with her grandmother would become quarrelsome in later years as she entered adulthood. However, for Margaret, her grandmother was a source of eye-witness information about the Civil War. In an accident that was traumatic for her mother although she was unharmed, fearing it would happen again, her mother began dressing her in boys pants, and she was nicknamed Jimmy, the name of a character in the comic strip, Little Jimmy. Her brother insisted she would have to be a boy named Jimmy to play with him, having no sisters to play with, Margaret said she was a boy named Jimmy until she was fourteen. Stephens Mitchell said his sister was a tomboy who would play with dolls occasionally
24.
Gone with the Wind (novel)
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Gone with the Wind is a novel written by Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era and this historical novel features a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, with the title taken from a poem written by Ernest Dowson. Gone with the Wind was popular with American readers from the outset and was the top American fiction bestseller in the year it was published, as of 2014, a Harris poll found it to be the second favorite book of American readers, just behind the Bible. More than 30 million copies have been printed worldwide, written from the perspective of the slaveholder, Gone with the Wind is Southern plantation fiction. Its portrayal of slavery and African Americans has been considered controversial, especially by succeeding generations, as well as its use of a racial epithet, however, the novel has become a reference point for subsequent writers about the South, both black and white. Scholars at American universities refer to it in their writings, interpret, the novel has been absorbed into American popular culture. Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the book in 1937 and it was adapted into a 1939 American film. The book is read or misread through the film. Gone with the Wind is the novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime. Mitchell used color symbolism, especially the red and green. Mitchell identified the theme as survival. She left the ending speculative for the reader, however and she was often asked what became of her lovers, Rhett and Scarlett. She replied, For all I know, Rhett may have someone else who was less difficult. Two sequels authorized by Mitchells estate were published more than a century later. Born in 1900 in Atlanta, Georgia, Margaret Mitchell was a Southerner and writer throughout her life and she grew up hearing stories about the American Civil War and the Reconstruction from her tyrannical Irish-American grandmother, who had endured its suffering. Her forceful and intellectual mother was a suffragist who fought for the rights of women to vote, as a young woman, Mitchell found love with an army lieutenant who was killed in World War I, and she would carry his memory for the remainder of her life. After studying at Smith College for a year, during which time her mother died from the Spanish flu and she married, but her husband was an abusive bootlegger. Mitchell took a job writing feature articles for the Atlanta Journal at a time when Atlanta debutantes of her class did not work, after divorcing her first husband, she married again, this time to a man who shared her interest in writing and literature
25.
Luftwaffe
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The Luftwaffe was the aerial warfare branch of the combined German Wehrmacht military forces during World War II. During the interwar period, German pilots were trained secretly in violation of the treaty at Lipetsk Air Base, with the rise of the Nazi Party and the repudiation of the Versailles Treaty, the Luftwaffe was officially established on 26 February 1935. The Condor Legion, a Luftwaffe detachment sent to aid Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, provided the force with a testing ground for new doctrines. By the summer of 1939, the Luftwaffe had twenty-eight Geschwaders, during World War II, German pilots claimed roughly 70,000 aerial victories, while over 75,000 Luftwaffe aircraft were destroyed or significantly damaged. Of these, nearly 40,000 were lost entirely, the Luftwaffe proved instrumental in the German victories across Poland and Western Europe in 1939 and 1940. From 1942, Allied bombing campaigns gradually destroyed the Luftwaffes fighter arm, in addition to its service in the West, the Luftwaffe operated over the Soviet Union, North Africa and Southern Europe. In January 1945, during the stages of the Battle of the Bulge, the Luftwaffe made a last-ditch effort to win air superiority. After the defeat of Germany, the Luftwaffe was disbanded in 1946, the Luftwaffe had only two commanders-in-chief throughout its history, Hermann Göring and later Generalfeldmarschall Robert Ritter von Greim. Throughout the war, the force was responsible for war crimes, one of the forerunners of the Luftwaffe, the Imperial German Army Air Service, was founded in 1910 with the name Die Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches, most often shortened to Fliegertruppe. It was renamed Luftstreitkräfte on 8 October 1916, after the defeat of Germany, the service was dissolved on 8 May 1920 under the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, which also mandated the destruction of all German military aircraft. Since the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany to have an air force, to train its pilots on the latest combat aircraft, Germany solicited the help of its future enemy, the Soviet Union, which was also isolated in Europe. This base was known as 4th squadron of the 40th wing of the Red Army. Hundreds of Luftwaffe pilots and technical personnel visited, studied and were trained at Soviet air force schools in locations in Central Russia. The first steps towards the Luftwaffes formation were undertaken just months after Adolf Hitler came to power, in April 1933 the Reichsluftfahrtministerium was established. Görings control over all aspects of aviation became absolute, on 25 March 1933 the Deutschen Luftsportverband absorbed all private and national organizations, while retaining its sports title. On 15 May 1933, all military organizations in the RLM were merged, forming the Luftwaffe. The |Nationalsozialistisches Fliegerkorps was formed in 1937 to give pre-military flying training to male youths, military-age members of the NSFK were drafted to the Luftwaffe. As all such prior NSFK members were also Nazi Party members, the absence of Göring in planning and production matters was fortunate
26.
The Holocaust
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The Holocaust, also referred to as the Shoah, was a genocide in which some six million European Jews were killed by Adolf Hitlers Nazi Germany, and the World War II collaborators with the Nazis. The victims included 1.5 million children, and represented about two-thirds of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe, killings took place throughout German-occupied Europe, as well as within Nazi Germany, and across all territories controlled by its allies. Other victims of Nazi crimes included ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Soviet citizens and Soviet POWs, communists, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovahs Witnesses, some 42,500 detention facilities were utilized in the concentration of victims for the purpose of gross violations of human rights. Over 200,000 people are estimated to have been Holocaust perpetrators, the persecution was carried out in stages, culminating in the policy of extermination of European Jews termed the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Following Hitlers rise to power, the German government passed laws to exclude Jews from civil society, starting in 1933 the Nazis began to establish a network of concentration camps. After the outbreak of war in 1939 both German and foreign Jews were herded into wartime ghettos, in 1941, as Germany began to conquer new territory in the East, all anti-Jewish measures radicalized. Specialized paramilitary units called Einsatzgruppen murdered around two million Jews in mass shootings actions in less than a year, by mid-1942, victims were being regularly transported by freight trains to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, most were systematically killed in gas chambers. This continued until the end of World War II in Europe in April–May 1945, the most notable exception was the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, when thousands of poorly-armed Jewish fighters held the Waffen-SS at bay for four weeks. An estimated 20, 000–30,000 Jewish partisans actively fought against the Nazis, French Jews took part in the French Resistance, which conducted a guerilla campaign against the Nazis and Vichy French authorities. Over a hundred armed Jewish uprisings took place, the term holocaust comes from the Greek adjective holókaustos, a variant of holókautos, referring to an animal sacrifice offered to a god in which the whole animal is completely burnt. Often used substantively in apposition with the noun thysia, the term appears in a fragment of pseudo-Callisthenes, writing in Latin, Jerome Latinized the Greek word as a neuter noun holocaustum, using it to translate references to the Jewish burnt offering in his translations of Exodus and Leviticus. In his Chronicon de rebus gestis Ricardi Primi, Richard of Devizes, the English poet John Milton had used the word to denote a conflagration in his 1671 poem Samson Agonistes and the word gradually developed to mean a massacre thereon. The term was used in the 1950s by historians as a translation of the Jewish word shoah to refer specifically to the Nazi genocide of Jews, the television mini-series Holocaust is credited with introducing the term into common parlance after 1978. The biblical word shoah, meaning calamity became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the 1940s, especially in Europe and Israel. Shoah is preferred by some Jews for several reasons including the offensive nature of the word holocaust which they take to refer to the Greek pagan custom. The Nazis used the phrase Final Solution to the Jewish Question, all branches of Germanys bureaucracy were engaged in the logistics that led to the genocides, turning the Third Reich into what one Holocaust scholar, Michael Berenbaum, has called a genocidal state. Every arm of the countrys sophisticated bureaucracy was involved in the killing process, as prisoners entered the death camps, they were made to surrender all personal property, which was catalogued and tagged before being sent to Germany to be reused or recycled. Berenbaum writes that the Final Solution of the Jewish question was in the eyes of the perpetrators, through a concealed account, the German National Bank helped launder valuables stolen from the victims
27.
Queen Mary University of London
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Queen Mary University of London is a public research university in London, England, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It dates back to the foundation of London Hospital Medical College in 1785, Queen Mary College, named after Mary of Teck, was admitted to the University of London in 1915 and in 1989 merged with Westfield College to form Queen Mary and Westfield College. In 1995 Queen Mary and Westfield College merged with St Bartholomews Hospital Medical College and its main campus is in the Mile End area of Tower Hamlets, with other campuses in Holborn, Smithfield and Whitechapel. In 2015/16 it had 17,140 students and 4,000 staff, Queen Mary is a member of the Russell Group of leading British research universities, the Association of Commonwealth Universities and Universities UK. Queen Mary is a centre for medical teaching and research and is part of UCL Partners. It has a partnership with the University of Warwick, including research collaboration and joint teaching of English, history. Queen Mary also collaborates with Royal Holloway, University of London, for 2015-16, Queen Mary had a turnover of £404.3 million, including £101.0 million from research grants and contracts. Queen Mary has been ranked between 30-40th in the UK according to national university rankings, according to The Guardian, it has been ranked ahead of other London institutions in the fields of law, dentistry, media and film studies, and second in medicine and history. The trustees of the Beaumont Trust, administering funds left by Barber Beaumont, on 20 May 1885 the Drapers Court of Assistants resolved to grant £20,000 for the provision of the technical schools of the Peoples Palace. The technical schools were opened on 5 October 1888, with the palace completed by 1892. In 1895 John Leigh Smeathman Hatton, Director of Evening Classes, by the start of the 20th century the first degrees were awarded and Hatton, along with several other Professors, were recognised as Teachers of the University of London. Teaching of aeronautical engineering began in 1907 which led to the first UK aeronautical engineering department being established in 1909 which boasted a wind tunnel. Thus creating the oldest Aeronautical Programme in the World, in 1910 the Colleges status in the University of London was extended for a further five years, with unlimited membership achieved in May 1915. After the war, the College grew, albeit constrained by the rest of the Peoples Palace to the west, in 1920 it obtained both the Palaces Rotunda and rooms under the winter gardens at the west of the palace, which became chemical laboratories. In the coming days discussions on reconstruction led to the proposal that the site be transferred to the College which would then apply for a Charter alone. The Charter was now pursued, but the Academic Board asked for a change, feeling that east London carried unfortunate associations that would hinder the College. With the initial proposed name, Queens College, having already taken by The Queens College, Oxford and Victoria College felt to be unoriginal. The Charter of Incorporation was presented on 12 December 1934 by Queen Mary herself. 57–62 During the Second World War the College was evacuated to Cambridge, where it shared with Kings College
28.
The Householder
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The Householder is a 1963 film by Merchant Ivory Productions, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory, and direction of James Ivory. It is based upon the 1960 novel of the name by Jhabvala. This was the first collaboration between producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory, a documentary filmmaker till then. M, forster‘s A Room with a View and Howards End, and Peter Cameron‘s The City of Your Final Destination. Indu, unable to handle her interference in the marriage, leaves Prem to return to her family. Prem searches for answers from a variety of people, including a Swami, sidney Meyers was the director, while Ivory agreed to shoot the film, whose cast included Shashi Kapoor, Durga Khote and Leela Naidu. When the film fell through due to lack of financing, Merchant suggested the idea of The Householder. The film cost $125,000, with some of the money Ivory had borrowed from his father and it was made in two versions, Hindi and English, the latter was picked by Columbia Pictures. Shooting for the film started in 1961 and was completed in 1963, the film was shot entirely on location in Delhi, Mehrauli and Ghaziabad. Satyajit Ray exerted an important influence both on Ivory and Merchant, as well as on this film, in an uncredited assist, he supervised the films music production and re-cut the film for Merchant and Ivory. He also lent his cameraman, Subrata Mitra, as the director of photography, Music, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan Incidental Music Jyotirendera Moitra Vanraj Bhatia Costume Design - Bettina Gill Production - Bhanu Ghosh Hindi dialogue - R. G. Anand A Channel 4 review called it, a low-key but rewarding character piece, mike Clark, of USA Today, called it. A charming comedy of marital discord. Gave it, 3 1⁄2 out of 4 stars, the Householder at the Internet Movie Database The Householder at AllMovie The Householder overview at Merchant Ivory website
29.
Bombay Talkie
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Bombay Talkie is a 1970 film by Merchant Ivory Productions, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory. Lucia Lane is a British author who is researching the Bollywood film industry and she falls in love and has an affair with Vikram, a famous Bollywood actor. The plot is complicated by the fact that Vikram is married, the films song Typewriter, Tip, Tip and the opening credits theme were used in the Wes Anderson film The Darjeeling Limited and on Geoff Lloyds Hometime Show. Amitabh Bachchan played a role in the movie. The actor confessed in an interview that Shashi Kapoor chided him for doing the role as he foresaw greater potential in Bachchan, bombay Talkie at the Internet Movie Database Merchant Ivory overview Blogpost on the films title sequence
30.
The London Magazine
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The London Magazine is a publication of arts, literature and miscellaneous interests. Its history ranges across nearly three centuries and several reincarnations, publishing the likes of William Wordsworth, William S. Burroughs, the London Magazine was founded in 1732 in political opposition to the Tory-based Gentlemans Magazine and ran for 53 years until its closure in 1785. Edward Kimber became editor in 1755, succeeding his father Isaac Kimber, henry Mayo was editor from 1775 to 1783. It was during this time the magazine enjoyed its greatest literary prosperity, publishing poetic luminaries such as William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Clare and John Keats. In September 1821, the first of two installments of Thomas De Quinceys Confessions of an English Opium-Eater appeared in the journal, these were published in book form. The quarrell ended in a duel between Scott and Lockharts close friend and workmate J. H. Christie. Scott lost the duel and his life in 1821, the London Magazine continued under the editorship of John Taylor and included a working staff of Thomas Hood, William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb. During this time Lamb published his earliest series of Essays of Elia in 1823, the magazine dwindled in success towards the end of the decade because of Taylors insistent tampering with the poets works, and it was abandoned by many of its staff, including Lamb and Hazlitt. The London Magazine again ceased publication in 1829, in addition to his inviting its articles and editing all content, Henley anonymously contributed tens of poems to the journal, chiefly in old French forms, some of which have been termed brilliant. This period also saw publication of Robert Louis Stevensons seminal short story, The New Arabian Nights, the London again ceased publication with the issue dated 5 April 1879. In 1900 Harmsworths Monthly Pictorial Magazine was renamed the London Magazine by Cecil Harmsworth, the publication continued until 1930 when it was renamed The New London Magazine. The Australian scholar Sue Thomas referred to it as an important informer. of popular tastes in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. Despite its acclaim, the closed in 1933. In 1954, a new periodical was given the name of the The London Magazine under the editorship of John Lehmann and it was endorsed by T. S. Eliot as a non-university based periodical that would boldly assume the existence of a public interested in serious literature. In 1961 the magazine changed hands and was renamed London Magazine, the editor was Lehmanns fellow poet and critic Alan Ross and publication continued until Rosss death in 2001 prompted its closure again. Under both Lehmann and Ross the magazine was published by Chatto & Windus, however it was quickly relaunched by Christopher Arkell and the poet and literary critic Sebastian Barker. When Barker retired as editor in early 2008, Sara-Mae Tuson took over, the current patrons are Lord Risby, Oliver Hylton and Stanley Johnson. Notable contributors have included, W. H. Auden, Frank Auerbach, Louis de Bernières, Lady Caroline Blackwood, Bill Brandt, William S. S. Graham, Nadine Gordimer, The Rt
31.
The New York Times
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The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
32.
Pankaj Mishra
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Pankaj Mishra is an Indian essayist and novelist. He is a recipient of the 2014 Windham–Campbell Prize for non-fiction, Mishra graduated with a bachelors degree in commerce from Allahabad University before earning his Master of Arts degree in English literature at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. In 1992, Mishra moved to Mashobra, a Himalayan village, where he began to contribute essays and reviews to The Indian Review of Books, The India Magazine. His first book, Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, Travels in Small Town India, was a travelogue that described the social and cultural changes in India in the context of globalisation. His 2004 book An End to Suffering, The Buddha in the World mixes memoir, history, and philosophy while attempting to explore the Buddhas relevance to contemporary times. Temptations of the West, How to be Modern in India, Pakistan and Beyond, describes Mishras travels through Kashmir, Bollywood, Afghanistan, Tibet, Nepal, in 2005, Mishra published an anthology of writing on India, India in Mind. He has also introduced two volumes of V. S, naipaul’s essays, The Writer and the World and Literary Occasions. He is a columnist for Bloomberg View and the New York Times Book Review and he divides his time between London and India, and is currently working on a novel. He was the Visiting Fellow for 2007–08 at the Department of English, University College, London and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008. In November 2012, Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the top 100 global thinkers, in February 2015, Prospect nominated him to its list of 50 World Thinkers. In 2011, when Mishra criticised Niall Fergusons book Civilisation, The West, in March 2014, Yale University awarded Mishra the Windham–Campbell Literature Prize. 2000 Art Seidenbaum award for Best First Fiction 2013 Crossword Book Award for From the Ruins of Empire. 2014 Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding for From the Ruins of Empire 2014 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize, valued at $150,000 one of the largest prizes in the world of its kind. P
33.
C. P. Snow
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Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow, CBE was an English physical chemist and novelist who also served in several important positions in the British Civil Service and briefly in the UK government. From Leicester, Snow gained a scholarship to Christs College, Cambridge, in 1930 he became a Fellow of Christs College. Snow served in senior civil service positions, as technical director of the Ministry of Labour from 1940 to 1944. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1943 New Year Honours. Snows was among the 2,300 names of prominent persons listed on the Nazis Special Search List, of those who were to be arrested on the invasion of Great Britain and turned over to the Gestapo. As a politician Snow was parliamentary secretary in the House of Lords to the Minister of Technology from 1964 to 1966 in the Labour government of Harold Wilson, Snow married the novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson in 1950, they had one son. At Christs he tutored H. S. Hoff – later better known as the novelist William Cooper, the lectures were subsequently published as Science and Government. For the academic year 1961 to 1962, Snow and his wife served as Fellows on the faculty in the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University. Snows first novel was a whodunit, Death under Sail, in 1975 he wrote a biography of Anthony Trollope. But he is known as the author of a sequence of novels entitled Strangers and Brothers in which he depicts intellectuals in academic. The best-known of the sequence is The Masters and it deals with the internal politics of a Cambridge college as it prepares to elect a new master. Having all the appeal of a view, the novel depicts concerns other than the strictly academic that influence the decisions of supposedly objective scholars. The Masters and The New Men were jointly awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1954, corridors of Power added a phrase to the language of the day. In 1974, Snows novel In Their Wisdom was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the storyline of his novel The Search is referenced in Dorothy L. Sayerss Gaudy Night and is used to help elicit the criminals motive. On 7 May 1959, Snow delivered a Rede Lecture called The Two Cultures, in particular, Snow argues that the quality of education in the world is on the decline. For example, many scientists have never read Charles Dickens, once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold, it was also negative, yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of, Have you read a work of Shakespeares. I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language
34.
Rumer Godden
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Margaret Rumer Godden OBE was an English author of more than 60 fiction and nonfiction books written under the name of Rumer Godden. Nine of her works have made into films, most notably Black Narcissus in 1947. A few of her works were co-written with her sister, novelist Jon Godden, including Two Under the Indian Sun. Godden was born in Eastbourne, Sussex, England and she grew up with her three sisters in Narayanganj, colonial India, where her shipping company executive father worked for the Brahmaputra Steam Navigation Company. Her parents sent the girls to England for schooling, as was the custom of the time and she went back to Calcutta in 1925 and opened a dance school for English and Indian children. Godden ran the school for 20 years with the help of her sister Nancy, during this time she published her first best-seller, the 1939 novel Black Narcissus. She returned to the United Kingdom in 1945 to concentrate on her writing, moving house frequently but living mostly in Sussex and London, and was divorced in 1948. After returning from America to oversee the script for the movie of her book The River, besides Black Narcissus, two of her books deal with the subject of women in religious communities. In Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy and In This House of Brede she acutely examined the balance between the mystical, spiritual aspects of religion and the practical, human realities of religious life. Her books for children, especially her several doll stories, strongly convey the thoughts, confusions and disappointments. She won a 1972 Whitbread award for The Diddakoi, an adult novel about Gypsies. In 1968 she took the tenancy of Lamb House in Rye, East Sussex and she moved to Moniaive in Dumfriesshire in 1978 when she was 70 to be near her daughter Jane. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1993 and she visited India once more, in 1994, returning to Kashmir for the filming of a BBC Bookmark documentary about her life and books. Rumer Godden died on 8 November 1998 at the age of 90, after a series of strokes, her ashes were buried with her second husbands in Rye. 1963 Little Plum, the sequel to Miss Happiness and Miss Flower 1964 Home is the Sailor 1967 The Kitchen Madonna,1969 Operation Sippacik 1972 The Diddakoi, a childrens book and winner of the Whitbread Award. Adapted by the BBC as a drama of the same name starring Nisa Cole. 1972 The Old Woman Who Lived in a Vinegar Bottle 1975 Mr. Chisholm, Anne, Rumer Godden, jasmine on a String, A Survey of Women in India Writing Fiction in English
35.
V. S. Pritchett
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Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett CH CBE, was a British writer and literary critic. Pritchett was known particularly for his stories, collated in a number of volumes. His most famous works are the memoirs A Cab at the Door and Midnight Oil. Victor Sawdon Pritchett was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, the first of four children of Walter Sawdon Pritchett and his father, a London businessman, relocated to Ipswich to establish a newspaper and stationery shop. The business ran into difficulty and his parents were lodging over a toy shop at 41 St Nicholas Street in Ipswich where Pritchett was born on 16 December 1900, Beatrice had expected a girl, whom she planned to name after Queen Victoria. Pritchett disliked his first name, hence he always preferred being styled by his initials VSP, Pritchetts father was a steady Christian Scientist but unsteady in all else. Walter and Beatrice moved to Ipswich to be near her sister, within a year Walter was declared bankrupt, the family moved to Woodford, Essex, then to Derby and he began selling womens clothing and accessories as a travelling salesman. Pritchett was soon sent with his brother Cyril to live with their grandparents in Sedbergh. Walters business failures, his attitude to credit and his easy deceitfulness obliged the family to move frequently. The family was reunited, but life was always precarious and they tended to live in London suburbs with members of Beatrices family, but returned to Ipswich in 1910 to live for a year near Cauldwell Hall Road, trying to evade Walters creditors. At this time Pritchett attended St Johns School, subsequently he attended Alleyns School, and Dulwich College, but he stayed nowhere for very long. When his father enlisted to fight in World War I, Pritchett left school, after the Great War Walter turned his hand to aircraft design, about which he knew nothing, and his later ventures included art needlework, property speculation and faith healing. Pritchett was a buyer from 1916 until 1920 when he moved to Paris to work as a shop assistant. In 1923 he started writing for The Christian Science Monitor, which sent him to Ireland, from 1926 he wrote reviews for that paper and for the New Statesman, later being appointed its literary editor. Pritchetts first book, Marching Spain, describes a journey across Spain, while he was there he met Evelyn Vigors, the woman who became his first wife. Theirs was not a happy marriage, Pritchett published five novels, but he said he did not enjoy writing them. His reputation was established by a collection of stories, The Spanish Virgin. In 1936 he divorced his first wife and married Dorothy Rudge Roberts and their children include the journalist Oliver Pritchett, whose son is the cartoonist Matt Pritchett MBE
36.
Anton Chekhov
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Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics and his best short stories are held in esteem by writers. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his career, Medicine is my lawful wife, he once said. These four works present a challenge to the ensemble as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a theatre of mood. Chekhov had at first written stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew and he made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them. Anton Chekhov was born on the feast day of St. Anthony the Great 29 January 1860, the third of six surviving children, in Taganrog, a port on the Sea of Azov in southern Russia. His father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, the son of a serf and his Ukrainian wife, were from the village Vilkhovatka near Kobeliaky. A director of the choir, devout Orthodox Christian, and physically abusive father. Chekhovs mother, Yevgeniya, was an excellent storyteller who entertained the children with tales of her travels with her cloth-merchant father all over Russia and our talents we got from our father, Chekhov remembered, but our soul from our mother. Despotism and lying so mutilated our childhood that its sickening and frightening to think about it, remember the horror and disgust we felt in those times when Father threw a tantrum at dinner over too much salt in the soup and called Mother a fool. Chekhov attended the Greek School in Taganrog and the Taganrog Gymnasium and he sang at the Greek Orthodox monastery in Taganrog and in his fathers choirs. In 1876, Chekhovs father was declared bankrupt after overextending his finances building a new house, to avoid debtors prison he fled to Moscow, where his two eldest sons, Alexander and Nikolay, were attending university. The family lived in poverty in Moscow, Chekhovs mother physically and emotionally broken by the experience, Chekhov was left behind to sell the familys possessions and finish his education. Chekhov remained in Taganrog for three years, boarding with a man called Selivanov who, like Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard, had bailed out the family for the price of their house. Chekhov had to pay for his own education, which he managed by private tutoring, catching and selling goldfinches and he sent every ruble he could spare to his family in Moscow, along with humorous letters to cheer them up. Chekhov also enjoyed a series of affairs, one with the wife of a teacher. In 1879, Chekhov completed his schooling and joined his family in Moscow, Chekhov now assumed responsibility for the whole family
37.
Salman Rushdie
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Sir Ahmad Salman Rushdie, FRSL is a British Indian novelist and essayist. Much of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent and he combines magical realism with historical fiction, his work is concerned with the many connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations. His epic fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, was the subject of a major controversy, death threats were made against him, including a fatwā calling for his assassination issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, on 14 February 1989. The British government put Rushdie under police protection, in 1983 Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the UKs senior literary organisation. He was appointed Commandeur de lOrdre des Arts et des Lettres of France in January 1999, in June 2007, Queen Elizabeth II knighted him for his services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked him thirteenth on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945, since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States. He was named Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University in 2015, earlier, he taught at Emory University. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, in 2012, he published Joseph Anton, A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the controversy over The Satanic Verses. Rushdie was strongly favoured to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature but the Nobel organisers were later quoted as saying that they would have been too predictable, Rushdie was born in Bombay, then British India, into a Muslim family of Kashmiri descent. He is the son of Anis Ahmed Rushdie, a Cambridge-educated lawyer-turned-businessman, and Negin Bhatt and he wrote in his 2012 memoir that his father adopted the name Rushdie in honour of Averroes. He was educated at Cathedral and John Connon School in Bombay, Rugby School in Warwickshire, and Kings College, University of Cambridge and his father Anis Rushdie was rusticated from the Indian Civil Service after the British government found out that he had changed his date of birth. Collaborating with the musician Ronnie Bond, Rushdie wrote the words for a record on behalf of the now defunct Burnley Building Society which was recorded at Good Earth Studios. The song was called The Best Dreams and was sung by George Chandler and it was while he was at Ogilvy that he wrote Midnights Children, before becoming a full-time writer. Rushdies first novel, Grimus, a fiction tale, was generally ignored by the public. His next novel, Midnights Children, catapulted him to literary notability and this work won the 1981 Booker Prize and, in 1993 and 2008, was awarded the Best of the Bookers as the best novel to have received the prize during its first 25 and 40 years. The character of Saleem Sinai has been compared to Rushdie, in that sense, I’ve never felt that I’ve written an autobiographical character. After Midnights Children, Rushdie wrote Shame, in which he depicts the political turmoil in Pakistan, basing his characters on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Shame won Frances Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger and was a close runner-up for the Booker Prize. Both these works of literature are characterised by a style of magic realism
38.
John Updike
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John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems appeared in The New Yorker starting in 1954 and he also wrote regularly for The New York Review of Books. His most famous work is his Rabbit series, which chronicles the life of the middle-class everyman Harry Rabbit Angstrom over the course of several decades, both Rabbit Is Rich and Rabbit at Rest were recognized with the Pulitzer Prize. Updike populated his fiction with characters who frequently experience personal turmoil and must respond to crises relating to religion, family obligations and his work has attracted significant critical attention and praise, and he is widely considered one of the great American writers of his time. He described his style as an attempt to give the mundane its beautiful due, Updike was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, the only child of Linda Grace and Wesley Russell Updike, and was raised in the nearby small town of Shillington. The family later moved to the village of Plowville. His mothers attempts to become a published writer impressed the young Updike, one of my earliest memories, he later recalled, is of seeing her at her desk. I admired the writers equipment, the typewriter eraser, the boxes of clean paper, and I remember the brown envelopes that stories would go off in—and come back in. These early years in Berks County, Pennsylvania, would influence the environment of the Rabbit Angstrom tetralogy, as well as many of his early novels, Updike graduated from Shillington High School as co-valedictorian and class president in 1950 and attended Harvard with a full scholarship. He received recognition for his writing as a teenager by winning a Scholastic Art, at Harvard, he soon became well known among his classmates as a talented and prolific contributor to the Harvard Lampoon, of which he served as president. He graduated summa cum laude in 1954 with a degree in English and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, upon graduation, Updike attended The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at the University of Oxford with the ambition of becoming a cartoonist. After returning to the United States, Updike and his moved to New York. This was the beginning of his writing career. Updike stayed at The New Yorker as a staff writer for only two years, writing Talk of the Town columns and submitting poetry and short stories to the magazine. In New York, Updike wrote the poems and stories came to fill his early books like The Carpentered Hen. These works were influenced by Updikes early engagement with The New Yorker and this early work also featured the influence of J. D. Salinger, John Cheever, and the Modernists Marcel Proust, Henry Green, James Joyce, and Vladimir Nabokov. During this time, Updike underwent a spiritual crisis. Suffering from a loss of faith, he began reading Søren Kierkegaard
39.
Black and white
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Black and white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, and hyphenated black-and-white when used as an adjective, is any of several monochrome forms in visual arts. Black-and-white images are not usually starkly contrasted black and white and they combine black and white in a continuum producing a range of shades of gray. Even when most studios had the capability to make color films they were not heavily utilized as using the Technicolor process was expensive, for the years 1940–1966, a separate Academy Award for Best Art Direction was given for black-and-white movies along with one for color. Television, Television program was first transmitted in black-and-white, scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrated the worlds first color television transmission on July 3,1928 using a mechanical process. Some color broadcasts in the US began in the 1950s, with color becoming common in industrialized nations during the late 1960s. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission settled on a color NTSC standard in 1953, color television became more widespread in the U. S. between 1963 and 1967, when the CBS and ABC networks joined NBC in broadcasting full color schedules. Canada began airing color television in 1966 while the United Kingdom began to use a different color system from July 1967 known as PAL. The Republic Of Ireland followed in 1970, in China, black and white television sets were the norm until as late as the 1990s, color TVs not outselling them until about 1989. While seldom used now, many consumer camcorders have the ability to record in black-and-white. Photography, Photographs were either black-and-white or shades of sepia, color photography was originally rare and expensive and again often containing inaccurate hues. Color photography became more common from the mid-20th century, Today, black-and-white is a niche market for photographers who use the medium for artistic purposes. This can take the form of film or digital conversion to grayscale. For amateur use certain companies such as Kodak manufactured black-and-white disposable cameras until 2009, also, certain films are produced today which give black-and-white images using the ubiquitous C41 color process. Printing press, Most American newspapers were black-and-white until the early 1980s, The New York Times, some claim that USA Today was the major impetus for the change to color. In the UK, color was only introduced from the mid-1980s. Even today, many newspapers restrict color photographs to the front, similarly, daily comic strips in newspapers were traditionally black-and-white with color reserved for Sunday strips. Sometimes color is reserved for the cover, magazines such as Jet magazine were either all or mostly black-and-white until the end of the 2000s when it became all-color. Manga are typically published in black-and-white although now it is part of its image, many school yearbooks are still entirely or mostly in black-and-white
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Shashi Kapoor
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Shashi Kapoor is a retired Indian film actor and film producer. He has appeared in a number of Hindi language films as well as in a few English-language films. He has also been a director and assistant director in the Hindi film industry. Shashi Kapoor is a member of the Kapoor family, a dynasty in Indias Bollywood cinema. Kapoor was born in Calcutta during British Raj, in 2011, he was honoured with the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India for his contributions to Art-Cinema. In 2015, he was awarded the 2014 Dadasaheb Phalke Award, making him the member of his family to receive the highest award in Indian Cinema after Prithviraj Kapoor. From the age of four, Shashi Kapoor acted in plays directed and produced by his father Prithviraj Kapoor and he worked in four Hindi films as a child artist from 1948 to 1954. He was a popular actor in Bollywood during the 60s, 70s. Kapoors early films, Dharmputra, Prem Patra, and Char Diwari, were in Hindi, since 1961, he started acting in English language films, which include The Householder and Shakespeare-Wallah. He was one of Indias first actors to go international, actress Nanda, who was an established star at this time, signed 8 Hindi films with Kapoor, as she believed that he could deliver good performances. Their first two films as a pair were the critically acclaimed romantic film Char Diwari and Mehndi Lagi Mere Haath. In the 1960s Kapoor acted in romantic films opposite Nanda, including Mohabbat Isko Kahete Hain, Jab Jab Phool Khile, Neend Hamari Khwab Tumhare, Raja Saab. In an interview in the 1990s, Kapoor declared that Nanda was his favourite heroine, in another interview, Nanda stated that Shashi Kapoor was her favourite hero. Shashi Kapoor formed on screen pairs with Raakhee, Sharmila Tagore and he also acted opposite actresses Hema Malini, Parveen Babi, and Moushumi Chatterjee in many films. He did 10 films opposite Hema Malini and he also worked in movie Titanic. Other films include multi-starrers like Dil Ne Pukara, Trishul, Neeyat, Aandhi Toofan, Naina, Phaansi, Salaakhen, Fakira and he also worked with Rajesh Khanna in Prem Kahani. From the 1970s to early 1980s, Kapoor starred alongside Pran in 9 films which include Biradari, Chori Mera Kaam, Phaansi, Shankar Dada, Chakkar Pe Chakkar, Rahu Ketu and Maan Gaye Ustaad. Shashi Kapoor was regularly cast with Sanjeev Kumar also in films like Mukti, Trishul, Muqaddar, Swayamvar, Sawaal and he also starred in other British and American films such as Pretty Polly opposite Hayley Mills, Siddhartha, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, and Muhafiz
