1.
Order of the Companions of Honour
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The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. Founded on the date as the Order of the British Empire. The order consists of the Sovereign plus no more than 65 members, additionally, foreigners from outside the realms may be added as honorary members. Membership confers no title or precedence, but those inducted into the order are entitled to use the post-nominal letters CH. Appointments can be made on the advice of Commonwealth realm prime ministers, for Canadians, the advice to the Sovereign can come from a variety of officials. The quota numbers were altered in 1970 to 47 for the United Kingdom,7 for Australia,2 for New Zealand, the quota was adjusted again in 1975 by adding 2 places to the New Zealand quota and reducing the 9 for the other countries to 7. While able to nominate candidates to the Order, New Zealand, as of 2016 those countries have nominated only politicians who have served as Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister. Men wear the badge on a ribbon and women on a bow at the left shoulder. Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II List of Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour List of honorary British Knights List of people who have declined a British honour
2.
British Academy
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The British Academy is the United Kingdoms national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It receives a grant from the Department for Business, Innovation. In 2014/15 the British Academys total income was £33,100,000, including £27,000,000 from BIS. £32,900,000 was distributed during the year in grants, awards. The British Academy was established in 1902 and received its Royal Charter in the same year and it is now a fellowship of more than 900 leading scholars spanning all disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. The Academy is a self-governing and independent registered charity, based at 10–11 Carlton House Terrace in London, as a learned society, it seeks to foster and promote the full range of work that makes up the humanities and social sciences, including inter- and multi-disciplinary work. Until 1927–28 the Academy had no premises, then it moved to some rooms in No.6 Burlington Gardens. In 1968 it moved the short distance to Burlington House and it subsequently moved to headquarters near Regents Park. Then in 1998 the Academy moved to its present headquarters in Carlton House Terrace, overlooking St Jamess Park, the Terrace was designed by John Nash and built in the 1820s and 1830s. Number 10 was formerly the London residence of the Ridley family, in March 2010, the Academy embarked on a £2. 75m project to renovate and restore the public rooms in No. 11, following the departure of former tenant the Foreign Press Association, the work was completed in January 2011 and the new spaces include a new 150-seat Wolfson Auditorium are available for public hire. The history, problems and achievements of the Academy have been recorded in works by two of its Secretaries, Sir Frederic Kenyon’s volume of 37 pages covers the years up to 1951, Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s volume covers the years 1949 to 1968. Election as a Fellow of the British Academy recognises high scholarly distinction in the humanities or social sciences, fellows may use the letters FBA after their names. The British Academy channels substantial public funding support for individuals and organisations pursuing humanities and social sciences research and scholarship in the UK. In 2014/15, the Academy received around £30m to support research and researchers across the humanities, funds available to the Academy were invested in the following main areas, research career development, a portfolio of research grant opportunities, and international engagement. The demand and quality of applications submitted for Academy funding remains high and this year the Academy received around 3,600 applications and made 588 awards to scholars based in around 100 different universities across the UK – a success rate of 16%. The Academy also funds and coordinates a network of overseas institutes which provide local expertise, logistical support, as the UKs national voice for the humanities and social sciences, the British Academy seeks to promote and protect the interests and health of these disciplines and their research base. The Centre was established in October 2009 initially funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and it oversees a programme of activity engaging the expertise within the humanities and social sciences to shed light on policy issues. It produces substantive reports making recommendations on policy and practice
3.
Crusades
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The First Crusade arose after a call to arms in a 1095 sermon by Pope Urban II. Urban urged military support for the Byzantine Empire and its Emperor, Alexios I, the response to Urbans preaching by people of many different classes across Western Europe established the precedent for later Crusades. Volunteers became Crusaders by taking a vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the church. Some were hoping for apotheosis at Jerusalem, or forgiveness from God for all their sins, others participated to satisfy feudal obligations, gain glory and honour, or find opportunities for economic and political gain. Many modern Historians have polarised opinions of the Crusaders behaviour under Papal sanction, to some it was incongruous with the stated aims and implied moral authority of the papacy and the Crusades, to the extent that on occasions that the Pope excommunicated Crusaders. Crusaders often pillaged as they travelled, while their leaders retained control of captured territory rather than returning it to the Byzantines. During the Peoples Crusade thousands of Jews were murdered in what is now called the Rhineland massacres, Constantinople was sacked during the Fourth Crusade rendering the reunification of Christendom impossible. These tales consequently galvanised medieval romance, philosophy and literature, but the Crusades also reinforced the connection between Western Christendom, feudalism, and militarism. Crusade is not a term, instead the terms iter for journey or peregrinatio for pilgrimage were used. Not until the word crucesignatus for one who was signed with the cross was adopted at the close of the century was specific terminology developed. The Middle English equivalents were derived from old French, croiserie in the 13th–15th centuries, croisade appeared in English c1575, and continued to be the leading form till c1760. By convention historians adopt the term for the Christian holy wars from 1095, the Crusades in the Holy Land are traditionally counted as nine distinct campaigns, numbered from the First Crusade of 1095–99 to the Ninth Crusade of 1271/2. Usage of the term Crusade may differ depending on the author, pluralists use the term Crusade of any campaign explicitly sanctioned by the reigning Pope. This reflects the view of the Roman Catholic Church that every military campaign given Papal sanction is equally valid as a Crusade, regardless of its cause, justification, generalists see Crusades as any and all holy wars connected with the Latin Church and fought in defence of their faith. Popularists limit the Crusades to only those that were characterised by popular groundswells of religious fervour – that is, only the First Crusade, Medieval Muslim historiographers such as Ali ibn al-Athir refer to the Crusades as the Frankish Wars. The term used in modern Arabic, ḥamalāt ṣalībiyya حملات صليبية, campaigns of the cross, is a loan translation of the term Crusade as used in Western historiography. The Islamic prophet Muhammad founded Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, the resulting unified polity in the seventh and eighth centuries led to a rapid expansion of Arab power. This influence stretched from the northwest Indian subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, tolerance, trade, and political relationships between the Arabs and the Christian states of Europe waxed and waned
4.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
5.
Fourth Crusade
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The Fourth Crusade was a Western European armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III, originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, a sequence of events culminated in the Crusaders sacking the city of Constantinople, the intention of the crusaders was then to continue to the Holy Land with promised Byzantine financial and military assistance. On 23 June 1203 the main fleet reached Constantinople. In August 1203, following clashes outside Constantinople, Alexios Angelos was crowned co-Emperor with crusader support, however, in January 1204, he was deposed by a popular uprising in Constantinople. In April 1204, they captured and brutally sacked the city, Byzantine resistance based in unconquered sections of the empire such as Nicaea, Trebizond, and Epirus ultimately recovered Constantinople in 1261. Ayyubid Sultan Saladin had conquered most of the Frankish, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, including the ancient city itself, the Kingdom had been established 88 years before, after the capture and sack of Jerusalem in the First Crusade. The city was sacred to Christians, Muslims and Jews, Saladin led a Muslim dynasty, and his incorporation of Jerusalem into his domains shocked and dismayed the Catholic countries of Western Europe. Legend has it that Pope Urban III literally died of the shock, the crusader states had been reduced to three cities along the sea coast, Tyre, Tripoli, and Antioch. The Third Crusade reclaimed an extensive amount of territory for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, including the key towns of Acre and Jaffa, but had failed to retake Jerusalem. The crusade had also marked by a significant escalation in long standing tensions between the feudal states of western Europe and the Byzantine Empire, centred in Constantinople. The experiences of the first two crusades had thrown into relief the vast cultural differences between the two Christian civilisations. For their part, the educated and wealthy Byzantines maintained a sense of cultural, organizational. Constantinople had been in existence for 874 years at the time of the Fourth Crusade and was the largest and most sophisticated city in Christendom. Almost alone amongst major medieval urban centres, it had retained the civic structures, public baths, forums, monuments, at its height, the city held an estimated population of about half a million people behind thirteen miles of triple walls. As a result, it was both a rival and a target for the aggressive new states of the west, notably the Republic of Venice. Crusaders also seized the breakaway Byzantine province of Cyprus, rather than return it to the Empire, barbarossa died on crusade, and his army quickly disintegrated, leaving the English and French, who had come by sea, to fight Saladin. There they captured Sidon and Beirut, but at the news of Henrys death in Messina along the way, many of the nobles, deserted by much of their leadership, the rank and file crusaders panicked before an Egyptian army and fled to their ships in Tyre. Also in 1195, the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos was deposed in favour of his brother by a palace coup, ascending as Alexios III Angelos, the new emperor had his brother blinded and exiled
6.
Northumberland
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Northumberland is a county in North East England. The northernmost county of England, it borders Cumbria to the west, County Durham and Tyne and Wear to the south, to the east is the North Sea coastline with a 64-mile long distance path. The county town is Alnwick although the county council is in Morpeth, the northernmost point of Northumberland and England is at Marshall Meadows Bay. The county of Northumberland included Newcastle upon Tyne until 1400, when the city became a county of itself, Northumberland expanded greatly in the Tudor period, annexing Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1482, Tynedale in 1495, Tynemouth in 1536, Redesdale around 1542 and Hexhamshire in 1572. Islandshire, Bedlingtonshire and Norhamshire were incorporated into Northumberland in 1844, Tynemouth and other settlements in North Tyneside were transferred to Tyne and Wear in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. Lying on the Anglo-Scottish border, Northumberland has been the site of a number of battles, the county is noted for its undeveloped landscape of high moorland, now largely protected as the Northumberland National Park. Northumberland is the most sparsely populated county in England, with only 62 people per square kilometre, Northumberland originally meant the land of the people living north of the River Humber. The present county is the core of that land, and has long been a frontier zone between England and Scotland. During Roman occupation of Britain, most of the present county lay north of Hadrians Wall, the Roman road Dere Street crosses the county from Corbridge over high moorland west of the Cheviot Hills into present Scotland to Trimontium. Northumberland has a rich prehistory with many instances of art, hillforts such as Yeavering Bell and stone circles like the Goatstones. Most of the area was occupied by the Brythonic-Celtic Votadini people, with another large tribe, later, the region of present-day Northumberland formed the core of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia, which united with Deira to form the kingdom of Northumbria in the 7th century. Lindisfarne saw the production of the Lindisfarne Gospels and it became the home of St Cuthbert, bamburgh is the historic capital of Northumberland, the royal castle from before the unification of the Kingdoms of England under the monarchs of the House of Wessex in the 10th century. The Earldom of Northumberland was briefly held by the Scottish royal family by marriage between 1139–1157 and 1215–1217, Scotland relinquished all claims to the region as part of the Treaty of York. The Earls of Northumberland once wielded significant power in English affairs because, as powerful and militaristic Marcher Lords, Northumberland has a history of revolt and rebellion against the government, as seen in the Rising of the North against Elizabeth I of England. These revolts were led by the Earls of Northumberland, the Percy family. Shakespeare makes one of the Percys, the dashing Harry Hotspur, after the Restoration of 1660, the county was a centre for Roman Catholicism in England, as well as a focus of Jacobite support. Northumberland was long a wild county, where outlaws and Border Reivers hid from the law, however, the frequent cross-border skirmishes and accompanying local lawlessness largely subsided after the Union of the Crowns of Scotland and England under King James I and VI in 1603. Northumberland played a key role in the Industrial Revolution from the 18th century on, many coal mines operated in Northumberland until the widespread closures in the 1970s and 1980s
7.
Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford
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Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford, PC was a prominent Liberal and later National Liberal politician in the United Kingdom between the 1900s and 1930s. Runciman was the son of the shipping magnate Walter Runciman, 1st Baron Runciman and he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated MA in 1895. After winning, Runciman is reported to have commented to Churchill, Dont worry, the following year in the 1900 general election Churchill stood against Runciman again and defeated him. Runciman soon returned to Parliament for Dewsbury in a by-election in January 1902, a progressive, centrist reformer, he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in 1905, a post he held until 1907. Runcimans friends in Campbell-Bannermans cabinet were Sydney Buxton, Charles Hobhouse and he then served as Financial Secretary to the Treasury until 1908. Runciman approved of financing the purchase of land in Ireland, and he was one of the small group, that included Reginald McKenna, who actually believed in sound public finances, they had witnessed the lax administration of the Chief Secretary of Ireland. He then served three years as President of the Board of Agriculture. Runciman did not want war with Germany and favoured an understanding with her, Runciman was a personal friend to Mrs Asquith, and a highly valued colleague in Cabinet. He supported the Haldane Mission of 1912, in a cabinet dominated by like-minded Liberal Leaguers. He and his allies believed that there would be peace in the long run, Runciman was also in the McKenna dining group that opposed escalation of the arms race, and in January 1914 opposed Churchills high naval estimates. The Left-wing cabinet members desired specificity to Admiralty reductions, but the admirals themselves opposed them, Runciman joined Lloyd Georges Council of War on 13 June, which was mainly designed to exculpate Lloyd George of any involvement in the Marconi scandal. Runciman had done much to encourage Lloyd George as Chancellor in increasing levels of trade, Runciman encouraged political dialogue, socialism, and James Larkins movement in Ireland, which the cabinet swiftly sought to decriminalise. Runciman was one of those who agreed to fight the Larne gun-running incident by seizure of weapons, the cabinet banned all arms shipments to Ireland on 25 November. In 1914, on the outbreak of war, the President of the Board of Trade, John Burns, resigned and Runciman on Sunday 2 August was appointed to succeed him. The Board of Trade reported in October 1914 a build-up of German shipping at Hamburg and he approved food for Belgian refugees. On 12 January 1915 he agreed to send a memo to the US government to ban all copper imports to Ireland, Runciman was wholly sympathetic to Lloyd Georges proposal to actively intervene in union wage disputes since men were not malingering, but worn out. A statement that preceded the mass employment of women in factories, Runciman proposed a bill commandeering the armaments factories for the nationalised war effort. Sitting between McKenna and Hobhouse, he announced an agreement to pay a guaranteed 15% dividend plus depreciation
8.
Hilda Runciman, Viscountess Runciman of Doxford
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Hilda Runciman, Viscountess Runciman of Doxford was a British Liberal Party politician. In 1898 she married Walter Runciman, a rising politician and they had two sons and three daughters. She became the first woman member to be elected to the Newcastle on Tyne School Board and she was also a member of the Northumberland County Council Education Committee and one of the earliest women magistrates. In the 1920s Mrs Runciman took on a national political role. She served as president of the Womens National Liberal Federation, 1919–21 and she narrowly failed to gain Tavistock from the Tories by just 152 votes. In 1937 her husband became Viscount Runciman of Doxford, and she was styled as Viscountess Runciman of Doxford, Hilda Runciman died of heart failure at her home,73 Portland Place, London, on 28 October 1956, aged 87. Hansard 1803–2005, contributions in Parliament by Hilda Runciman
9.
Liberal Party (UK)
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The Liberal Party was a liberal political party which was one of the two major parties in the United Kingdom in the 19th and early 20th century. The party arose from an alliance of Whigs and free-trade Peelites and Radicals favourable to the ideals of the American, by the end of the nineteenth century, it had formed four governments under William Gladstone. Despite splitting over the issue of Irish Home Rule, the party returned to power in 1906 with a landslide victory, by the end of the 1920s, the Labour Party had replaced the Liberals as the Conservatives main rival. The party went into decline and by the 1950s won no more than six seats at general elections, apart from notable by-election victories, the partys fortunes did not improve significantly until it formed the SDP–Liberal Alliance with the newly formed Social Democratic Party in 1981. At the 1983 General Election, the Alliance won over a quarter of the vote, at the 1987 General Election, its vote fell below 23% and the Liberal and Social Democratic parties merged in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats. A splinter group reconstituted the Liberal Party in 1989 and it was formed by party members opposed to the merger who saw the Lib Dems diluting Liberal ideals. Prominent intellectuals associated with the Liberal Party include the philosopher John Stuart Mill, the economist John Maynard Keynes, the Liberal Party grew out of the Whigs, who had their origins in an aristocratic faction in the reign of Charles II, and the early 19th century Radicals. The Whigs were in favour of reducing the power of the Crown, although their motives in this were originally to gain more power for themselves, the more idealistic Whigs gradually came to support an expansion of democracy for its own sake. The great figures of reformist Whiggery were Charles James Fox and his disciple, after decades in opposition, the Whigs returned to power under Grey in 1830 and carried the First Reform Act in 1832. The Reform Act was the climax of Whiggism, but it brought about the Whigs demise. As early as 1839 Russell had adopted the name of Liberals, the leading Radicals were John Bright and Richard Cobden, who represented the manufacturing towns which had gained representation under the Reform Act. They favoured social reform, personal liberty, reducing the powers of the Crown and the Church of England, avoidance of war and foreign alliances, for a century, free trade remained the one cause which could unite all Liberals. This allowed ministries led by Russell, Palmerston, and the Peelite Lord Aberdeen to hold office for most of the 1850s and 1860s, a leading Peelite was William Ewart Gladstone, who was a reforming Chancellor of the Exchequer in most of these governments. The formal foundation of the Liberal Party is traditionally traced to 1859 and this was brought about by Palmerstons death in 1865 and Russells retirement in 1868. After a brief Conservative government Gladstone won a victory at the 1868 election. The establishment of the party as a membership organisation came with the foundation of the National Liberal Federation in 1877. John Stuart Mill was a Liberal MP from 1865 to 1868, for the next thirty years Gladstone and Liberalism were synonymous. William Ewart Gladstone served as prime minister four times, called the Grand Old Man later in life, Gladstone was always a dynamic popular orator who appealed strongly to the working class and to the lower middle class
10.
Viscount Runciman of Doxford
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Viscount Runciman of Doxford, of Doxford in the County of Northumberland, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1937 for the Hon. Walter Runciman, as his father was still alive at the time of the creation of the viscountcy the title of this peerage was Runciman of Doxford rather than simply Runciman. As of 2017 the titles are held by the first Viscounts grandson, the third Viscount and he is a well-known sociologist at the University of Cambridge. Hilda Runciman, Viscountess Runciman of Doxford, wife of the first Viscount, sir Steven Runciman, younger son of the first Viscount and Hilda, Viscountess Runciman of Doxford, was a noted historian. The heir apparents heir apparent is his son Thomas Walter Runciman, new York, St Martins Press,1990, Pride Time 19 March 1928
11.
South Shields (UK Parliament constituency)
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South Shields is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election and it has been represented by Emma Lewell-Buck of the Labour Party since 2013. 1918-1983, The County Borough of South Shields, 1983-1997, The Metropolitan Borough of South Tyneside wards of All Saints, Beacon and Bents, Cleadon Park, Harton, Horsley Hill, Rekendyke, Tyne Dock and Simonside, Westoe, West Park, and Whiteleas. The current constituency covers the area of South Shields in the South Tyneside district of Tyne, boundary changes at the 2010 general election transferred the community of Whitburn into the South Shields constituency from the neighbouring Jarrow seat. The seat was held from 2001 to 2013 by David Miliband, on 26 March 2013 Miliband announced his resignation from Parliament in order to take up a post as the head of the International Rescue Committee in New York City. With two exceptions every South Shields MP since 1929 has been a member at some point in their career. Two of them, Chuter Ede and Miliband, have one of the great offices of state while MP for South Shields
12.
Eton College
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Eton College /iːtən/ is an English independent boarding school for boys in Eton, Berkshire, near Windsor. It educates more than 1,300 pupils, aged 13 to 18 years and it was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as The Kings College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor, making it the 18th oldest Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference school. Eton is one of the seven public schools as defined by the Public Schools Act 1868. Eton has educated 19 British prime ministers and generations of the aristocracy and has referred to as the chief nurse of Englands statesmen. The school is headed by a Provost and Fellows, who appoint the Head Master and it contains 25 boys houses, each headed by a housemaster, selected from the more senior members of the teaching staff, which numbers some 155. Almost all of the pupils go on to universities, about a third of them to Oxford or Cambridge. The Head Master is a member of the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference, Eton has a long list of distinguished former pupils. David Cameron was the 19th British prime minister to have attended the school, about 20% of pupils at Eton receive financial support, through a range of bursaries and scholarships. In early 2014, this figure had risen to 263 pupils receiving the equivalent of around 60% of school fee assistance, Eton has been described as the most famous public school in the world, and been referred to as the chief nurse of Englands statesmen. The Good Schools Guide called the school the number one public school, adding that The teaching. The school is a member of the G20 Schools Group, Eton today is a larger school than it has been for much of its history. In 1678, there were 207 boys, in the late 18th century, there were about 300, while today, the total has risen to over 1,300. Eton College was founded by King Henry VI as a charity school to free education to 70 poor boys who would then go on to Kings College, Cambridge. Henry took Winchester College as his model, visiting on many occasions, borrowing its Statutes and removing its Headmaster, when Henry VI founded the school, he granted it a large number of endowments, including much valuable land. He persuaded the then Pope, Eugene IV, to grant him a privilege unparalleled anywhere in England, the school also came into possession of one of Englands Apocalypse manuscripts. Legend has it that Edwards mistress, Jane Shore, intervened on the schools behalf and she was able to save a good part of the school, although the royal bequest and the number of staff were much reduced. Construction of the chapel, originally intended to be slightly over twice as long, only the Quire of the intended building was completed. Etons first Headmaster, William Waynflete, founder of Magdalen College, Oxford and previously Head Master of Winchester College, as the school suffered reduced income while still under construction, the completion and further development of the school has since depended to some extent on wealthy benefactors
13.
George Orwell
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Eric Arthur Blair, better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of injustice, opposition to totalitarianism. Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction, and polemical journalism and he is best known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In 2008, The Times ranked him second on a list of The 50 greatest British writers since 1945, Eric Arthur Blair was born on 25 June 1903, in Motihari, Bengal Presidency, in British India. His grandfather, Thomas Richard Arthur Blair, was a clergyman, although the gentility passed down the generations, the prosperity did not, Eric Blair described his family as lower-upper-middle class. His father, Richard Walmesley Blair, worked in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service and his mother, Ida Mabel Blair, grew up in Moulmein, Burma, where her French father was involved in speculative ventures. Eric had two sisters, Marjorie, five years older, and Avril, five years younger, when Eric was one year old, his mother took him and his sister to England. His birthplace and ancestral house in Motihari has been declared a monument of historical importance. In 1904, Ida Blair settled with her children at Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, Eric was brought up in the company of his mother and sisters, and apart from a brief visit in mid-1907, they did not see the husband and father Richard Blair until 1912. His mothers diary from 1905 describes a lively round of social activity, before the First World War, the family moved to Shiplake, Oxfordshire where Eric became friendly with the Buddicom family, especially their daughter Jacintha. When they first met, he was standing on his head in a field, on being asked why, he said, You are noticed more if you stand on your head than if you are right way up. Jacintha and Eric read and wrote poetry, and dreamed of becoming famous writers and he said that he might write a book in the style of H. G. Wellss A Modern Utopia. During this period, he enjoyed shooting, fishing and birdwatching with Jacinthas brother and sister. At the age of five, Eric was sent as a day-boy to a convent school in Henley-on-Thames and it was a Roman Catholic convent run by French Ursuline nuns, who had been exiled from France after religious education was banned in 1903. His mother wanted him to have a school education, but his family could not afford the fees. Ida Blairs brother Charles Limouzin recommended St Cyprians School, Eastbourne, Limouzin, who was a proficient golfer, knew of the school and its headmaster through the Royal Eastbourne Golf Club, where he won several competitions in 1903 and 1904. The headmaster undertook to help Blair to win a scholarship, in September 1911 Eric arrived at St Cyprians. He boarded at the school for the five years, returning home only for school holidays
14.
Aldous Huxley
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Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer, novelist, philosopher, and prominent member of the Huxley family. He graduated from Balliol College at the University of Oxford with an honours in English literature. Early in his career Huxley edited the magazine Oxford Poetry and published short stories, mid career and later, he published travel writing, film stories, and scripts. He spent the part of his life in the U. S. living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. In 1962, a year before his death, he was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature, Huxley was a humanist, pacifist, and satirist. He later became interested in subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent intellectuals of his time and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in seven different years. Huxley was born in Godalming, Surrey, England, in 1894 and he was the third son of the writer and schoolmaster Leonard Huxley, who edited Cornhill Magazine, and his first wife, Julia Arnold, who founded Priors Field School. Julia was the niece of poet and critic Matthew Arnold and the sister of Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Aldous was the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, the zoologist, agnostic, and controversialist. His brother Julian Huxley and half-brother Andrew Huxley also became outstanding biologists, Aldous had another brother, Noel Trevelyan Huxley, who committed suicide after a period of clinical depression. As a child, Huxleys nickname was Ogie, short for Ogre and he was described by his brother, Julian, as someone who frequently the strangeness of things. According to his cousin and contemporary, Gervas Huxley, he had an early interest in drawing, Huxleys education began in his fathers well-equipped botanical laboratory, after which he enrolled at Hillside School near Godalming. He was taught there by his own mother for years until she became terminally ill. After Hillside, he went on to Eton College and his mother died in 1908 when he was 14. In 1911 he contracted the eye disease which left practically blind for two to three years and this ended his early dreams of becoming a doctor. In October 1913, Huxley went up to Balliol College, Oxford, in January 1916, he volunteered to join the British Army in the Great War, but was rejected on health grounds, being half-blind in one eye. In 1916 he edited Oxford Poetry and in June of that year graduated BA with First Class honours and his brother Julian wrote, I believe his blindness was a blessing in disguise. For one thing, it put paid to his idea of taking up medicine as a career and his uniqueness lay in his universalism
15.
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. With around 600 undergraduates,300 graduates, and over 180 fellows, by combined student numbers, it is second to Homerton College, Cambridge. Members of Trinity have won 32 Nobel Prizes out of the 91 won by members of Cambridge University, five Fields Medals in mathematics were won by members of the college and one Abel Prize was won. Other royal family members have studied there without obtaining degrees, including King Edward VII, King George VI, along with Christs, Jesus, Kings and St Johns colleges, it has also provided several of the well known members of the Apostles, an intellectual secret society. In 1848, Trinity hosted the meeting at which Cambridge undergraduates representing private schools such as Westminster drew up the first formal rules of football, Trinitys sister college in Oxford is Christ Church. Like that college, Trinity has been linked with Westminster School since the schools re-foundation in 1560, the college was founded by Henry VIII in 1546, from the merger of two existing colleges, Michaelhouse, and Kings Hall. At the time, Henry had been seizing church lands from abbeys, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, being both religious institutions and quite rich, expected to be next in line. The King duly passed an Act of Parliament that allowed him to any college he wished. The universities used their contacts to plead with his sixth wife, the Queen persuaded her husband not to close them down, but to create a new college. The king did not want to use royal funds, so he combined two colleges and seven hostels to form Trinity. Contrary to popular belief, the lands granted by Henry VIII were not on their own sufficient to ensure Trinitys eventual rise. In its infancy Trinity had owed a great deal to its college of St Johns. Its first four Masters were educated at St Johns, and it took until around 1575 for the two colleges application numbers to draw even, a position in which they have remained since the Civil War. Bentley himself was notorious for the construction of a hugely expensive staircase in the Masters Lodge, most of the Trinitys major buildings date from the 16th and 17th centuries. Thomas Nevile, who became Master of Trinity in 1593, rebuilt and this work included the enlargement and completion of Great Court, and the construction of Neviles Court between Great Court and the river Cam. Neviles Court was completed in the late 17th century when the Wren Library, in the 20th century, Trinity College, St Johns College and Kings College were for decades the main recruiting grounds for the Cambridge Apostles, an elite, intellectual secret society. In 2011, the John Templeton Foundation awarded Trinity Colleges Master, Trinity is the richest Oxbridge college, with a landholding alone worth £800 million. Trinity is sometimes suggested to be the second, third or fourth wealthiest landowner in the UK – after the Crown Estate, the National Trust, in 2005, Trinitys annual rental income from its properties was reported to be in excess of £20 million
16.
Cambridge University
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The University of Cambridge is a collegiate public research university in Cambridge, England, often regarded as one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Founded in 1209 and given royal status by King Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world. The university grew out of an association of scholars who left the University of Oxford after a dispute with the townspeople, the two ancient universities share many common features and are often referred to jointly as Oxbridge. Cambridge is formed from a variety of institutions which include 31 constituent colleges, Cambridge University Press, a department of the university, is the worlds oldest publishing house and the second-largest university press in the world. The university also operates eight cultural and scientific museums, including the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridges libraries hold a total of around 15 million books, eight million of which are in Cambridge University Library, a legal deposit library. In the year ended 31 July 2015, the university had an income of £1.64 billion. The central university and colleges have an endowment of around £5.89 billion. The university is linked with the development of the high-tech business cluster known as Silicon Fen. It is a member of associations and forms part of the golden triangle of leading English universities and Cambridge University Health Partners. As of 2017, Cambridge is ranked the fourth best university by three ranking tables and no other institution in the world ranks in the top 10 for as many subjects. Cambridge is consistently ranked as the top university in the United Kingdom, the university has educated many notable alumni, including eminent mathematicians, scientists, politicians, lawyers, philosophers, writers, actors, and foreign Heads of State. Ninety-five Nobel laureates, fifteen British prime ministers and ten Fields medalists have been affiliated with Cambridge as students, faculty, by the late 12th century, the Cambridge region already had a scholarly and ecclesiastical reputation, due to monks from the nearby bishopric church of Ely. The University of Oxford went into suspension in protest, and most scholars moved to such as Paris, Reading. After the University of Oxford reformed several years later, enough remained in Cambridge to form the nucleus of the new university. A bull in 1233 from Pope Gregory IX gave graduates from Cambridge the right to teach everywhere in Christendom, the colleges at the University of Cambridge were originally an incidental feature of the system. No college is as old as the university itself, the colleges were endowed fellowships of scholars. There were also institutions without endowments, called hostels, the hostels were gradually absorbed by the colleges over the centuries, but they have left some indicators of their time, such as the name of Garret Hostel Lane. Hugh Balsham, Bishop of Ely, founded Peterhouse, Cambridges first college, the most recently established college is Robinson, built in the late 1970s
17.
J.B. Bury
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John Bagnell Bury, FBA, known as J. B. Bury, was an Irish historian, classical scholar, Medieval Roman historian and he objected to the label Byzantinist explicitly in the preface to the 1889 edition of his Later Roman Empire. He held the position of Erasmus Smiths Professor of Modern History at Trinity College Dublin, Bury was born and raised in Clontibret, County Monaghan, where his father was Rector of the Anglican Church of Ireland. In 1893 he gained a chair in Modern History at Trinity College, in 1898 he was appointed Regius Professor of Greek, also at Trinity, a post he held simultaneously with his history professorship. In 1902 he became Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, at Cambridge, Bury became mentor to the medievalist Sir Steven Runciman, who later commented that he had been Burys first, and only, student. At first the reclusive Bury tried to brush him off, then, when Runciman mentioned that he could read Russian, Bury gave him a stack of Bulgarian articles to edit, Bury was the author of the first truly authoritative biography of Saint Patrick. Bury remained at Cambridge until his death at the age of 65 in Rome and he is buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. He received the honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Glasgow in June 1901, Burys writings, on subjects ranging from ancient Greece to the 19th-century papacy, are at once scholarly and accessible to the layman. His two works on the philosophy of history elucidated the Victorian ideals of progress and rationality which undergirded his more specific histories and he also led a revival of Byzantine history, which English-speaking historians, following Edward Gibbon, had largely neglected. He contributed to, and was himself the subject of an article in, with Frank Adcock and S. A. Cook he edited The Cambridge Ancient History, launched in 1919. John Bagnell Burys career shows his evolving thought process and his consideration of the discipline of history as a science, from his inaugural lecture as Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge in 1902 comes his public proclamation of history as a science and not as a branch of literature. He stated, I may remind you that history is not a branch of literature, Burys final thoughts during his lecture reiterate his previous statement with a cementing sentence that claims. she is herself simply a science, no less and no more. In his book, History of Freedom of Thought he said the following, some people speak as if we were not justified in rejecting a theological doctrine unless we can prove it false. But the burden of proof does not lie upon the rejecter, some minds would be prepared to accept it, if it were reiterated often enough, through the potent force of suggestion. A. Bury at Project Gutenberg Works by or about J. B, Bury at Internet Archive Works by J. B
18.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
19.
Bulgarian language
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Bulgarian /bʌlˈɡɛəriən/, /bʊlˈ-/ is an Indo-European language, a member of the Southern branch of the Slavic language family. Various evidential verb forms exist to express unwitnessed, retold, with the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Bulgarian became one of the official languages of the European Union. Development of the Bulgarian language may be divided into several periods, prehistoric period – occurred between the Slavonic migration to eastern Balkans and the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to Great Moravia in the 860s. Old Bulgarian – a literary norm of the southern dialect of the Common Slavic language from which Bulgarian evolved. It was used by Saints Cyril and Methodius and their disciples to translate the Bible, Middle Bulgarian – a literary norm that evolved from the earlier Old Bulgarian, after major innovations were accepted. It was a language of literary activity and the official administration language of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Modern Bulgarian – dates from the 16th century onwards, undergoing general grammar, present-day written Bulgarian language was standardized on the basis of the 19th-century Bulgarian vernacular. Bulgarian was the first Slavic language attested in writing, as Slavic linguistic unity lasted into late antiquity, in the oldest manuscripts this language was initially referred to as языкъ словяньскъ, the Slavic language. In the Middle Bulgarian period this name was replaced by the name языкъ блъгарьскъ. In some cases, the name языкъ блъгарьскъ was used not only with regard to the contemporary Middle Bulgarian language of the copyist but also to the period of Old Bulgarian. During the Middle Bulgarian period, the language underwent dramatic changes, losing the Slavonic case system, today one difference between Bulgarian dialects in the country and literary spoken Bulgarian is the significant presence of Old Bulgarian words and even word forms in the latter. Russian loans are distinguished from Old Bulgarian ones on the basis of the presence of specifically Russian phonetic changes, as in оборот, непонятен, ядро and others. As usual in cases, many other loans from French, English. Modern Bulgarian was based essentially on the Eastern dialects of the language, between 1835–1878 more than 25 proposals were put forward and linguistic chaos ensued. Eventually the eastern dialects prevailed, and in 1899 the Ministry of Education officially codified a standard Bulgarian language based on the Drinov-Ivanchev orthography, the language is mainly split into two broad dialect areas, based on the different reflexes of the Common Slavic yat vowel. This split, which occurred at some point during the Middle Ages, led to the development of Bulgarias, E. g. млеко – milk, хлеб – bread. This rule obtains in most Eastern dialects, although some have ya, or an open e sound. The literary language norm, which is based on the Eastern dialects
20.
Istanbul University
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Istanbul University is a prominent Turkish university located in Istanbul. The main campus is adjacent to Beyazıt Square in Fatih, the district of the province. Istanbul University was established in 1453 by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, education in a number of sciences and fields became available, and, until the 19th century, they were instrumental in educating the ruling cadres of the Ottoman society. An institution of higher education named the Darülfünûn-u Osmanî was created in 1863 and its first rector was Hasan Tahsini, regarded as one of the most important Ottoman scholars of the 19th century. In 1874 the Imperial University started classes in law in French, the Imperial University, now known as Darülfünûn-u Şahâne was refounded in 1900, with the departments of theology, arts, mathematics, science and philology. In 1924, the faculties of law, medicine, arts and sciences were established in Istanbul University, islamic theology was added in 1925, but in 1933 the university was reorganized without the latter. Starting from 1874, some classes of Literature, Law and Applied Sciences were given at the building of Galatasaray High School, on 1 September 1900, the school was renamed and reorganized as the Darülfünûn-u Şahâne with courses on Mathematics, Literature and Theology. On 1 August 1933, İstanbul Darülfünûnu was reorganized as İstanbul Üniversitesi following the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Classes officially began on 1 November 1933, the main campus building with its landmark gate was previously used as the headquarters of the Harbiye Nezareti by the Ottoman government. Located on the grounds is the Beyazıt Tower, a 85 m tall fire-watch tower, the grounds were previously the location of the Ottoman era Eski Saray. Some Roman and Byzantine ruins are visible on the grounds. The university has a staff of 2,000 professors and associates and 4,000 assistants. More than 60,000 undergraduate and 8,000 postgraduate students follow the courses offered by Istanbul University every year, the main gate was depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 500 lira banknotes of 1971–1984
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Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
22.
British Council
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The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. The British Council is a charity registered in England and Wales and it is also a public corporation and an executive nondepartmental public body, sponsored by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Its headquarters are off Trafalgar Square, London and its Chair is Christopher Rodrigues, its CEO is Sir Ciarán Devane and chief operating officer Adrian Greer. 1934, British Foreign Office officials created the British Committee for Relations with Other Countries to support English education abroad, promote British culture, the name quickly became British Council for Relations with Other Countries. 1936, The organisation’s name was shortened to the British Council. 1938, The British Council opens its first four offices in Bucarest, Cairo, Lisbon, the offices in Portugal are currently the oldest in continuous operation in the world. 1942, The British Council undertook a promotion of British culture overseas, the music section of the project was a recording of significant recent compositions by British composers, E. J. 1944, In August, after the liberation of Paris, Austin Gill was sent by the council to reestablish the Paris office,2007, The Russian Foreign Ministry ordered the British Council to close its offices outside Moscow. This caused the British Council to cease carrying out all English-language examinations in Russia from January 2008, in early 2009, a Russian arbitration court ruled that the majority of the tax claims, valued at $6.6 million, were unjustified. All the attackers were killed in counter-attacks by forces guarding the compound, the British Council office was relocated to the British Embassy compound, as the British Council compound was destroyed in the suicide attack. 2013, The British Council in Tripoli, Libya was targeted by a car bomb on the morning of 23 April, diplomatic sources were reported as saying that the bombers were foiled as they were preparing to park a rigged vehicle in front of the compound gate. A jihadist group calling itself the Mujahedeen Brigade was suspected possibly linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the British Council is organised into 7 Regions. The British Council has offices in, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru, Trinidad, Venezuela, Uruguay and the United States of America. The British Council has offices in, Australia, Brunei, Burma, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and New Zealand. The British Council has offices in, Egypt, Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The British Council has offices in, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, the British Council is a charity governed by Royal Charter. It is also a corporation and an executive nondepartmental public body, sponsored by the Foreign. Its headquarters are off Trafalgar Square, London and its Chair is Christopher Rodrigues, its CEO is Sir Ciarán Devane and chief operating officer Adrian Greer
23.
Kingdom of Sarawak
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The Kingdom of Sarawak was a state in Borneo established in 1841 by James Brooke receiving independent kingdom status from the Sultanate of Brunei as a reward for helping fight piracy and insurgency. Its statehood and identity as a country was first recognised by the United States in 1850. Sarawak gained self-government from the British on 22 July 1963 and formed the Federation of Malaysia together with Singapore, North Borneo, however, it never restore its full independence and sovereignty as enjoyed during the rule of the White Rajahs. Sarawak was part of the Sultanate of Brunei in Borneo, during the reign of Pangeran Indera Mahkota, Sarawak was in chaos from piracy and insurgency. Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin II the Sultan of Brunei, ordered Pengiran Muda Hashim in 1839 to restore order, Pangeran Muda Hashim initially requested assistance but James Brooke refused. Brooke was by then an independent adventurer with his own ship having left military employment in India after recovering from battle injuries. In 1841, James Brooke paid another visit to Sarawak and this time he agreed to assist Pangeran Muda Hashim, the success in defeating the pirates and insurgents led to the signing of a treaty in 1841 ceding as a reward Sarawak and Serian to James Brooke. Thereafter, on 24 September 1841, Pangeran Muda Hashim bestowed the title Rajah on James Brooke and he effectively became the Rajah of Sarawak and founded the White Rajah Dynasty of Sarawak, later extending his administration through an agreement with the Sultan of Brunei. James Brooke, who was to become the first White Rajah, as time went on Sarawaks size would increase tremendously as more territory was leased or annexed from the Sultanate of Brunei. When the Pacific War began in December 1941, Sarawak was brought into the war against Japan on the side of the Allies as part of the British Empire, Sarawak depended upon British protection as she had very limited armed forces, although the Sarawak Rangers were mobilised. Sarawaks small merchant marine was used by the British in the Far Eastern campaign, a government in exile was formed, although it proved ineffectual due to the lack of contact with Sarawak. Sarawak, along with the rest of Borneo, was liberated by the Australian Imperial Force in 1945, after World War II, Vyner Brooke ceded Sarawak to the Colonial Office for a sizeable pension for him and his three daughters. Duncan Stewart, the second British governor of Sarawak, was assassinated in the resulting unrest, as of now there is no serious movement for the restoration of the monarchy. Sarawak is notably different from peninsular Malaysia and even Sabah in that its ethnic groups are more varied due to the proportion of tribal peoples such as Dayaks. Chinese migration was encouraged at various times by the Brookes, when he assumed control of the original area around Kuching in the 1840s much of the system of government was based on the ineffective Bruneian model. James set about reforming the government and eventually creating a service known as the Sarawak Service which recruited European. He invited the Anglican Mission to set up church and schools, particularly, the mission through Father McDougall set up the St. Thomas Anglican School, in 1848, still the oldest established European school in Southeast Asia. Thus, the residents became exposed to and trained in many British and European methods, however, James retained many of the customs and symbols of neighbouring Malay monarchies and combined them with his own style of absolute rule
24.
James Brooke
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Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, KCB, was a Briton born and raised under the Company Raj in NE India, who became the first White Rajah of Sarawak in Borneo. After a few years of education in England, he served in the Bengal Army, was wounded and he bought a ship and sailed out to the Malay Archipelago where, by helping to crush a rebellion, he became governor of Sarawak. He then vigorously suppressed piracy in the region and, in the turmoil, restored the Sultan of Brunei to his throne. Brooke was not without detractors and was criticised in the British Parliament and he was, however, honoured in London for his work. The naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace was one of many visitors whose published work spoke of his hospitality and his final years were spent quietly in England. Brooke was born in Bandel, near Calcutta, Bengal, but baptised in Secrole, Brooke stayed at home in India until he was sent, aged 12, to England for a brief education at Norwich School from which he ran away. Some home tutoring followed in Bath before he returned to India in 1819 as an ensign in the Bengal Army of the British East India Company and he saw action in Assam during the First Anglo-Burmese War until seriously wounded in 1825, and was sent to England for recovery. In 1830, he arrived back in Madras but was too late to rejoin his unit and he remained on the ship he had travelled out in, the Castle Huntley, and returned home via China. Brooke attempted to trade in the Far East, but was not successful, in 1833 he inherited £30,000, which he used as capital to purchase a 142-ton schooner, Royalist. Setting sail for Borneo in 1838, he arrived in Kuching in August to find the settlement facing an uprising against the Sultan of Brunei, Rajah Brooke was highly successful in suppressing the widespread piracy of the region. However, some Malay nobles in Brunei, unhappy over Brookes measures against piracy, arranged for the murder of Muda Hashim, Brooke, with assistance from a unit of Britains China Squadron, took over Brunei and restored its sultan to the throne. In 1846 Brooke presented the island of Labuan to the British government and he was appointed governor and commander-in-chief of Labuan. In 1842 Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien II ceded complete sovereignty of Sarawak to Brooke and he was granted the title of Rajah of Sarawak on 24 September 1841, although the official declaration was not made until 18 August 1842. After investigation, the Commission dismissed the charges but the continued to haunt him. Brooke wrote to Alfred Russel Wallace on leaving England in April 1853, during his rule, Brooke faced threats from Sarawak warriors like Sharif Masahor and Rentap, and an uprising by Liu Shan Bang in 1857, but remained in power. Brooke ruled Sarawak until his death in 1868, following three strokes over ten years, all three White Rajahs are buried in St Leonards Church in the village of Sheepstor on Dartmoor. Having no legitimate children, in 1861 he formally named Captain John Brooke Johnson-Brooke, his sisters eldest son, two years later, the Rajah reacted to criticism by returning to the east, after a brief meeting in Singapore John was deposed and banished from Sarawak. James increased the charges to treasonous conduct and later named Johns younger brother, Charles Anthoni Johnson Brooke, Brooke was influenced by the success of previous British adventurers and the exploits of the British East India Company
25.
Occult
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The occult is knowledge of the hidden. In common English usage, occult refers to knowledge of the paranormal, as opposed to knowledge of the measurable, the terms esoteric and arcane can also be used to describe the occult, in addition to their meanings unrelated to the supernatural. Occultism is the study of practices, including magic, alchemy, extra-sensory perception, astrology, spiritualism, religion. Alchemy was common among important seventeenth-century scientists, such as Isaac Newton, Newton was even accused of introducing occult agencies into natural science when he postulated gravity as a force capable of acting over vast distances. By the eighteenth century these unorthodox religious and philosophical concerns were well-defined as occult, inasmuch as they lay on the outermost fringe of accepted forms of knowledge and they were, however, preserved by antiquarians and mystics. Occult science is the research into or formulation of occult concepts in a manner that resembles the way natural science researches or describes phenomena. In his 1871 book Primitive Culture, the anthropologist Edward Tylor used the term occult science as a synonym for magic, Occult qualities are properties that have no known rational explanation, in the Middle Ages, for example, magnetism was considered an occult quality. Newtons contemporaries severely criticized his theory that gravity was effected through action at a distance, some religions and sects enthusiastically embrace occultism as an integral esoteric aspect of mystical religious experience. This attitude is common within Wicca and many other modern pagan religions, some other religious denominations disapprove of occultism in most or all forms. They may view the occult as being anything supernatural or paranormal which is not achieved by or through God, monistic in contrast to Christian dualistic beliefs of a separation between body and spirit, Gnostic i. e. Walker, Benjamin. Encyclopedia of the Occult, the Esoteric and the Supernatural, harold W. Percival, Joined the Theosophical Society in 1892. Blavatsky, Occultism versus the Occult Arts, Lucifer, May 1888 Bardon, true to His Ways, Purity & Safety in Christian Spiritual Practice, ISBN 1-932124-61-6. ISBN 1-57863-150-5 Forshaw, Peter, The Occult Middle Ages, in Christopher Partridge, The Occult World, London, Routledge,2014 Gettings, Fred, Vision of the Occult, ISBN 0-7126-1438-9 Kontou, Tatiana – Willburn, Sarah. The Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism and the Occult, ISBN 978-0-7546-6912-8 Martin, W. Rische, J. Rische, K. & VanGordon, K. W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.201 p. N. B, the scope of this study also embraces the occult. ISBN 0-8028-0262-1 Partridge, Christopher, The Occult World, London, the Tree of Life, An Illustrated Study in Magic. Newton, Isaac, Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John by Sir Isaac Newton Rogers, L. W. Hints to Young Students of Occultism. Albany, NY, The Theosophical Book Company, joseph H. Peterson, Twilit Grotto, Archives of Western Esoterica Occult Science and Philosophy of the Renaissance
26.
Fuad I of Egypt
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Fuad I was the Sultan and later King of Egypt and Sudan, Sovereign of Nubia, Kordofan, and Darfur. The ninth ruler of Egypt and Sudan from the Muhammad Ali dynasty, he became Sultan of Egypt and Sudan in 1917 and he substituted the title of King for Sultan when the United Kingdom recognised Egyptian independence in 1922. His name is sometimes spelled Fouad, Fuad was born in Giza Palace in Cairo, the seventh son of Ismail the Magnificent. He spent his childhood with his father in Naples. He got his education from the academy in Turin, Italy. Prior to becoming sultan, Fuad had played a role in the establishment of Cairo University. He became the universitys first rector in 1908, and remained in the post until his resignation in 1913 and he was succeeded as rector by then-minister of Justice Hussein Rushdi Pasha. In 1913, Fuad made unsuccessful attempts to secure the throne of Albania for himself, at the time, Egypt and Sudan was ruled by his nephew, Abbas II, and the likelihood of Fuad becoming the monarch in his own country seemed remote. This, and the fact that the Muhammad Ali dynasty was of Albanian descent, Fuad also served as President of the Egyptian Geographic Society from 1915 until 1918. Fuad came under consideration as a candidate for the Albanian throne and he ascended the throne of the Sultanate of Egypt upon the death of his brother Hussein Kamel in 1917. In the aftermath of the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, the United Kingdom ended its protectorate over Egypt, on 15 March 1922, Fuad issued a decree changing his title from Sultan of Egypt to King of Egypt. In 1930, he attempted to strengthen the power of the Crown by abrogating the 1923 Constitution, large scale public dissatisfaction compelled him to restore the earlier constitution in 1935. The 1923 Constitution granted Fuad vast powers and he made frequent use of his right to dissolve Parliament. During his reign, cabinets were dismissed at royal will, Fuad was an instrumental force in modern Egyptian historiography. Fuad married his first wife in Cairo,30 May 1895 at the Abbasiya Palace in Cairo,14 February 1896 and she was his cousin and the only daughter of Field Marshal Prince Ibrahim Fahmi Ahmad Pasha. They had two children, a son, Ismail Fuad, who died in infancy, and a daughter, unhappily married, the couple divorced in 1898. During a dispute with the brother of his first wife, Fuad was shot in the throat and he survived, but carried that scar the rest of his life. Fuad married his wife at the Bustan Palace in Cairo on 24 May 1919
27.
Hotel Pera Palace
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The Pera Palace Hotel Jumeirah is a historic special category hotel and museum hotel located in the Beyoğlu district in Istanbul, Turkey. It was built in 1892 for the purpose of hosting the passengers of the Orient Express and was named after the place where it is located and it holds the title of the oldest European hotel of Turkey. The Pera Palace Hotel is located in the Tepebaşı neighbourhood of Pera and it is about 20 km from Atatürk International Airport. The hotel is in walking distance of Istiklal Avenue, Taksim Square, the hotel was closed from 2006, undergoing a major renovation and restoration project and reopened on September 1,2010. Establishment work began in 1892 and the opening ball was held in 1895. Alexander Vallaury, a French-Turkish architect living in the city designed the hotel in a blend of neo-classical, art nouveau, Vallaury undertook a number of other projects in Istanbul, including The Ottoman Bank Headquarters and The Istanbul Archaeology Museum. The hotel was the first building in Turkey to be powered by electricity and it was also the only address in the city to provide hot running water for its guests and was home to the first electric elevator in Istanbul. The hotels first owners were the Ottoman Armenian Esayan family, Pera Palace Hotel is today regarded as an important historical building and is listed under the general protection of Turkish Law concerning cultural heritage in Turkey. The exterior façade, as well as the layout of the property, the interiors of the building feature a more oriental style, mostly concentrated in the ballroom interior. In keeping with this vision, art nouveau lines feature in and around the elevator. Although a prominent symbol of Istanbul’s cityscape, the Pera Palace property was in need of an extensive renovation, consequently, in April 2008, the Beşiktas Shipping Group launched a Euro 23 million renovation and restoration project. KA. BA Conservation of Historic Buildings and Architecture directed the project alongside the Metex Design Group, a key attraction, the Atatürk Room 101 remains as a ‘Museum Room’, with many personal items and reading material of the great leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk exhibited to the public. Henry Pulling and his aunt Augusta Bertram, protagonists of Graham Greenes 1969 novel, Travels With My Aunt, detective writer Agatha Christies 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express was allegedly written in the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, the southern terminus of the railway. The hotel maintains Christies room as a memorial to the author, midnight at the Pera Palace, The Birth of Modern Istanbul. New York, W. W. Norton & Company,2014, all about Turkey official website Series of pictures taken at the hotel
28.
Radway
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Radway is a village and civil parish in Warwickshire about 7 miles north-west of Banbury in neighbouring Oxfordshire. The population taken at the 2011 census had reduced to 238, the earliest known record of Radway is in the Domesday Book of 1086. In medieval times its lands were divided between Arbury Priory and Stoneleigh Abbey, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII in the 1530s the lands of Radway were granted to various of Henrys circle, notably the Coke family. As the lands were sold over the years, the manorial system of Radway broke down. Radway became a centre of Puritanism during and after the Commonwealth period, persecution of Radways Quakers and the jailing of some led eventually to a small group emigrating in the 1680s to a Quaker colony in Gloucester County, West New Jersey. Letters from New Jersey still survive in the record office. Radway was enclosed in the 1750s, the Church of England parish church of Saint Peter was designed by the Gothic Revival architect Charles Buckeridge and built in 1866. The remains of a church, dating from the Middle Ages, are still visible. Inside St Peters are memorials re-set from the previous church, St Peters has a ring of five bells, all cast by Robert Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1868. It was occupied by Douglas Haig before he became Commander in Chief on the Western Front in the First World War, the Grange is now owned by David Richards, former chairman of Aston Martin. At the top of the adjoining the hamlet of Edgehill is the Octagonal Tower. The folly has been a pub since it was built, named in 1817 as the Inniskilling Dragoon and it is said to stand on the site of another grange complex, known as Ratley Grange, also held by Stoneleigh Abbey. A History of the County of Warwick, Volume 1, a History of the County of Warwick, Volume 5, Kington Hundred
29.
Mount Athos
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Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in northeastern Greece and an important centre of Eastern Orthodox monasticism. It is governed as an autonomous polity within the Greek Republic under the official name Autonomous Monastic State of the Holy Mountain, Mount Athos is home to 20 monasteries under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. Mount Athos is commonly referred to in Greek as the Holy Mountain, other languages of orthodox tradition also use names translating to Holy Mountain. In the classical era, while the mountain was called Athos, the free movement of people and goods in its territory is prohibited, unless formal permission is granted by the Monastic States authorities, and only males are allowed to enter.6 square kilometres. The actual Mount Athos has steep, densely forested slopes reaching up to 2,033 metres, the surrounding seas, especially at the end of the peninsula, can be dangerous. In ancient Greek history two fleet disasters in the area are recorded, In 492 BC Darius, the king of Persia, in 411 BC the Spartans lost a fleet of 50 ships under admiral Epicleas. Though land-linked, Mount Athos is practically only by ferry. The Agios Panteleimon and Axion Estin travel daily between Ouranoupolis and Dafni, with stops at some monasteries on the western coast, there is also a smaller speed boat, the Agia Anna, which travels the same route, but with no intermediate stops. It is possible to travel by ferry to and from Ierissos for direct access to monasteries along the eastern coast, the number of daily visitors to Mount Athos is restricted, and all are required to obtain a special entrance permit valid for a limited period. Only males are permitted to visit the territory, which is called the Garden of Virgin Mary by the monks, residents on the peninsula must be males aged 18 and over who are members of the Eastern Orthodox Church and also either monks or workers. Athos in Greek mythology is the name of one of the Gigantes that challenged the Greek gods during the Gigantomachia, Athos threw a massive rock against Poseidon which fell in the Aegean sea and became Mount Athos. According to another version of the story, Poseidon used the mountain to bury the defeated giant, homer mentions the mountain Athos in the Iliad. Herodotus mentions the peninsula, then called Acte, telling us that Pelasgians from the island of Lemnos populated it and naming five cities thereon, Sane, Cleonae, Thyssos, Olophyxos, Strabo also mentions the cities of Dion and Acrothoï. Eretria also established colonies on Acte, at least one other city was established in the Classical period, Acanthus. Some of these cities minted their own coins, the peninsula was on the invasion route of Xerxes I, who spent three years excavating a channel across the isthmus to allow the passage of his invasion fleet in 483 BC. After the death of Alexander the Great, the architect Dinocrates proposed carvingg the entire mountain into a statue of Alexander, the history of the peninsula during latter ages is shrouded by the lack of historical accounts. Archaeologists have not been able to determine the location of the cities reported by Strabo. It is believed that they must have been deserted when Athos new inhabitants, according to the Athonite tradition, the Blessed Virgin Mary was sailing accompanied by St John the Evangelist from Joppa to Cyprus to visit Lazarus
30.
Karyes, Mount Athos
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Karyes is a settlement in Mount Athos. It is the seat of the clerical and secular administration of the Athonite monastic state, the 2011 Greek census reported a population of 163 inhabitants. It is the largest settlement in Mount Athos, the major church at Karyes is the Protaton, which is the church of the Protos, or president of the monastic community. Serbian Bishop Saint Sava built a church and cell at Karyes and he wrote the Karyes Typicon during his stay there, and a marble inscription of his work still exists. In 1219 Sava becomes the first Archbishop of Serbia, in the year 1283, Latin Crusaders during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Michael Paleologos, attacked Mount Athos. They tortured and hanged the Protos, and sacked the Protaton and these monks are commemorated as martyrs by the Orthodox Church on December 5. Monastic Martyrs of Karyes Orthodox synaxarion
31.
Lockerbie
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Lockerbie is a town in Dumfries and Galloway, southwestern Scotland. It lies approximately 75 miles from Glasgow, and 20 miles from the English border and it had a population of 4,009 at the 2001 census. The town came to attention on 21 December 1988 when the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 crashed there following a terrorist bomb attack aboard the flight. Lockerbie apparently has existed since at least the days of Viking influence in this part of Scotland in the period around AD900, the name means Lockards Town in Old Norse. The presence of the remains of a Roman camp a mile to the west of the town suggests its origins may be even earlier. Lockerbie first entered recorded history in the 1190s in a charter of Robert de Brus, 2nd Lord of Annandale and it appears as Lokardebi in 1306. About two miles to the west of Lockerbie on 7 December 1593, Clan Johnstone fought Clan Maxwell at the Battle of Dryfe Sands, the Johnstones nearly exterminated the Maxwells involved in the battle, leading to the expression Lockerbie Lick. By 1750 Lockerbie had become a significant town, and from the 1780s it was a staging post on the route from Glasgow to London. Perhaps the most important period of growth was during the 19th century, thomas Telfords Carlisle-to-Glasgow road was built through Lockerbie from 1816. The Caledonian Railway opened the line from Carlisle to Beattock through Lockerbie in 1847, from 1863 until 1966 Lockerbie was also a railway junction, serving a branch line to Dumfries. Known as the Dumfries, Lochmaben and Lockerbie Railway, it was closed to passengers in 1952, the town is served by Lockerbie railway station. Lockerbie had been home to Scotlands largest lamb market since the 18th century, the railway also produced a lowering in the price of coal, allowing a gas works to be built in the town in 1855. About 1.5 miles south of Lockerbie along the C92 road to Dalton are the remains of Hallmuir prisoner-of-war camp, after the Second World War, this camp housed Ukrainian soldiers from the Galician Division of the Waffen SS. They built a chapel from converted army huts and it was listed in 2003 as a Category B building. The chapel remains in use, currently holding Ukrainian services on the first Sunday of every alternate month, much of Lockerbie is built from red sandstone. There are several imposing buildings near the centre, including the Town Hall, finished in 1880, a little to the north of the centre is the Dryfesdale Parish Church, with its brightly decorated interior. The name Dryfesdale comes from the river, the Dryfe Water. Lockerbie is known internationally as the place where, on 21 December 1988, in the United Kingdom, the event is often referred to as the Lockerbie disaster or the Lockerbie bombing
32.
Hertford College
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Hertford College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, the College is known for its iconic bridge, the Bridge of Sighs. As of 2015, the college had an endowment of £53. 4m. There are 612 students, plus various visiting students from all over the world. Some famous alumni include William Tyndale, John Donne, Thomas Hobbes, Jonathan Swift, the College began life as Hart Hall, a small tenement built roughly where the Colleges Old Hall is today, a few paces along New College Lane on the southern side. In mediaeval Oxford, halls were primarily lodging houses for students, the land for Hart Hall was purchased by Elias de Hertford. Hertford College stands on land owned by Walter Grendon, mercer of Oxford. Walter Grendon, mercer owned the tenement that wound up in the hands of the man that built Hart Hall, in the deed by which Elias de Hertford sells it to John de Dokelynton in 1301, this last tenement is called Micheldhall. The deed was made over to his son, also Elias, the name of the hall was likely a humorous reduction of the name of its founders home town, and allowed for the use of the symbol of a hart to be used for identification. At that time, New College Lane was known as Hammer Hall Lane, the corner of Hammer Hall Lane and Catte Street was taken by Black Hall, which was the place of John Wycliffes imprisonment by the Vice-Chancellor around 1378. On the other side of Hart Hall along the lane was Shield Hall, on Catte Street itself was the entrance to Arthur Hall, which lay down a narrow passage behind Hart Hall, and Cat Hall, which stood further south, roughly where the Principals Lodgings now stand. The younger Elias sold on Hart Hall after a month to a local fishmonger John of Ducklington. In 1312, John sold the two halls to Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, who desired to found a college. After just over a year, Stapledon moved his scholars to a site that he had purchased on Turl Street. However, Exeter College retained certain rights over Hart Hall, with which it plagued the development for centuries. In 1379, Hart Hall and Black Hall were rented by William of Wykeham as a home for his scholars as his New College. The first two Wardens of New College also appear as Principals of Hart Hall, until the 17th century, there is evidence of scholars matriculating at Hart Hall while waiting for a vacancy at New College. By this time, it appears that Shield Hall had been taken over by Hart Hall
33.
Medieval History
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
34.
New College, Oxford
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New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham, the name of the college is The Warden. The name New College, however, soon came to be used following its completion in 1386 to distinguish it from the existing college of St. Mary. In 2013, the college ranked second in the Norrington Table, having been ranked third in the 2011-12 tables, maintaining its place from 2010 to 2011, New College jumped to 1st after the 2012-13 academic year. The college is between Holywell Street and New College Lane, next to All Souls College, Harris Manchester College, Hertford College, The Queens College, the colleges sister college is Kings College, Cambridge. The college is one of the main foundations of the University of Oxford. The college choir is regarded as one of the choirs of the world. New College is one of the wealthiest colleges in Oxford University, as of June 2015, it had a financial endowment in excess of £190 million, and net assets of over £220 million. In 1379 William of Wykeham had purchased land in Oxford and was able to apply to King Richard II for a charter to allow the foundation of a de novo. In his own charter of foundation, Wykeham declared the college to consist of a warden, the site on which the college would be built was acquired from several sources, including the City of Oxford, Merton College and Queens College. This land had been the City Ditch, a haunt of thieves, on 5 March 1380, the first stone of New College was laid. By 14 April 1386, the college entered formal possession of the buildings, Wykeham set to drawing up the statutes of the college, with a first draft presented in 1390. The statutes were not completed until the year before Wykeham died, the coat of arms of the college is one adopted by William Wykeham. It features two black chevrons, one said to have been added when he became a bishop and the other representing his skill with architecture, Winchester College uses the same arms. The grand collection of buildings is a testament to Williams experience in administering both ecclesiastical and civil institutions as the Bishop of Winchester and High Chancellor of England. Both Winchester College and New College were originally established for the education of priests, William of Wykeham ordained that there were to be ten chaplains, three clerks and 16 choristers on the foundation of the college. The original choristers were accommodated within the walls of the college under one schoolmaster, since then the school has expanded and in 1903 moved to New College School in Savile Road. In August 1651, New College was fortified by the Parliamentarian forces, in 1685, Monmouths rebellion involved Robert Sewster, a fellow of the college, who commanded a company of university volunteers
35.
Second World War
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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
36.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
37.
Sofia, Bulgaria
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Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. The city has a population of 1.26 million, while 1.68 million people live in its metropolitan area, the city is located at the foot of Vitosha Mountain in the western part of the country, within less than 50 kilometres drive from the Serbian border. Its location in the centre of the Balkan peninsula means that it is the midway between the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea, whereas the Aegean Sea is the closest to it, Sofia has been an area of human habitation since at least 7000 BC. Being Bulgarias primate city, Sofia is a hometown of many of the local universities, cultural institutions. Sofia is one of the top 10 best places for business in the world. Sofia is Europes most affordable capital to visit as of 2013, for the longest time the city possessed a Thracian name, derived from the tribe Serdi, who were either of Thracian, Celtic, or mixed Thracian-Celtic origin. It seems that the first written mention of Serdica was made during his reign, during the Romans civitas Serdenisium was mentioned the brightest city of the Serdi in official inscriptions. The city was major throughout the past ever since Antiquity, when Roman emperor Constantine the Great referred to it as my Rome, other names given to Sofia, such as Serdonpolis and Triaditza, were mentioned by Byzantine Greek sources or coins. The Slavic name Sredets, which is related to middle and to the citys earliest name, the city was called Atralissa by the Arab traveller Idrisi and Strelisa, Stralitsa or Stralitsion by the Crusaders. The name Sofia comes from the Saint Sofia Church, as opposed to the prevailing Slavic etymology among Bulgarian cities and towns. It is ultimately derived from the Egyptian Kemetic word sbÅ, meaning star, door, teaching and wisdom and this was a tradition of collection of wise literature, shared between Mediterranean cultures, which was called sophia in Greek. In these documents the city is called Sofia, but at the time the region and the citys inhabitants are still called Sredecheski. The city became popular to the Ottomans by the name Sofya. In 1879 there was a dispute about what the name of the new Bulgarian capital should be, the citys name is pronounced by Bulgarians with a stress on the o, in contrast with the tendency of foreigners to place the stress on i. The female given name Sofia is pronounced by Bulgarians with a stress on the i, Sofia has an area of 492 km2, while Sofia City Province has an area of 1344 km2. Sofias development as a significant settlement owes much to its position in the Balkans. It is situated in western Bulgaria, at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the Sofia Valley that is surrounded by the Balkan mountains to the north. The valley has an altitude of 550 metres
38.
Bulgaria
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Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, with a territory of 110,994 square kilometres, Bulgaria is Europes 16th-largest country. Organised prehistoric cultures began developing on current Bulgarian lands during the Neolithic period and its ancient history saw the presence of the Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Celts, Romans, Goths, Alans and Huns. With the downfall of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396, its territories came under Ottoman rule for five centuries. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 led to the formation of the Third Bulgarian State, the following years saw several conflicts with its neighbours, which prompted Bulgaria to align with Germany in both world wars. In 1946 it became a one-party socialist state as part of the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc, in December 1989 the ruling Communist Party allowed multi-party elections, which subsequently led to Bulgarias transition into a democracy and a market-based economy. Bulgarias population of 7.2 million people is predominantly urbanised, most commercial and cultural activities are centred on the capital and largest city, Sofia. The strongest sectors of the economy are industry, power engineering. The countrys current political structure dates to the adoption of a constitution in 1991. Bulgaria is a parliamentary republic with a high degree of political, administrative. Human activity in the lands of modern Bulgaria can be traced back to the Paleolithic, animal bones incised with man-made markings from Kozarnika cave are assumed to be the earliest examples of symbolic behaviour in humans. Organised prehistoric societies in Bulgarian lands include the Neolithic Hamangia culture, Vinča culture, the latter is credited with inventing gold working and exploitation. Some of these first gold smelters produced the coins, weapons and jewellery of the Varna Necropolis treasure and this site also offers insights for understanding the social hierarchy of the earliest European societies. Thracians, one of the three primary groups of modern Bulgarians, began appearing in the region during the Iron Age. In the late 6th century BC, the Persians conquered most of present-day Bulgaria, and kept it until 479 BC. After the division of the Roman Empire in the 5th century the area fell under Byzantine control, by this time, Christianity had already spread in the region. A small Gothic community in Nicopolis ad Istrum produced the first Germanic language book in the 4th century, the first Christian monastery in Europe was established around the same time by Saint Athanasius in central Bulgaria. From the 6th century the easternmost South Slavs gradually settled in the region, in 680 Bulgar tribes under the leadership of Asparukh moved south across the Danube and settled in the area between the lower Danube and the Balkan, establishing their capital at Pliska
39.
Byzantine civilisation in the twelfth century
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During the 12th century, the civilization of the Byzantine Empire experienced a period of intense change and development. This has led historians to refer to a 12th-century Renaissance in Byzantine cultural and intellectual achievement. These changes were significant in two areas of Byzantine civilization, its economic prosperity, and its artistic output. The widespread construction of new rural churches is an indication that prosperity was being generated even in remote areas. For example, Harvey explains that in Athens the medieval town experienced a period of rapid and sustained growth, starting in the 11th century and continuing until the end of the 12th century. The agora or marketplace, which had been deserted since late antiquity, began to be built over, Thessaloniki, the second city of the Empire, hosted a famous summer fair which attracted traders from across the Balkans and even further afield to its bustling market stalls. In Corinth, silk production fuelled a thriving economy, further evidence is provided by the coinage of the empire in this period. After a long period in the early Middle Ages during which the coins were struck in Constantinople. Yet the most convincing evidence for what Harvey calls a substantial increase in the volume of money in circulation comes from the quantity of coins found on archaeological sites, thousands of coins have been found both at Athens and at Corinth. Harvey states that About 150 coins can be attributed to this emperor compared with only twenty from the previous century, by contrast, excavations in 1939 revealed 4495 coins dating from the reign of Alexios I Komnenos and 4106 coins from that of Manuel I Komnenos. At Athens, coins from the Komnenian period have also found in abundance. Similar evidence of economic expansion has been discovered elsewhere in the empire, in Asia Minor, some areas had become depopulated due to Turkish raiding in the late 11th century. Yet as the Komnenian emperors built up extensive fortifications in rural areas during the 12th century and it is quite possible that an increase in trade, made possible by the growth of the Italian city-states, may have been a factor in the growth of the economy. Overall, given that both population and prosperity increased substantially in this period, economic recovery in Byzantium appears to have been strengthening the basis of the state. This helps to explain how the Komnenian emperors, Manuel Komnenos in particular, were able to project their power and influence so widely at this time. Yet this is by no means the effect of economic expansion in the empire. The new wealth being generated during this period had a impact on Byzantine cultural life. In artistic terms, the 12th century was a productive period in Byzantine history
40.
Orthodox Church
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The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission to the apostles. It practices what it understands to be the original Christian faith, the Eastern Orthodox Church is a communion of autocephalous churches, each typically governed by a Holy Synod. It teaches that all bishops are equal by virtue of their ordination, prior to the Council of Chalcedon in AD451, the Eastern Orthodox had also shared communion with the Oriental Orthodox churches, separating primarily over differences in Christology. Eastern Orthodoxy spread throughout the Roman and later Eastern Roman Empires and beyond, playing a prominent role in European, Near Eastern, Slavic, and some African cultures. As a result, the term Greek Orthodox has sometimes used to describe all of Eastern Orthodoxy in general. However, the appellation Greek was never in use and was gradually abandoned by the non-Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox churches. Its most prominent episcopal see is Constantinople, there are also many in other parts of the world, formed through immigration, conversion and missionary activity. The official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Orthodox Catholic Church and it is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, and in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the Church as Catholic and this name and longer variants containing Catholic are also recognized and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use, for this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as Greek, even before the great schism. After 1054, Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople and this identification with Greek, however, became increasingly confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. Today, many of those same Roman churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin. Eastern, then, indicates the element in the Churchs origin and development, while Orthodox indicates the faith. While the Church continues officially to call itself Catholic, for reasons of universality, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. Quote of St Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, thus, almost from the very beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same Church, a number of other Christian churches also make a similar claim, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church, not directly from the Orthodox Church, the depth of this meaning in the Orthodox Church is registered first in its use of the word Orthodox itself, a union of Greek orthos and doxa
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International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
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The Daily Telegraph
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It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as The Daily Telegraph and Courier, the papers motto, Was, is, and will be, appears in the editorial pages and has featured in every edition of the newspaper since April 19,1858. The paper had a circulation of 460,054 in December 2016 and its sister paper, The Sunday Telegraph, which started in 1961, had a circulation of 359,287 as of December 2016. The Daily Telegraph has the largest circulation for a newspaper in the UK. The two sister newspapers are run separately, with different editorial staff, but there is cross-usage of stories, articles published in either may be published on the Telegraph Media Groups www. telegraph. co. uk website, under the title of The Telegraph. However, critics, including an editor, accuse it of being unduly influenced by advertisers. The Daily Telegraph and Courier was founded by Colonel Arthur B, Sleigh in June 1855 to air a personal grievance against the future commander-in-chief of the British Army, Prince George, Duke of Cambridge. Joseph Moses Levy, the owner of The Sunday Times, agreed to print the newspaper, the paper cost 2d and was four pages long. Nevertheless, the first edition stressed the quality and independence of its articles and journalists, however, the paper was not a success, and Sleigh was unable to pay Levy the printing bill. Levy took over the newspaper, his aim being to produce a newspaper than his main competitors in London. The same principle should apply to all other events—to fashion, to new inventions, in 1876, Jules Verne published his novel Michael Strogoff, whose plot takes place during a fictional uprising and war in Siberia. In 1937, the newspaper absorbed The Morning Post, which espoused a conservative position. Originally William Ewart Berry, 1st Viscount Camrose, bought The Morning Post with the intention of publishing it alongside The Daily Telegraph, for some years the paper was retitled The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post before it reverted to just The Daily Telegraph. As an result, Gordon Lennox was monitored by MI5, in 1939, The Telegraph published Clare Hollingworths scoop that Germany was to invade Poland. In November 1940, with Fleet Street subjected to almost daily bombing raids by the Luftwaffe, The Telegraph started printing in Manchester at Kemsley House, Manchester quite often printed the entire run of The Telegraph when its Fleet Street offices were under threat. The name Kemsley House was changed to Thomson House in 1959, in 1986 printing of Northern editions of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph moved to Trafford Park and in 2008 to Newsprinters at Knowsley, Liverpool. During the Second World War, The Daily Telegraph covertly helped in the recruitment of code-breakers for Bletchley Park, the ability to solve The Telegraphs crossword in under 12 minutes was considered to be a recruitment test. The competition itself was won by F. H. W. Hawes of Dagenham who finished the crossword in less than eight minutes, both the Camrose and Burnham families remained involved in management until Conrad Black took control in 1986
43.
London Review of Books
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The London Review of Books is a British journal of literary essays. The LRB was founded in 1979, when publication of The Times Literary Supplement was suspended during the year-long lock-out at The Times, for its first six months, it appeared as an insert in The New York Review of Books. In May 1980, the London Review became an independent publication with an orientation described by Alan Bennett, unlike The Times Literary Supplement, the majority of the articles the LRB publishes are long essays. Some articles in each issue are not based on books, while several short articles discuss film or exhibitions, political and social essays are frequent. The magazine is headquartered in Bloomsbury, London, mary-Kay Wilmers took over as editor in 1992. Average circulation per issue for 2015 was 67,529, in 2011, when Pankaj Mishra criticised Niall Fergusons book Civilisation, The West and the Rest in the London Review of Books, Ferguson threatened to sue for libel. The London Review Bookshop opened in Bloomsbury in May 2003 and the next door, reaching which involves walking through from the bookshop. The bookshop is used as a venue for presentations and discussions. Contributors have included, Literary criticism Elizabeth Day, is the LRB the best magazine in the world
44.
University of Cambridge
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The University of Cambridge is a collegiate public research university in Cambridge, England, often regarded as one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Founded in 1209 and given royal status by King Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world. The university grew out of an association of scholars who left the University of Oxford after a dispute with the townspeople, the two ancient universities share many common features and are often referred to jointly as Oxbridge. Cambridge is formed from a variety of institutions which include 31 constituent colleges, Cambridge University Press, a department of the university, is the worlds oldest publishing house and the second-largest university press in the world. The university also operates eight cultural and scientific museums, including the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridges libraries hold a total of around 15 million books, eight million of which are in Cambridge University Library, a legal deposit library. In the year ended 31 July 2015, the university had an income of £1.64 billion. The central university and colleges have an endowment of around £5.89 billion. The university is linked with the development of the high-tech business cluster known as Silicon Fen. It is a member of associations and forms part of the golden triangle of leading English universities and Cambridge University Health Partners. As of 2017, Cambridge is ranked the fourth best university by three ranking tables and no other institution in the world ranks in the top 10 for as many subjects. Cambridge is consistently ranked as the top university in the United Kingdom, the university has educated many notable alumni, including eminent mathematicians, scientists, politicians, lawyers, philosophers, writers, actors, and foreign Heads of State. Ninety-five Nobel laureates, fifteen British prime ministers and ten Fields medalists have been affiliated with Cambridge as students, faculty, by the late 12th century, the Cambridge region already had a scholarly and ecclesiastical reputation, due to monks from the nearby bishopric church of Ely. The University of Oxford went into suspension in protest, and most scholars moved to such as Paris, Reading. After the University of Oxford reformed several years later, enough remained in Cambridge to form the nucleus of the new university. A bull in 1233 from Pope Gregory IX gave graduates from Cambridge the right to teach everywhere in Christendom, the colleges at the University of Cambridge were originally an incidental feature of the system. No college is as old as the university itself, the colleges were endowed fellowships of scholars. There were also institutions without endowments, called hostels, the hostels were gradually absorbed by the colleges over the centuries, but they have left some indicators of their time, such as the name of Garret Hostel Lane. Hugh Balsham, Bishop of Ely, founded Peterhouse, Cambridges first college, the most recently established college is Robinson, built in the late 1970s
