The Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, Sydney Mardi Gras, or Mardi Gras, is an annual LGBT pride parade and festival in Sydney, attended by hundreds of thousands of people from around Australia and overseas. It is one of the largest such festivals in the world, the largest Pride event in Oceania, it includes a variety of events such as the Sydney Mardi Gras Parade and Party, Bondi Beach Drag Races, Harbour Party, the academic discussion panel Queer Thinking, Mardi Gras Film Festival, as well as Fair Day, which attracts 70,000 people to Victoria Park, Sydney. The Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras is one of Australia's biggest tourist drawcards, with the parade and dance party attracting many international and domestic tourists, it is New South Wales' second-largest annual event in terms of economic impact, generating an annual income of about A$30 million for the state. The event grew from gay rights parades held annually since 1978, when numerous participants had been arrested by New South Wales Police.

The Mardi Gras Parade maintains a political flavour, with many marching groups and floats promoting LGBTQI rights issues or themes. Reflecting changes since the first Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, participants in the Mardi Gras Parade now include groups of uniformed Australian Defence Force personnel, police officers from New South Wales State Police, as well as interstate and federal police officers and other emergency services personnel from the Australian LGBTQI communities. Marriage equality was a dominant theme in the 2011 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade with at least 15 floats lobbying for same-sex marriage. In 2019 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras submitted a bid to host WorldPride 2023 competing against Montreal and Houston, Texas. InterPride, at their October 2019 Annual General Meeting of three hundred delegate organizations, held in Athens, Greece chose Sydney, Australia to host WorldPride 2023 - the first time WorldPride will be held in the Southern Hemisphere or Asia Pacific region.

The term'Mardi Gras' derives from the celebration on'Mardi' when'Gras' is eaten prior to the Christian abstinence period of Lent proceeding Easter. On 24 June 1978 at 10 pm as a night-time celebration following a morning protest march and commemoration of the Stonewall riots organised by the Gay Solidarity Group more than 500 people gathered on Oxford Street, in a planned street "festival" calling for an end to discrimination against homosexuals in employment and housing, an end to police harassment and the repeal of all anti-homosexual laws; the figure rose to around 2,000 as revellers out for the Saturday night at Oxford Street bars and clubs responded to the call "Out of the bars and into the streets!". Although the organisers had obtained permission, this was revoked, the parade was broken up by the police. After the parade was dispersing in Kings Cross, 53 of the participants were arrested. Although most charges were dropped, The Sydney Morning Herald published the names of those arrested in full, leading to many people being outed to their friends and places of employment, many of those arrested lost their jobs as homosexuality was a crime in New South Wales until 1984.

Only two people who were arrested were fined. The rest were released without bail and the charges dismissed; the police response to a legal, local minority protest transformed it into a nationally significant event which stimulated gay rights and law reform campaigns. The second Mardi Gras Parade occurred in 1979 despite opposition by gay media and groups; the 1979 parade, in recognition of the Stonewall Riots and commemorating the riot of the previous year, was attended by 3,000 people. In that same year, the Labor Government of New South Wales, led by Neville Wran, repealed the Summary Offences Act under which the arrests in 1978 were made; the second Mardi Gras had the theme of Power in the Darkness. While there was a large police presence, there were no arrests made. In 1980, after the third successful Mardi Gras parade, at community consultations, decisions were made to move the parade to the summer. In 1981, the parade was shifted to February, with the name changed to the "Sydney Gay Mardi Gras".

An large number of people not only participated in the now summertime event, but a crowd of 5,000 came to watch it. 1981's event saw a split develop between lesbian and gays over the inclusion of floats representing businesses. For most of the decade many lesbians excluded themselves from the event. A large post-parade party was held in 1982; this would continue to become an integral part of the Sydney Lesbian Mardi Gras. 1983 saw. Footage of the 1984 event appeared in the music video for the Cold Chisel song "Saturday Night". In 1987, an estimated 100,000 people came to watch the parade; the mid-1980s saw considerable pressure placed to the Mardi Gras Committee following media controversy regarding AIDS. Despite calls for the parade and the party to be banned, the 1985 parade went ahead with the theme Fighting for Our Lives. In 1988 the parade was renamed the "Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras" at an Extraordinary General Meeting.1991 saw the eighth annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Film festival, a Mardi Gras event, included in a national film festival for the first time.

In this year the parade had become the largest held in Australia. In 1992, the festival lasted for four weeks, making it the largest gay and lesbian festival in the world. In 1992, Fiona Cunningham-Reid filmed a documentary about the history of the Mardi Gras called "Feed Them to the Cannibals!". By 1993, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade had become the largest night time outdoor parade in the world. Mardi Gras' Economic Impact

Timothy Lynch is an American professional baseball first baseman. Lynch attended William T. Dwyer High School in Florida, he enrolled at the University of Southern Mississippi to play college baseball for the Southern Miss Golden Eagles. After Lynch was not selected in the 2015 Major League Baseball draft, he received contract offers from the Los Angeles Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds, but opted to return to Southern Miss for his senior season; as a senior, Lynch batted.365 with a 1.045 on-base plus slugging. He was named to the All-Conference USA team and the All-Tournament Team for the 2016 Conference USA Baseball Tournament, he was named a third team All-American. The New York Yankees selected Lynch in the ninth round, with the 278th overall selection, of the 2016 Major League Baseball draft, he signed with the Yankees. He began his professional career with the Pulaski Yankees of the Rookie-level Appalachian League, and was assigned to the GCL Yankees. He spent 2017 with the Tampa Yankees where he batted.310 with 13 home runs and 40 RBIs, along with a.940 OPS.

Lynch was released from his contract by the Tampa Tarpons on May 14, 2018. Lynch is an autograph collector. Growing up near Roger Dean Stadium, he had season tickets to the Florida State League, collected over 20,000 autographs from baseball players, including over 100 from Miguel Cabrera. Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference

Wardell Gray was an American jazz tenor saxophonist who straddled the swing and bebop periods. Wardell Gray was born in the youngest of four children, his early childhood years were spent in Oklahoma, before moving with his family to Detroit in 1929. In early 1935, Gray began attending Northeastern High School, transferred to Cass Technical High School, noted for having Donald Byrd, Lucky Thompson and Al McKibbon as alumni, he left before graduating. Advised by his brother-in-law Junior Warren, as a teenager he started on the clarinet, but after hearing Lester Young on record with Count Basie, he was inspired to switch to the tenor saxophone. Gray's first musical job was in Isaac Goodwin's small band, a part-time outfit that played local dances; when auditioning for another job, he was heard by Dorothy Patton, a young pianist, forming a band in the Fraternal Club in Flint and she hired him. After a happy year there, he moved to Jimmy Raschel's band and on to the Benny Carew band in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

It was at around this time. Just up the road from the Congo Club was the Three Sixes; this was a big break for the 21-year-old, as the Earl Hines Orchestra was not only nationally known, but it had nurtured the careers of some of the emerging bebop musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Although most of them had left by the time Gray joined, playing with the Hines band was still a lively and stimulating experience for the young tenor player, they toured the country, it was when they were in California that Gray met Dorothy Duvall. They were attracted to one another. Dorothy was married but, although the marriage was on the point of collapse, an unfortunate intervention by a "friend" led Gray to believe that this was not so, he returned to Jeri. Wardell spent three years with Hines, matured during this time, he soon became a featured soloist, the band's recordings show a relaxed, fluent stylist much in the Lester Young mold. While some of the live Jubilee sessions have been reissued on CD, the studio recordings from 1945-46 are still available only on LP.

He left Hines late in 1946, settling in California. This was a quartet session for Eddie Laguna's Sunset label, on it Wardell had strong support from Dodo Marmarosa on piano; the date produced some excellent sides, notably "Easy Swing" and "The Man I Love". In Los Angeles, Wardell worked in a number of bands including Benny Carter, the blues singer Ivory Joe Hunter, the small group that supported singer Billy Eckstine on a tour of the West Coast, but the real focus in LA at this time was in the clubs along Central Avenue, still thriving after the boom years brought about by the huge injection of wartime defence spending. Here Wardell found his element, playing in the after-hours sessions in clubs such as Jack's Basket Room, the Down Beat, Lovejoy's and the Club Alabam, his early success in these sessions led Ross Russell to include him in a studio session he was organising for his Dial label; the session was designed as a showcase for Charlie Parker, but Wardell acquitted himself superbly, showing no sign at all of being over-awed by Parker's presence.

It was in the Central Avenue clubs. These two were ideally matched: Wardell's light sound and swift delivery were more than a match for Dexter's big, blustering sound, their tenor jousts became a kind of symbol for the Central Avenue scene. Gordon recalled: "There'd be a lot of cats on the stand but by the end of the session it would wind up with Wardell and myself.... His playing was fluid clean.... He had a lot of drive and a profusion of ideas", their fame began to spread, Ross Russell managed to get them to simulate one of their battles on "The Chase", which became Wardell's first nationally known recording and has been assessed as "one of the most exciting musical contests in the history of jazz". The success of "The Chase" was the break that Wardell needed, he became prominent in public sessions in and around LA, including the "Just Jazz" series of jam sessions organised by the disc jockey Gene Norman. There were the Shrine Auditorium and other venues; the session, which included "Just You, Just Me" and "Sweet Georgia Brown", has some of Wardell's best playing, but the only CD version of this is crudely abbreviated.

A 1947 concert at the Elks Ballroom in Los Angeles featured both Wardell and Dexter Gordon, included an 18-minute performance released on 8 78 RPM records as "The Hunt". However, at a concert around the turn of that year which featured Benny Goodman, Wardell so impressed the clarinettist that Goodman hired him for a small group which he was just setting up as part of his flirtation with bebop. Goodman h