The Taíno were an indigenous people of the Caribbean. At the time of European contact in the late fifteenth century, they were the principal inhabitants of most of Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, The Bahamas and the northern Lesser Antilles; the Taíno were the first New World peoples to be encountered by Christopher Columbus during his 1492 voyage. They spoke an Arawakan language. Groups of people identify as Taíno, most notably among the Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Dominicans, both on the islands and on United States mainland; some scholars, such as Jalil Sued Badillo, an ethnohistorian at the University of Puerto Rico, assert that although the official Spanish histories speak of the disappearance of the Taínos as an ethnic identification, many survivors left descendants – by intermarrying with other ethnic groups. Recent research revealed a high percentage of mixed or tri-racial ancestry in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic; those claiming Taíno ancestry have Spanish ancestry or African ancestry, both.

Taíno activists have created two unique writing scripts. The scripts are used to write Spanish, not a retained language from pre-Columbian ancestors; the organization Guaka-kú uses their script among their own members. In February 2018, a DNA study from an ancient tooth determined that the Taínos have living descendants in Puerto Rico, indicating that most Puerto Ricans have a degree of Taíno ancestry. Frank Moya Pons, a Dominican historian, documented that Spanish colonists intermarried with Taíno women. Over time, some of their mixed descendants intermarried with Africans, creating a tri-racial Creole culture. 1514 census records reveal. Ethnohistorian Lynne Guitar writes that the Taíno were declared extinct in Spanish documents as early as the sixteenth century. Evidence suggests that some Taíno men and African women inter-married and lived in isolated Maroon communities in the interior of the islands, where they developed into a hybrid population of peasants with little or no interference from the Spanish authorities.

Scholars note that contemporary rural Dominicans retain elements of Taíno culture: linguistic features, agricultural practices, food ways, fishing practices, architecture, oral history, religious views. These cultural traits are looked down upon by urbanites as backward, however. Sixteen "autosomal" studies of peoples in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and its diaspora have shown that between 10–20% of their DNA is indigenous; some individuals have higher scores and others have lower scores or no indigenous DNA at all. A recent study of a population in eastern Puerto Rico where the majority of persons tested claimed Taíno ancestry and pedigree showed that they had 61% mtDNA and 0% y-chromosome DNA demonstrating as expected that this is a hybrid creole population; the ancestors of the Taíno originated in South America, the Taíno culture as documented developed in the Caribbean. Taíno groups were in conflict with the Island Caribs of the southern Lesser Antilles. At the time of contact, the Taíno were divided into several groups.

Western Taíno groups included the Lucayans of the Bahamas, the Ciboney of central Cuba, the inhabitants of Jamaica. The Classic Taíno lived in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, while the Eastern Taíno lived in the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles. At the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492, there were five Taíno chiefdoms in Hispaniola, each led by a principal Cacique, to whom tribute was paid; the Taíno name for Hispaniola was Ayiti, the source of the name Haiti. Cuba was divided into 29 chiefdoms, many of which have given their name to modern cities, including Havana, Batabanó, Camagüey, Bayamo. Taíno communities ranged from small settlements to larger centers of up to 3,000 people, they may have numbered 2 million at the time of contact, 3 million at the end of the 15th century. Columbus was surprised by the civility of the Taíno people. Columbus stated, "They will give all that they do possess for anything, given to them, exchanging things for bits of broken crockery," he noted upon meeting them in the Bahamas in 1492.

"They were well built, with handsome bodies and good faces.... They do not carry arms or know them.... They should be good servants."The Spanish conquered various Taíno chiefdoms during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. According to The Black Legend and some contemporary scholars such as Andrés Reséndez and harsh enslavement by the colonists decimated the population. Men were forced to work on colonial plantations and gold mines, as a result, there was no Taíno left to cultivate their own crops the feed their population. Conversely, most scholars believe. A smallpox epidemic in Hispaniola in 1518–1519 killed 90% of the surviving Taíno; the remaining Taíno were intermarried with Europeans and Africans, were incorporated into the Spanish colonies. The Taíno were considered extinct at the end of the century. However, since about 1840, there have been attempts to create a quasi-indigenous Taíno identity in rural areas of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico; this trend accelerated among Puerto Rican communities in the mainland United States in the 1960s.

At the 2010 U. S. census, 1,098 people in Puerto Rico identified themselves as "Puerto Rican Indian", 1,410 identified as "Spanish American India

Miles Coope, born at Gildersome, Yorkshire, on 18 November 1916 and died at Gildersome on 5 July 1974, played first-class cricket for three seasons after the Second World War for Somerset. A right-handed middle-order batsman sometimes used as an opener and an occasional leg-break bowler, Coope played for Yorkshire's second eleven in Minor Counties cricket before the war, he was prominent in Bradford League cricket, he followed another leading Bradford League cricketer, Johnny Lawrence, to Somerset after the war, arriving for the 1947 season. Coope made 20 and 58 in his first match, the Whitsun 1947 County Championship game against Gloucestershire. After this, he played for the rest of the season and less than two months after making his debut, he scored 113, his first century and the highest score of his career, as Somerset beat the 1947 season's County Champions, Middlesex for the second time in the season – Middlesex were, lacking the prolific Denis Compton, Bill Edrich and Jack Robertson, all of whom were playing in the Gentlemen v Players match.

The century brought Coope his county cap. By the end of his first season in first-class cricket, Coope had scored 791 runs at an average of 20.81. In the 1948 season, Coope played in every single match played by Somerset and topped 1,000 runs for the county, finishing with 1172 runs for the season at the average of 22.11 runs per innings. He did not make a century, his highest being 89 against Sussex at Eastbourne, when he put on 209 for the fifth wicket with Harold Gimblett, who made the highest-ever score for Somerset, 310. Wisden Cricketers' Almanack noted that Coope "gave some attractive displays but inclined to inconsistency". In 1949, Coope began the season well and in the match against Lancashire at Old Trafford in mid May he hit an unbeaten 102, his second century of his career, out of a Somerset total of 190, but his batting fell away and when Somerset's usual band of August amateurs became available, he lost his place and did not regain it. At the end of the season, he was not returned to League cricket in Yorkshire.

In just three seasons of first-class cricket, Coope had made 2789 runs at an average of 21.12. But the reputation for inconsistency, first aired in Wisden, remains. David Foot, the historian of Somerset cricket, wrote of Coope: "As a batsman his range of shots was ambitious and he had one of the most delicate late cuts paraded in the West. There were two centuries from him but he was a luxury, never quite consistent or disciplined enough with his repertoire to make a successful county cricketer."

Hargreaves Building is a former bank in Chapel Street, Merseyside, England. It originated as the headquarters of the Brown Shipley Bank, continued as offices when the bank moved to London, was converted for use by the Liverpool Racquet Club after the Toxteth riots, became a hotel and restaurant; the building is dated 1859, was designed by the local architect Sir James Picton. It was designed for the banker Sir William Brown as his headquarters; the name Hargreaves was the surname of Brown's son-in-law. The building continued to be the headquarters of the Brown Shipley Bank until 1888, when it moved to London, it continued to be used as offices until the 1980s. Following the Toxteth riots of 1981, when their building in Upper Parliament Street was destroyed, the Liverpool Racquet Club were looking for new premises. At this time the lease for Hargreaves Building was available for sale, the trustees of the Club negotiated a 150-year lease from Liverpool City Council; the building was converted for the Club, it re-opened on 20 May 1985.

It contained a dining room and lounge, a billiards room, two squash courts, a small swimming pool, a gym and changing facilities, rooms for overnight accommodation. However, by 2001 the membership of the Club had declined and the lease was sold, it has since been converted into a hotel and restaurant named the Racquet Club Hotel and Ziba Restaurant. The building is constructed with a granite basement and a slate roof, it is in three storeys plus a basement. The architectural style is that of a Venetian palazzo, but employing Borromini's round-arched false-perspective window reveals of Palazzo Barberini, Rome, it has five bays facing Chapel Street, seven bays facing Covent Garden. In the ground floor are round-headed windows flanked by paired columns. Between the heads of the double-light windows are roundels containing carvings of people involved with the exploration of the Americas; these include Christopher Columbus, Isabella I, Vespucci, Queen Anacaona of Cuba, Francisco Pizarro. In the second floor are smaller two-light windows under round arches, separated by Ionic colonettes.

The top floor contains smaller two-light windows under round arches between panelled pilasters. Along the top of the building is a cornice; the building is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a Grade II listed building, having been designated on 12 July 1966. Grade II listed buildings in Liverpool-L2 Architecture of Liverpool