George Michael
George Michael was an English singer, record producer, philanthropist who rose to fame as a member of the music duo Wham! and embarked on a solo career. He was known for his work in the 1980s and 1990s, including Wham! singles such as "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and "Last Christmas" and solo albums such as Faith and Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1. Michael achieved seven number one singles in the UK and eight number one songs on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, including "Careless Whisper", "Praying for Time" and "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me". In 2004, the Radio Academy named Michael the most played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004. Michael ranks among the best-selling British musical acts. In 2008, he was ranked 40th on Billboard's list of the Greatest Hot 100 Artists of All Time. Michael won various music awards throughout his 30-year career, including three Brit Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, six Ivor Novello Awards, three American Music Awards, two Grammy Awards from eight nominations.
Michael's first tour in 15 years, the 25 Live tour, spanned three tours over the course of three years. He performed his final concert at London's Earls Court on 17 October 2012. Michael, who came out as gay in 1998, was an active LGBT rights campaigner and HIV/AIDS charity fundraiser. Michael's personal life and legal troubles made headlines during the late 1990s and 2000s, as he was arrested for public lewdness in 1998 and was arrested for multiple drug-related offenses after that time; the 2005 documentary A Different Story covered his career and personal life. In the early hours of 25 December 2016, aged 53, was found dead at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. A coroner's report attributed his death to natural causes. George Michael was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou on 25 June 1963 in London, his father, Kyriacos Panayiotou, was a Greek Cypriot restaurateur who emigrated to England in the 1950s. His mother, Lesley Angold, was an English dancer. In June 2008, Michael told the Los Angeles Times that his maternal grandmother was Jewish, but she married a non-Jewish man and raised her children with no knowledge of their Jewish background due to her fear during World War II.
Michael spent most of his childhood in Kingsbury, London, in the home his parents bought soon after his birth. His older sisters are Melanie. While he was in his early teens, the family moved to Radlett. There, Michael attended Bushey Meads School in Bushey, where he befriended his future Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley. The two had the same career ambition of being musicians. Michael busked on the London Underground, his involvement in the music business began with his working as a DJ, playing at clubs and local schools around Bushey and Watford. This was followed by the formation of a short-lived ska band called The Executive, with Ridgeley, Ridgeley's brother Paul, Andrew Leaver, David Mortimer. Michael formed the duo Wham! with Andrew Ridgeley in 1981. The band's first album Fantastic reached No. 1 in the UK in 1983 and produced a series of top 10 singles including "Young Guns", "Wham Rap!" and "Club Tropicana". Their second album, Make It Big, reached No. 1 on the charts in the US. Singles from that album included "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", "Freedom", "Everything She Wants", "Careless Whisper" which reached No. 1 in nearly 25 countries, including the UK and US, was Michael's first solo effort as a single.
In 1985 Michael received the first of his three Ivor Novello Awards for Songwriter of the Year from the British Academy of Songwriters and Authors. Michael sang on the original Band Aid recording of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and donated the profits from "Last Christmas" and "Everything She Wants" to charity. Michael sang "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" with Elton John at Live Aid at Wembley Stadium in London on 13 July 1985, he contributed background vocals to David Cassidy's 1985 hit "The Last Kiss", as well as Elton John's 1985 successes "Nikita" and "Wrap Her Up". Michael cited Cassidy as a major career influence and interviewed Cassidy for David Litchfield's Ritz Newspaper. Wham!'s tour of China in April 1985, the first visit to China by a Western popular music act, generated worldwide media coverage, much of it centred on Michael. Before Wham!'s appearance in China, many kinds of music in the country were forbidden. The band's manager, Simon Napier-Bell, had spent 18 months trying to convince Chinese officials to let the duo play.
The audience included members of the Chinese government, Chinese television presenter, Kan Lijun, the on stage host, spoke of Wham!'s historic performance. All the young people were amazed and everybody was tapping their feet. Of course the police weren't happy and they were scared there would be riots." The tour was documented by film director Lindsay Anderson and producer Martin Lewis in their film Foreign Skies: Wham! In China. With the success of Michael's solo singles, "Careless Whisper" and "A Different Corner", rumours of an impending break up of Wham! intensified. The duo separated in 1986, after releasing a farewell single, "The Edge of Heaven" and a singles compilation, The Final, plus a sell-out concert at Wembley Stadium that included the world premiere of the China film; the Wham! partnership ended with the commercially successful single "The Edge of Heaven", which reached No. 1 on the UK chart in J
Def Leppard
Def Leppard are an English rock band formed in 1977 in Sheffield as part of the new wave of British heavy metal movement. Since 1992, the band has consisted of Joe Elliott, Rick Savage, Rick Allen, Phil Collen, Vivian Campbell; this is the band's longest lasting line-up. The band's strongest commercial success came between the early 1990s, their 1981 album, High'n' Dry, was produced by Robert John "Mutt" Lange, who helped them begin to define their style, the album's standout track "Bringin' On the Heartbreak" became one of the first rock videos played on MTV in 1982. The band's next studio album, was released in January 1983, with "Photograph" and "Rock of Ages" as the lead singles. In the U. S. Pyromania was certified diamond, making Def Leppard among the most popular music groups at the time. In 2003, the album ranked number 384 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Def Leppard's fourth album Hysteria, released in 1987, topped the UK and U. S. album charts. As of 2009, it has reached beyond the success of Pyromania, having been certified 12× platinum for sales of over 12 million in the U.
S. and has gone on to sell over 25 million copies worldwide. The album spawned seven hit singles, including the U. S. Billboard Hot 100 number one "Love Bites", alongside "Pour Some Sugar on Me", "Hysteria", "Armageddon It", "Animal", "Rocket", "Women", their next studio album, reached number one in UK and U. S. charts in 1992, contained several hits, including "Let's Get Rocked" and "Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad". Their 1993 album, Retro Active, contained the acoustic hit song "Two Steps Behind", their greatest-hits album Vault, released in 1995, featured the UK hit "When Love & Hate Collide". As one of the world's best-selling music artists, Def Leppard have sold more than 100 million records worldwide, have two albums with RIAA diamond certification and Hysteria, they are one of only five rock bands with two original studio albums selling over 10 million copies in the U. S; the band were ranked No. 31 in VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock" and ranked No. 70 in "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".
Def Leppard were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. Rick Savage, Tony Kenning, Pete Willis, all students at Tapton School in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, formed a band called Atomic Mass in 1977; the band consisted of Willis on guitar, Savage on bass guitar after playing guitar, Kenning on drums. Only 18 at the time, Joe Elliott tried out for the band as a guitarist following a chance meeting with Willis after missing a bus in November 1977. During his audition it was decided, their first gig was in the dining hall in A Block in Westfield School in Sheffield. Elliott proposed the name "Deaf Leopard", a band name he thought up while writing reviews for imaginary rock bands in his English class. At Kenning's suggestion, the spelling was modified in order to make the name seem less like that of a punk band. In January 1978, Steve Clark joined the band. According to Elliott, he auditioned for the band by playing Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" in its entirety. In November, just prior to recording sessions for what would be a three-song release known as The Def Leppard E.
P. Kenning abruptly left the band, he was replaced for those sessions by Frank Noon. By the end of the month, Rick Allen only 15 years old, had joined the band as its full-time drummer. Sales of the EP soared after the track "Getcha Rocks Off" was given extensive airtime by renowned BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, considered at the time to be a champion of punk rock and new wave music. Throughout 1979, the band developed a loyal following among British hard rock and heavy metal fans and were considered among the leaders of the new wave of British heavy metal movement, their growing popularity led to a record deal with the major label Phonogram/Vertigo. Def Leppard's original management, MSB, a local duo consisting of Pete Martin and Frank Stuart-Brown, were fired after Martin and Joe Elliott got into a fistfight over an incident on the road; the band approached Peter Mensch of Leber-Krebs management, who had booked them on a tour of the UK supporting AC/DC. Mensch, who admitted that he had had his eye on the band, became their manager.
Def Leppard's debut album, On Through the Night, was released on 14 March 1980. Although the album hit the Top 15 in the UK, many early fans were turned off by the perception that the band was trying too hard to appeal to American audiences by recording songs such as "Hello America" and touring more in the US; this incident was blamed on a cover story in Sounds music newspaper by the journalist Geoff Barton titled, "Has the Leppard changed its spots?", accusing the band of selling out to the American market. In a documentary on the band recorded for BBC 2, Barton recalls feelings of guilt over the story and having a "stand-up row" with the band's manager, backstage at the show. In the documentary series Metal Evolution, Joe Elliott says that the media had exaggerated the event and all bands on the day had experienced'abuse' from the crowd; the band had by caught the attention of AC/DC producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, who agreed to work on their second album, High'n' Dry, released on 11 Ju
James Hetfield
James Alan Hetfield is an American musician and songwriter known for being the co-founder, lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, main songwriter for the American heavy metal band Metallica. Hetfield is known for his intricate rhythm playing, but performs lead guitar duties and solos, both live and in the studio. Hetfield co-founded Metallica in October 1981 after answering a classified advertisement by drummer Lars Ulrich in the Los Angeles newspaper The Recycler. Metallica has won nine Grammy Awards and released ten studio albums, three live albums, four extended plays and 24 singles. In 2009, Hetfield was ranked at no. 8 in Joel McIver's book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists, ranked at no. 24 by Hit Parader on their list of the 100 Greatest Metal Vocalists of All Time. In Guitar World's poll, Hetfield was placed as the 19th greatest guitarist of all time, as well as being placed second in The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists poll of the same magazine. Rolling Stone placed Hetfield as the 87th greatest guitarist of all time.
Hetfield was born on August 3, 1963 in Downey, the son of Cynthia Bassett, a light opera singer, Virgil Lee Hetfield, a truck driver. He is of English, German and Scottish descent, he has two older half-brothers from one younger sister. His parents divorced in 1976 when Hetfield was 13, they were strict Christian Scientists, in accordance with their beliefs, they disapproved of medicine or any other medical treatment and remained loyal to their faith as Cynthia was dying from cancer. This upbringing became the inspiration for many of Hetfield's lyrics during his career with Metallica, most notably in the songs "Dyers Eve" and "The God That Failed" from And Justice For All and The Black Album respectively. Cynthia died of cancer in 1979. After the death of his mother, Hetfield went to live with his older half-brother David. Virgil died during Metallica's Load tour. Hetfield attended Downey High School for his freshman and sophomore years and graduated from Brea-Olinda High School in 1981. Hetfield was nine years old when he first began piano lessons, after which he took on his half-brother David's drums and at the age of 14, he began to play guitar with Robert Okner.
He was in a few bands as a teenager – one being Leather Charm and another, Obsession. Hetfield identifies Aerosmith as having been his main musical influence as a child, has said they were the reason he wanted to play guitar. In the early days of the band, Metallica experimented with a few different vocals and guitar combinations creating a setup similar to that of British metal band Diamond Head, another major influence on Hetfield; some of the options considered included adding another guitar player, having John Roads play lead guitar, as well as asking John Bush from Armored Saint to sing for the band. The finalized line-up of the band became Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Dave Mustaine, Ron McGovney, soon replaced by Cliff Burton. Hetfield referred to their early sound as power metal; the term "thrash metal" was first used when Kerrang journalist Malcolm Dome described the Anthrax song "Metal Thrashing Mad" in an issue of Kerrang in February 1984. From 1982 to 1983, Mustaine's overly aggressive behavior and drinking problems led to mounting tensions between himself and Hetfield.
Mustaine once poured beer onto McGovney's bass nearly causing serious damage. On April 1, 1983, the band recruited lead guitarist Kirk Hammett from the band Exodus, 10 days Hetfield and Ulrich fired Mustaine from the band due to his erratic indifference. Mustaine was sent home on a 4-day bus journey, went on to form the heavy metal band Megadeth; until the mid-1990s, Hetfield recorded all most harmony tracks. Since the recording of Load, Hammett has been recording rhythm guitars as well. Hetfield plays guitar solos on songs such as "Nothing Else Matters", "My Friend of Misery", "Just a Bullet Away", the outro solo on "The Outlaw Torn", the second solo on "To Live Is to Die", the first solo on "Suicide and Redemption", the first interlude solo on "Master of Puppets", the harmonized solo on "Orion" and the introduction for "The Day That Never Comes", he writes the majority of the guitar harmonies, as well as writing the lyrics, vocal melodies, co-arranging the songs with Ulrich. Hetfield has been involved in a number of onstage accidents, most notable for being an incident with pyrotechnics at Olympic Stadium in Montreal during the Guns N' Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour on August 8, 1992.
Hetfield was the victim of a pyrotechnics accident during the song "Fade to Black", in which a pyrotechnic charge reacted. Hetfield's guitar protected him from the full force of the blast, he suffered second and third-degree burns, but was back on stage 17 days although his guitar duties were delegated to former guitar tech and Metal Church guitarist John Marshall for four weeks while he made a full recovery. Hetfield suffered a broken arm a number of times while skateboarding, which prevented him from playing guitar on stage, subsequently caused Hetfield's management company, Q Prime, to put a clause in Hetfield's contract, forbidding him to ride a skateboard while Metallica was touring. During a live performance on tour for Metallica, Hetfield experienced complications with his vocals after performing a cover of the Anti-Nowhere League song "So What?", forcing him to take vocal lessons for the first time. He did b
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, drummer John Bonham. Along with Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, the band's heavy, guitar-driven sound has led them to be cited as one of the progenitors of heavy metal, their style drew from a wide variety of influences, including blues and folk music. After changing their name from the New Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin signed a deal with Atlantic Records that afforded them considerable artistic freedom. Although the group were unpopular with critics, they achieved significant commercial success with eight studio albums released over eleven years, from Led Zeppelin to In Through the Out Door, their untitled fourth studio album known as Led Zeppelin IV and featuring the song "Stairway to Heaven", is among the most popular and influential works in rock music, it helped to secure the group's popularity. Page wrote most of Led Zeppelin's music early in their career, while Plant supplied the lyrics.
Jones' keyboard-based compositions became central to the group's catalogue, which featured increasing experimentation. The latter half of their career saw a series of record-breaking tours that earned the group a reputation for excess and debauchery. Although they remained commercially and critically successful, their output and touring schedule were limited during the late 1970s, the group disbanded following Bonham's death from alcohol-related asphyxia in 1980. In the decades that followed, the surviving members sporadically collaborated and participated in one-off Led Zeppelin reunions; the most successful of these was the 2007 Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert in London, with Jason Bonham taking his late father's place behind the drums. Many critics consider Led Zeppelin to be one of the most successful and influential rock groups in history, they are one of the best-selling music artists in the history of audio recording. With RIAA-certified sales of 111.5 million units, they are the third-best-selling band in the US.
Each of their nine studio albums placed in the top 10 of the Billboard album chart and six reached the number-one spot. They achieved eight consecutive UK number-one albums. Rolling Stone magazine described them as "the heaviest band of all time", "the biggest band of the Seventies", "unquestionably one of the most enduring bands in rock history", they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. In 1966, London-based session guitarist Jimmy Page joined the blues-influenced rock band the Yardbirds to replace bassist Paul Samwell-Smith. Page soon switched from bass to lead guitar. Following Beck's departure in October 1966, the Yardbirds, tired from constant touring and recording, began to wind down. Page wanted to form a supergroup with him and Beck on guitars, the Who's Keith Moon and John Entwistle on drums and bass, respectively. Vocalists Steve Winwood and Steve Marriott were considered for the project; the group never formed, although Page and Moon did record a song together in 1966, "Beck's Bolero", in a session that included bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones.
The Yardbirds played their final gig in July 1968 at Luton College of Technology in Bedfordshire. They were still committed to several concerts in Scandinavia, so drummer Jim McCarty and vocalist Keith Relf authorised Page and bassist Chris Dreja to use "the Yardbirds" name to fulfill the band's obligations. Page and Dreja began putting a new line-up together. Page's first choice for the lead singer was Terry Reid, but Reid declined the offer and suggested Robert Plant, a singer for the Band of Joy and Hobbstweedle. Plant accepted the position, recommending former Band of Joy drummer John Bonham. John Paul Jones inquired about the vacant position of bass guitarist at the suggestion of his wife after Dreja dropped out of the project to become a photographer. Page had known Jones since they were both session musicians and agreed to let him join as the final member; the four played together for the first time in a room below a record store on Gerrard Street in London. Page suggested that they attempt "Train Kept A-Rollin'" a jump blues song popularised in a rockabilly version by Johnny Burnette, covered by the Yardbirds.
"As soon as I heard John Bonham play", Jones recalled, "I knew this was going to be great... We locked together as a team immediately". Before leaving for Scandinavia, the group took part in a recording session for the P. J. Proby album, Three Week Hero; the album's track "Jim's Blues", with Plant on harmonica, was the first studio track to feature all four future members of Led Zeppelin. The band completed the Scandinavian tour as the New Yardbirds, playing together for the first time in front of a live audience at Gladsaxe Teen Clubs in Gladsaxe, Denmark, on 7 September 1968; that month, they began recording their first album, based on their live set. The album was recorded and mixed in nine days, Page covered the costs. After the album's completion, the band were forced to change their name after Dreja issued a cease and desist letter, stating that Page was allowed to use the New Yardbirds moniker for the Scandinavian dates only. One account of how the new band's name was chosen held that Moon and Entwistle had suggested that a supergroup with Page and Beck would go down like a "lead balloon", an idiom for disastrous results.
The group dropped the'a' in lead at the suggestion
Bob Geldof
Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof, is an Irish singer-songwriter, political activist and occasional actor. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s, alongside the punk rock movement; the band had Number One hits with his compositions "Rat Trap" and "I Don't Like Mondays". Geldof co-wrote "Do They Know It's Christmas?", one of the best-selling singles of all time, starred in Pink Floyd's 1982 film Pink Floyd – The Wall as "Pink". Geldof is recognised for his activism anti-poverty efforts concerning Africa. In 1984 he and Midge Ure founded the charity supergroup Band Aid to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia, they went on to organise the charity super-concert Live Aid the following year and the Live 8 concerts in 2005. Geldof serves as an adviser to the ONE Campaign, founded by fellow Irishman Bono, is a member of the Africa Progress Panel, a group of ten distinguished individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa.
A single father, Geldof has been outspoken for the fathers' rights movement. Geldof was appointed Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Elizabeth II, is a recipient of the Man of Peace title which recognises individuals who have made "an outstanding contribution to international social justice and peace", among numerous other awards and nominations. In 2005 he received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. Geldof was brought up in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland, a son of Robert and Evelyn Geldof, his paternal grandfather, Zenon Geldof, was a hotel chef. His paternal grandmother, Amelia Falk, was a British Jew from London; when Geldof was six or seven, his mother, Evelyn, 41, died of a cerebral haemorrhage. Geldof attended Blackrock College, where he was bullied for being a poor rugby player and for his middle name, Zenon. After work as a slaughterman, a road navvy and pea canner in Wisbech, he was hired as a music journalist in Vancouver, British Columbia, for The Georgia Straight.
He guest hosted the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation children's program Switchback. Returning to Ireland in 1975, he became lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, a rock group linked with the punk movement. In 1978, The Boomtown Rats had their first No. 1 single in the UK with "Rat Trap", the first new wave chart-topper in Britain. In 1979, they gained international attention with their second UK No. 1, "I Don't Like Mondays". This was both controversial. Geldof had written it in the aftermath of Brenda Ann Spencer's attempted massacre at an elementary school in San Diego, California in 1979. In 1980, The Boomtown Rats released the album Mondo Bongo, its single "Up All Night" was a huge hit in the U. S. and its video was played on MTV. Geldof became known as a colourful interview subject; the Boomtown Rats' first appearance on Ireland's The Late Late Show saw Geldof as deliberately brusque to host Gay Byrne and during his interview he attacked Irish politicians and the Catholic Church, which he blamed for many of the country's problems.
He responded to nuns in the audience who tried to shout him down by saying they had "an easy life with no material worries in return for which they gave themselves body and soul to the church". He criticised Blackrock College; the interview caused uproar. In January 2013, Geldof announced The Boomtown Rats would be reforming to play together for the first time since 1986 at that year's Isle of Wight Festival in June, they have subsequently announced further tour dates and released a new CD Back to Boomtown: Classic Rats Hits. Geldof left the Boomtown Rats in 1986, to launch a solo career and publish his autobiography, Is That It?, a UK best-seller. His first solo records sold reasonably well and spawned the hit singles "This Is The World Calling" and "The Great Song of Indifference", he occasionally performed with other artists, such as David Gilmour and Thin Lizzy. A performance of "Comfortably Numb" with Gilmour is documented in the 2002 DVD David Gilmour in Concert. In 1992, he performed at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert with the surviving members of Queen at the old Wembley Stadium, singing a song he jokingly claimed to have co-written with Mercury, called "Too Late God".
The song was co-written by Karl Hyde. Geldof has worked as a DJ for XFM radio. In 1998, he erroneously announced Ian Dury's death from cancer due to hoax information from a listener, disgruntled at the station's change of ownership; the event caused music paper NME to call Geldof "the world's worst DJ". Along with U2's Bono, he has devoted much time since 2000 to campaigning for debt relief for developing countries, his commitments in this field, including the organisation of the Live 8 concerts, kept Geldof from producing any more musical output since 2001's Sex, Age & Death album. In 2002, he was listed as one of the 100 Greatest Britons in a poll conducted among the general public, despite the fact that he is not British. After Live 8, Geldof returned to his career as a musician by releasing a box set containing all of his solo albums entitled Great Songs of Indifference – The Anthology 1986–2001 in late 2005. Following that release, Geldof toured, albeit with mixed success. In July 2006, Geldof arrived at Milan's Arena Civica, a venue capable of holding 12,000 people, to play a scheduled concert to find that the organisers had not put the tickets on general sale and
London
London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans; the City of London, London's ancient core − an area of just 1.12 square miles and colloquially known as the Square Mile − retains boundaries that follow its medieval limits. The City of Westminster is an Inner London borough holding city status. Greater London is governed by the Mayor of the London Assembly. London is considered to be one of the world's most important global cities and has been termed the world's most powerful, most desirable, most influential, most visited, most expensive, sustainable, most investment friendly, most popular for work, the most vegetarian friendly city in the world. London exerts a considerable impact upon the arts, education, fashion, healthcare, professional services and development, tourism and transportation.
London ranks 26 out of 300 major cities for economic performance. It is one of the largest financial centres and has either the fifth or sixth largest metropolitan area GDP, it is the most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the busiest city airport system as measured by passenger traffic. It is the leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. London's universities form the largest concentration of higher education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted three modern Summer Olympic Games. London has a diverse range of people and cultures, more than 300 languages are spoken in the region, its estimated mid-2016 municipal population was 8,787,892, the most populous of any city in the European Union and accounting for 13.4% of the UK population. London's urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census.
The population within the London commuter belt is the most populous in the EU with 14,040,163 inhabitants in 2016. London was the world's most populous city from c. 1831 to 1925. London contains four World Heritage Sites: the Tower of London. Other landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square and The Shard. London has numerous museums, galleries and sporting events; these include the British Museum, National Gallery, Natural History Museum, Tate Modern, British Library and West End theatres. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world. "London" is an ancient name, attested in the first century AD in the Latinised form Londinium. Over the years, the name has attracted many mythicising explanations; the earliest attested appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written around 1136. This had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had taken over the city and named it Kaerlud.
Modern scientific analyses of the name must account for the origins of the different forms found in early sources Latin, Old English, Welsh, with reference to the known developments over time of sounds in those different languages. It is agreed; this was adapted into Latin as Londinium and borrowed into Old English, the ancestor-language of English. The toponymy of the Common Brythonic form is much debated. A prominent explanation was Richard Coates's 1998 argument that the name derived from pre-Celtic Old European *lowonida, meaning "river too wide to ford". Coates suggested that this was a name given to the part of the River Thames which flows through London. However, most work has accepted a Celtic origin for the name, recent studies have favoured an explanation along the lines of a Celtic derivative of a proto-Indo-European root *lendh-, combined with the Celtic suffix *-injo- or *-onjo-. Peter Schrijver has suggested, on these grounds, that the name meant'place that floods'; until 1889, the name "London" applied to the City of London, but since it has referred to the County of London and Greater London.
"London" is sometimes written informally as "LDN". In 1993, the remains of a Bronze Age bridge were found on the south foreshore, upstream of Vauxhall Bridge; this bridge either reached a now lost island in it. Two of those timbers were radiocarbon dated to between 1750 BC and 1285 BC. In 2010 the foundations of a large timber structure, dated to between 4800 BC and 4500 BC, were found on the Thames's south foreshore, downstream of Vauxhall Bridge; the function of the mesolithic structure is not known. Both structures are on the south bank. Although there is evidence of scattered Brythonic settlements in the area, the first major settlement was founded by the Romans about four years after the invasion
Easter Monday
Easter Monday is the day after Easter Sunday and is a holiday in some countries. Easter Monday in the Western Christian liturgical calendar is the second day of Eastertide and analogously in the Byzantine Rite is the second day of Bright Week. In the Eastern Orthodox Church and Byzantine Rite Catholic Churches, this day is called "Bright Monday" or "Renewal Monday"; the services, as in the rest of Bright Week, are quite different from during the rest of the year and are similar to the services on Pascha and include an outdoor procession after the Divine Liturgy. When the calendar date of the feast day of a major saint, e.g. St. George or the patron saint of a church or one's name day, falls during Holy Week or on Easter Sunday, the saint's day is celebrated on Easter Monday. Easter Monday is an official holiday in the following countries. Nations on this list indicated as "Eastern Christian" observe Easter according to the Julian Calendar reckoning used in Eastern Christianity, which differs most years from the Gregorian Calendar reckoning used in Western Christianity.
The post-Easter festivities involved a week of secular celebration, but in many places this was reduced to one day in the 19th century. Events include egg rolling competitions and, in predominantly Roman Catholic countries, dousing other people with water which traditionally had been blessed with holy water the day before at Easter Sunday Mass and carried home to bless the house and food. In Australia, Easter Monday is a public holiday. People enjoy outdoor sporting events, such as the Oakbank Easter Racing Carnival in South Australia, Australian Three Peaks Race in Tasmania and the Stawell Gift in Victoria. In Austria and Southern Germany, there is the traditional "Emmausgang", commemorating the walk of the disciples to Emmaus, to which Jesus followed them without being recognized. In Egypt, the ancient festival of Sham El Nessim is celebrated on the Coptic Easter Monday, though the festival dates back to Pharonic times, it is an Egyptian national holiday. Traditional activities include painting eggs, taking meals outdoors, eating feseekh.
In the Republic of Ireland it is a day of remembrance for the men and women who died in the Easter Rising which began on Easter Monday 1916. Until 1966, there was a parade of veterans, past the headquarters of the Irish Republican Army at the General Post Office on O'Connell Street, a reading of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Śmigus-dyngus is the name for Easter Monday in the diaspora. In the Czech Republic it is called velikonoční pondělí. In Slovakia veľkonočný pondelok called Šibačka/Polievačka or Oblievačka. In Hungary húsvéthétfő. All countries practice a unique custom on this day. In Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic traditionally, early in the morning boys awake girls by pouring a bucket of water on their head and striking them about the legs with long thin twigs or switches made from willow, birch or decorated tree branches. Another related custom, unique to Poland, is that of sprinkling bowls of ashes on people or houses, celebrated a few weeks earlier at the "półpoście".
This custom is forgotten, but still practiced in the area around the borders of Mazuria and Masovia. In Germany, people hold Easter egg races. For Roman Catholics, Easter Monday is a Holy Day of Obligation in Germany. In the United States, Easter Monday is not a federal holiday, is not observed. So, the day remains informally observed in some areas such as the state of North Dakota, some cities in New York and Indiana. Easter Monday was a public holiday in North Carolina from 1935 to 1987. Texas and Maryland schools have two holidays on Good Friday and Easter Monday. In some states and districts, public schools and universities are closed on Easter Monday part of spring break. Traditionally Polish areas of the country such as Chicago, more Cleveland, observe Easter Monday as Dyngus Day. Dyngus Day celebrations are popular in Buffalo, New York. Another important custom is the White House Easter egg roll; the world's largest organized Dyngus Day celebration occurs in New York. In Buffalo's eastern suburbs and the city's Historic Polonia District, Dyngus Day is celebrated with a high level of enthusiasm.
Although Dyngus Day was celebrated in traditional Polish neighborhoods of Buffalo dating back to the 1870s, modern Dyngus Day in Buffalo had its start with the Chopin Singing Society. Judge Ann T. Mikoll and her late husband Theodore V. Mikoll held the first party at the Society's clubrooms in the Buffalo Central Terminal; the Society left the East Side in the 1980s and moved to new clubrooms in nearby Cheektowaga, where the festival attracted a new generation of revelers. In recent years, the focus of Buffalo's Dyngus Day celebration has returned to the Historic Polonia District in the form of large parties at the Buffalo Central Terminal, St. Stanislaus - Bishop & Martyr Church, the Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle, at many family-owned Polish taverns; the World's First Dingus Day Parade, inaugurated in 2006, makes its way through the Polonia District from the Broadway Market to Buffalo Central Terminal. In 2008, the parade attracted more than 25,000 people. In 2012, it was reported
