Shepherd's Bush
Shepherds Bush is an area of west London in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Although it is residential in character, its focus is the shopping area of Shepherds Bush Green. The main thoroughfares are Uxbridge Road, Goldhawk Road and Askew Road, all containing a number of small and mostly independent shops, pubs. The Loftus Road football stadium in Shepherds Bush is home to Queens Park Rangers, in 2011, the population of the area was 39,724. The district is bounded by Hammersmith to the south, Holland Park and Notting Hill to the east, Harlesden to the north and by Acton, White City forms the northern part of Shepherds Bush. Shepherds Bush comprises the Shepherds Bush Green, College Park & Old Oak, Kensal Green and White City wards. The areas focal point is Shepherds Bush Green, an area of about 8 acres of open grass surrounded by trees and roads with shops. This position makes it an important node of the bus network and it is served by five London Underground stations, Shepherds Bush, White City, Shepherds Bush Market, Goldhawk Road and Wood Lane.
Originally built in the 1970s with a car park and connecting bridge to the station. The bridge was removed, and the now houses several chain stores, a 12-screen cinema, pub, restaurants, a medical practice. The small shops continue along Uxbridge Road to the west for some distance, many of these establishments cater for the local ethnic minority communities. The Westfield Group opened a centre in October 2008. The same building houses Escape Studios, an art school providing computer graphics training for the visual effects industry in London. The residential areas of Shepherds Bush are primarily located to the west of the Green, either side of Uxbridge Road and Goldhawk Road to the southwest, and about as far as Askew Road in the west. Much of the housing in this area consists of three- or four-storey terraces dating from the late 19th century, Shepherds Bush is home to the White City Estate, a housing estate that was originally constructed in the 1930s and further extended after the war in the early 1950s.
The name Shepherds Bush is thought to have originated from the use of the land here as a resting point for shepherds on their way to Smithfield Market in the City of London. An alternative theory is that it could have named after someone in the area. Evidence of human habitation can be traced back to the Iron Age, Shepherds Bush enters the written record in the year 704 when it was bought by Waldhere, Bishop of London as a part of the Fulanham estate
Loftus Road
Loftus Road Stadium is a football stadium in Shepherds Bush, which is home to Queens Park Rangers. In 1981, the became the first stadium in British professional football to have an artificial pitch of Omniturf installed. Rugby union team London Wasps shared the ground with QPR between 1996 and 2002 and Premier League football club Fulham shared it from 2002 to 2004 while Craven Cottage was closed for reconstruction, other users of the stadium have included the Jamaican and Australian national football teams. In 1985, Barry McGuigan defeated Eusebio Pedroza for the World Boxing Association featherweight championship at the stadium, the ground was first used on 11 October 1904 by Shepherds Bush F. C. an amateur side that was disbanded during the First World War. QPR moved to Loftus Road in 1917, having had their ground at Park Royal commandeered by the army in 1915, at that time the ground was an open field with a pavilion. One stand from Park Royal was dismantled and re-erected forming the Ellerslie Road stand in 1919 and this stand remained as the only covered seating in the ground until 1968 and was replaced in 1972.
It had a capacity of 2,950, QPR moved out of Loftus Road at the start of the 1931–32 season, moving nearby to White City Stadium, but after a loss of £7,000, the team moved back for the start of the 1933-34 season. In 1938, a new covered terrace for 6,000 spectators was constructed by a company called Framed Structures Ltd at the Loftus Road end taking the ground capacity up to 30,000. It cost £7,000 and was opened by the Rt Hon Herbert Morrison, the section of the terracing that was covered was concreted at this time with the uncovered section concreted in 1945. When the clubs finances were under pressure in the late 1950s the houses had to be sold, on 5 October 1953 floodlights were used at Loftus Road for the first time for a friendly game against Arsenal. In the summer of 1966 the original floodlights were replaced by much taller floodlight pylons, in the summer of 1980 these in turn were replaced with new floodlights. QPR experimented once again with a move to White City Stadium in the 1962–63 season, in the summer of 1968 the South Africa Road stand was constructed at a cost of £150,000 to replace the old open terracing.
In 1972 a new stand was completed in Ellerslie Road, replacing the tin-roofed grandstand erected in 1919, the changing rooms and offices were moved to South Africa Road and the television gantry moved in the other direction. The stadiums highest recorded attendance of 35,353 was in a game against Leeds United on 27 April 1974, during the summer of 1981 an artificial pitch of Omniturf was installed at Loftus Road, the first such surface to be used in British professional football. Rangers lost the first league match played on the new surface 1-2 versus Luton Town on 1 September 1981 and it was removed in April 1988 because of football legislation and replaced with grass. There were just three other stadiums in the whole country with a plastic pitch, and by 1994 all of these had been ripped up. New stands were opened at the School End in the summer of 1980, at the same time as the new Loftus Road stand was built executive boxes were installed in the lower tier of the South Africa Road stand and the artificial pitch laid.
The stadium capacity at this time was 27,000 and it was one of the most modern, in the summer of 1994 the Loftus Road ground became an all-seater stadium with the construction of seating in the lower Loftus Road stand
Franco-British Exhibition (1908)
The Franco-British Exhibition was a large public fair held in London between May 14th and October 31st 1908. The exhibition attracted 8 million visitors and celebrated the Entente Cordiale signed in 1904 by the United Kingdom, the chief architect of the buildings was John Belcher. The Exhibition was held in an area of west London near Shepherds Bush which is now called White City, the 1908 Summer Olympics fencing events were held in the district alongside the festivities. The fair was the largest exhibition of its kind in Britain, and it covered an area of some 140 acres, including an artificial lake, surrounded by an immense network of white buildings in elaborate styles. The most popular attractions at the exhibition were the two so-called colonial villages—an Irish village and a Senegalese village, which were designed to communicate the success of imperialism. The Irish village was inhabited by 150 colleens who demonstrated various forms of industry, as well as displays of manufacturing.
The Senegalese village was a native village displaying day-to-day life. Press reports commented on the cleanliness of the Irish, while readers were reminded that the Senegalese were cleaner than they looked. In an Anglo-French section one night, A Youth met a Maiden and bright, But her idea of pleasure, Was of such boundless measure, in 1937, a large portion of the White City site was cleared to make way for a housing estate. On 14 August, a balloon owned by American balloonist Capt. Lovelace exploded at the exhibition, killing his 18-year-old secretary, six others were injured, including a 47-year-old employee who died days after the accident. Newspaper reports indicated that the explosion occurred when a match was thrown to the ground during preparations for a flight. After being used for four more exhibitions up to 1914, the fell into disrepair and was unused for over twenty years. It was demolished bit by bit to make way for various developments over the last century, only the internal structure of the TA building on South Africa Road remains from the numerous halls and ornate buildings of the original exhibition.
Hammersmith Park, at the north of Frithville Gardens, was part of the Japanese Garden. A small area of tiling preserved from the Garden could be seen inside the main Television Centre site adjacent to the Studio 1 Audience Entrance. The White City Stadium site, in Wood Lane adjacent to the Westway overpass, history of Shepherds Bush List of worlds fairs Geppert, Alexander C. T. Imperial Expositions in Fin-de-Siècle Europe, Basingstoke/New York, Palgrave Macmillan,2010
Greater London
London, or Greater London, is a region of England which forms the administrative boundaries of London. It is organised into 33 local government districts, the 32 London boroughs, the Greater London Authority, based in Southwark, is responsible for strategic local government across the region and consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The county of Greater London was created on 1 April 1965 through the London Government Act 1963, Greater London was first established as a sui generis council area under the Greater London Council between 1963 and 1986. The area was re-established as a region in 1994, and the Greater London Authority formed in 2000, the region covers 1,572 km2 and had a population of 8,174,000 at the 2011 census. In 2012, it had the highest GVA per capita in the United Kingdom at £37,232, the Greater London Built-up Area—used in some national statistics—is a measure of the continuous urban area of London, and therefore includes areas outside of the administrative region.
The term Greater London has been and still is used to different areas in governance, history. In terms of ceremonial counties, London is divided into the small City of London, outside the limited boundaries of the City, a variety of arrangements has governed the wider area since 1855, culminating in the creation of the Greater London administrative area in 1965. The Greater London Arterial Road Programme was devised between 1913 and 1916, one of the larger early forms was the Greater London Planning Region, devised in 1927, which occupied 1,856 square miles and included 9 million people. The LCC pressed for an alteration in its boundaries soon after the end of the First World War, noting that within the Metropolitan, a Royal Commission on London Government was set up to consider the issue. The LCC proposed a vast new area for Greater London, with a boundary somewhere between the Metropolitan Police District and the home counties, protests were made at the possibility of including Windsor and Eton in the authority.
The Commission made its report in 1923, rejecting the LCCs scheme, two minority reports favoured change beyond the amalgamation of smaller urban districts, including both smaller borough councils and a central authority for strategic functions. The London Traffic Act 1924 was a result of the Commission, Greater London originally had a two-tier system of local government, with the Greater London Council sharing power with the City of London Corporation and the 32 London Borough councils. The GLC was abolished in 1986 by the Local Government Act 1985 and its functions were devolved to the City Corporation and the London Boroughs, with some functions transferred to central government and joint boards. Greater London was used to form the London region of England in 1994, a referendum held in 1998 established a public will to recreate an upper tier of government to cover the region. The Greater London Authority, London Assembly and the directly elected Mayor of London were created in 2000 by the Greater London Authority Act 1999, in 2000, the outer boundary of the Metropolitan Police District was re-aligned to the Greater London boundary.
The 2000 and 2004 mayoral elections were won by Ken Livingstone, the 2008 and 2012 elections were won by Boris Johnson. The 2016 election was won by Sadiq Khan, Greater London continues to include the most closely associated parts of the Greater London Urban Area and their historic buffers. Thus it includes, in five boroughs, significant parts of the Metropolitan Green Belt which protects designated greenfield land in a way to the citys parks
London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham is a London borough in West London, and forms part of Inner London. Traversed by the east-west main roads of the A4 Great West Road, the local council is Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council. The borough is unique in London in having three professional clubs, Chelsea and Queens Park Rangers. The borough was formed in 1965 by merging the Metropolitan Borough of Hammersmith and it was known as the London Borough of Hammersmith until its name was changed on 1 January 1979 by the borough council. The two had joined together previously in the parish of Fulham until 1834 as the hamlet of Hammersmith had no church until much later. They were joined together again under the Fulham District from 1855 to 1886, there followed numerous international fairs and exhibitions for a century until the construction of Earls Court II in the borough in the 1980s. This was dismantled by developers in 2015, after the 2012 Olympics, 60% of the boroughs population is White British, 20% white non-British, 5% black Caribbean, 8% black African with various other ethnicities making up the remaining 11 percent.
The borough has the second-highest proportion of adults of any borough in England and Wales. Around 50% of households are owner–occupiers, and 22% of households were listed as other – that is and these are generally two or more unrelated adults living together, such as students or cohabiting couples. The unemployment rate is well below average at under 5%, although of these, the borough has the 4th highest house prices in the country. See external links below for more information from the borough. Virgin Group operates its headquarters at The School House,50 Brook Green, sony Mobile Communications has its headquarters in the borough. Iberia operates the Iberia House in the borough, all Nippon Airways operates the London Office on the fourth floor of Hythe House. South African Airways has its United Kingdom office in the South African Airways House, CE Europe, a subsidiary of Capcom, has its head office in the George House in Hammersmith in the borough. As of May 2011 it will be relocating to the Metro Building in Hammersmith, iran Airs London offices are located in the borough.
The airline moved there by Wednesday 4 January 2012, coca-Cola, Disney and LOréal all have UK headquarters in Hammersmith, as well as a number of other major businesses. For a 15-year period Air France had its UK and Ireland office in Hammersmith, in 2006 the UK and Ireland office was moved to Hatton Cross, London Borough of Hounslow. Also, TAP Portugal runs an office in the Borough
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status. The NHS commissions most emergency services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other services, the public normally access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which gradually merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary contract for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England. The service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service was established in 1995 by parliamentary order, and serves the whole of Northern Ireland.
The Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust was established on 1 April 1998, there is a large market for private and voluntary ambulance services, with the sector being worth £800m to the UK economy in 2012. This places the voluntary providers in direct competition with private services, expenditure on private ambulances in England increased from £37m in 2011−12 to £67. 5m in 2013/4, rising in London from £796,000 to more than £8. 8m. In 2014−15, these 10 ambulance services spent £57.6 million on 333,329 callouts of private or voluntary services - an increase of 156% since 2010−11, in 2013, the CQC found 97% of private ambulance services to be providing good care. These private, registered services are represented by the Independent Ambulance Association, there are a number of unregistered services operating, who do not provide ambulance transport, but only provide response on an event site. These firms are not regulated, and are not subject to the checks as the registered providers, although they may operate similar vehicles.
There are a number of ambulance providers, sometimes known as Voluntary Aid Services or Voluntary Aid Societies, with the main ones being the British Red Cross. The history of the ambulance services pre-dates any government organised service. As they are in competition for work with the private ambulance providers. Voluntary organisations have provided cover for the public when unionised NHS ambulance trust staff have taken industrial action, there are a number of smaller voluntary ambulance organisations, fulfilling specific purposes, such as Hatzola who provide emergency medical services to the orthodox Jewish community in some cities. These have however run into difficulties due to use of vehicles not legally recognised as ambulances, all emergency medical services in the UK are subject to a range of legal and regulatory requirements, and in many cases are monitored for performance. This framework is largely statutory in nature, being mandated by government through a range of primary and secondary legislation and this requires all providers to register, to meet certain standards of quality, and to submit to inspection of those standards
Queens Park Rangers F.C.
Queens Park Rangers Football Club is a professional association football club based in White City, that plays in the Championship, the second tier of English football. Their honours include winning the League Cup in 1967, as well as finishing top of the tier in 1983 and 2011. QPR were runners-up of the Football League First Division in 1975–76, Queens Park Rangers were founded in 1886 after the merger of Christchurch Rangers and St. Judes Institute. Owing to their proximity to other west London clubs, QPR maintain long-standing rivalries with other clubs in the area. The most notable of these are Chelsea and Brentford, outside London, QPR traditionally share rivalries with Watford and Cardiff, although in recent years these fixtures have become less prominent. For the current season see 2015–16 Queens Park Rangers F. C. season The club was formed in 1886, the resulting team was called Queens Park Rangers, because most of the players came from the Queens Park area of north-west London. QPR were promoted as champions of Division 3 South in the 1947–48 season, Dave Mangnall was the manager as the club participated in four seasons of the Second Division, being relegated in 1951–52.
Tony Ingham was signed from Leeds United and went on to make the most ever league appearances for QPR, arguably the clubs greatest ever manager, Alec Stock, arrived prior to the start of the 1959–60 season. The 1960–61 season saw QPR achieve their biggest win to date, in time, together with Jim Gregory who arrived as chairman in the mid-1960s, helped to achieve a total transformation of the club and its surroundings. It is still the major trophy that QPR have won. It was the first League Cup final to be held at Wembley Stadium, after winning promotion in 1968 to the top flight for the first time in their history, Rangers were relegated after just one season and spent the next four years in Division Two. Terry Venables joined from Spurs at the beginning of the 1969–70 season, during this time, new QPR heroes emerged including Phil Parkes, Don Givens, Dave Thomas and Stan Bowles. These new signings were in addition to home-grown talent such as Dave Clement, Ian Gillard, Mick Leach, after completing their 42-game season, QPR sat at the top of the league, one point ahead of Liverpool who went on to defeat Wolverhampton Wanderers to clinch the title.
Wolves were relegated to the Second Division that same season, following Sextons departure in 1977 the club eventually slipped into the Second Division in 1979. In 1980 Terry Venables took over as manager and the club installed a plastic pitch, in 1982 QPR, still playing in the Second Division, reached the FA Cup Final for the only time in the clubs history, facing holders Tottenham Hotspur. Tottenham won 1–0 in a replay, the following season QPR went on to win the Second Division championship and returned to English footballs top division. After a respectable fifth-place finish, and UEFA Cup qualification, the following year, in 1988 the club had a new chairman, Richard Thompson. Who at 24 was the Premier Leagues youngest ever chairman, over the next seven years, various managers came and went from Loftus Road and the club spent many seasons finishing mid table but avoided relegation
Charing Cross
Charing Cross denotes the junction of Strand and Cockspur Street, just south of Trafalgar Square in central London. It gives its name to several landmarks, including Charing Cross railway station, Charing Cross is named after the Eleanor cross that stood on the site, in what was once the hamlet of Charing. The site of the cross has been occupied since 1675 by a statue of King Charles I. A loose Victorian replica of the cross, the Queen Eleanor Memorial Cross, was erected a short distance to the east outside the railway station. Until 1931, Charing Cross referred to the part of Whitehall between Great Scotland Yard and Trafalgar Square, at least one property retains a Charing Cross postal address, Drummonds Bank, on the corner of Whitehall and The Mall, which is designated 49 Charing Cross. Since the early 19th century, Charing Cross has often been regarded as the centre of London. Erect a rich and stately carved cross, Whereon her statue shall with glory shine, George Peele The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First The name of the area, Charing, is derived from the Old English word cierring, referring to a bend in the River Thames.
Folk etymology suggests the name derives from chère reine — dear queen in French — and this wooden sculpted cross was the work of the medieval sculptor, Alexander of Abingdon. It was destroyed in 1647 on the orders of Parliament during the Civil War, a 70 ft -high stone sculpture in front of Charing Cross railway station is a copy of the original cross. Erected in 1865, it is situated a few hundred yards to the east of the original cross and it was designed by the architect E. M. Barry and carved by Thomas Earp of Lambeth out of Portland stone, Mansfield stone and Aberdeen granite. It is not a replica, being more ornate than the original. A variation on the name appears to be Charygcrouche, near St Martin in the Fields, since 1675 the site of the cross has been occupied by a statue of King Charles I mounted on a horse. The site is recognised by convention as the centre of London for the purpose of indicating distances by road in favour of other measurement points. Charing Cross is marked on maps as a road junction.
Since 1 January 1931 this section of road has been designated part of the Whitehall thoroughfare, the cross has given its name to a railway station, a tube station, police station, hospital, a hotel, a theatre, and a music hall. Charing Cross Road the main route from the north was named after the railway station, at some time between 1232 and 1236, the Chapel and Hospital of St Mary Rounceval was founded at Charing. It occupied land at the corner of the modern Whitehall and into the centre of Northumberland Avenue and it was an Augustinian house, tied to a mother house at Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees. The house and lands were seized for the king in 1379, protracted legal action returned some rights to the prior, but in 1414, Henry V suppressed the alien houses
White City Place
BBC White City, known as the BBC Media Village, is a collection of six buildings occupying a 17-acre site at Wood Lane, White City in West London. All formerly properties of the BBC, several have now closed, with only Broadcast Centre, the site is a short distance down Wood Lane from the former BBC Television Centre. The BBC have sold the majority of buildings on the site and it has announced that Media Village will be renamed White City Place by new owners Stanhope. The first building on the site, BBC White City, was designed by architects Scott Brownrigg & Turner and was opened in 1990. Built on the site of the 1908 Franco-British exhibition, White City One was constructed on the location of the former White City Stadium used for the 1908 Summer Olympics. The stadium was demolished in 1985 and parts of the Olympic swimming pool were discovered when the foundations of the new building were laid, the building was originally intended to be a new home for BBC Radio, replacing Broadcasting House.
It housed most of the BBCs current affairs and factual and learning programmes, such as Panorama, Top Gear, the BBC vacated the building in March 2013 and sold it to developers. It has since referred to as White City One to distinguish it from the wider site. Construction of the phase of the development began in September 2001. It consists of five buildings in addition to White City One - Media Centre, Broadcast Centre, Energy Centre, Garden House. The buildings were designed by Allies and Morrison Architects and Buro Happold, in addition to BBC offices, the site included a post office, a Tesco Express, a Starbucks, a Davys wine bar and several other retail outlets, many of which have now closed. To pay for costs, the BBC signed a 30-year deal with Land Securities Trillium. The rear of Media Centre included gardens designed by Christopher Bradley-Hole, a poem Voices of White City by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion is inlaid into the paving in the piazza. The site featured artworks such as Simon Pattersons art wall in Broadcast Centre which is based on First World War dazzle camouflage and she was responsible for the overall colour scheme in both buildings.
Energy Centre features the Olympic Rings as a marker of the line of the 1908 Olympic marathon. A further planned building, the Music Box, designed by Foreign Office Architects was scheduled for opening in 2006 and it would have been a concert hall and recording venue for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the BBC Concert Orchestra and the BBC Singers. The Media Centre was the headquarters for the BBCs for-profit publishing subsidiary BBC Worldwide from 2008 until 2015. Media Centre housed various non-broadcast divisions of the BBC which had moved from central London to make way for the redevelopment of Broadcasting House
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain.
The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
1908 Summer Olympics
The 1908 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the IV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in 1908 in London, England from 27 April to 31 October 1908. These games were scheduled to be held in Rome, but were re-located on financial grounds following a disastrous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1906. They were the fourth chronological modern Olympic Games in keeping with the now-accepted four-year cycle as opposed to the proposed Intercalated Games alternate four-year cycle, the IOC president for these Games was Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Lasting a total of 187 days, or 6 months and 4 days, the selection process for the 1908 Summer Olympics consisted of four bids, and saw Rome selected ahead of London and Milan. The selection was made at the 6th IOC Session in London in 1904, italian authorities were preparing to hold the games when Mount Vesuvius erupted on 7 April 1906, devastating the city of Naples. Funds were diverted to the reconstruction of Naples, so a new venue was required, London was selected for the first time to hold the Games which were held at White City alongside the Franco-British Exhibition, at the time the more noteworthy event.
The White City Stadium, built in time for the games. The stadium track was three laps to the mile, not the current standard of 400 metres, with a pool for swimming and diving and platforms for wrestling and gymnastics in the middle. The distance from the start of the Marathon to the finish at the stadium was established at these games. ”As a result of changes, the marathon covered a distance of 26 miles 385 yards. The games were surrounded by controversy, on the opening day, following the practice introduced at the Intercalated Games of 1906, teams paraded behind national flags. The Swedish flag had not been displayed above the stadium, so the members of the Swedish team decided not to part in the ceremony. The flag of the United States had not been displayed above the stadium before the opening, the United States flag bearer, Ralph Rose, refused to dip the flag to King-Emperor Edward VII in the royal box. However, the flag was dipped in the collective greeting of the royal family. Martin Sheridan, Irish American Athletic Club member and American team captain, is believed to have supported Rose by explaining This flag dips to no earthly king.
It is claimed that his statement exemplified both American and Irish defiance of the British monarchy, research has shown that this quotation by Sheridan was first reported in 1952, some 24 years after his death. The 1908 Olympics prompted establishment of rules for sports. One reason was the 400 meter race, in which a US runner was accused of interfering with a British runner, part of the problem was the different definition of interference under British and US rules. The race was re-run, but the Americans refused to participate, the British runner, Wyndham Halswelle, won by running around the track on his own, because three of the four original runners had been American, the only walkover in Olympic history
