The first modern development in Arbroath was the Abbey founded by King William the Lion in 1178 for monks of the Tironensian order from Kelso Abbey. It was consecrated in 1197 with a dedication to Saint Thomas Becket, as the King's only personal foundation; he was buried within its precincts in 1214. The Abbey was not finally completed until 1233.
King John, also in the 13th century, exempted Arbroath from "toll and custom" in every part of England except London.
The Battle of Arbroath in 1446 came after a series of clashes between the Chief Justiciary of Arbroath, Alexander Lindsay, third Earl of Crawford and Bishop James Kennedy of St Andrews, which resulted in Lindsay sacking the bishop's lands and burning his properties. Lindsay was excommunicated and it was felt this conflicted with his role as Chief Justiciary. The monks of Arbroath Abbey selected Alexander Ogilvy of Inverquharity as his replacement and the insult led to pitched battle in the town, leaving 500 dead, including Lindsay and Ogilvy. Large parts of it were destroyed in the aftermath by the Lindsay family.
The abbey soon fell into disuse and eventual disrepair after its dissolution at the Reformation. The roof lead is rumoured to have been used in the 16th-century civil wars and the stonework plundered for housebuilding in the town. The ruins were a popular site for travellers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Finally in 1815, they were taken into state care. They are now administered by Historic Scotland.
On 6 April 1320 the Scottish Parliament met at Arbroath Abbey and addressed to the Pope the Declaration of Arbroath, drafted by the Abbot of the time, Bernard. This detailed the services which their "lord and sovereign" Robert the Bruce had rendered to Scotland and eloquently affirmed Scots independence.
Arbroath was created a royal burgh in 1599 by James VI.
In the 17th century, communion was not held for several years at the church of St Vigeans, near Arbroath, as villagers believed there was a curse on communion were held there: it would fall into a large subterranean lake.


Arbroath was made a royal burgh in 1178 by King William the Lion, when the Abbey was founded. The burgh of regality permitted monks to hold a weekly market, dispense basic justice and establish a harbour. In 1559, the town's burgh of regality was confirmed by King James VI of Scotland. A provost and town council were appointed.
In 1922, Lord Inchcape became burgess. He was presented with his ticket to the office in a silver casket engraved with the burgh coat-of-arms and views of the locality.
Arbroath remained controlled by Arbroath Burgh Council, which was based at Arbroath Town House, through to 1975, when Arbroath (and the county of Angus) were amalgamated with Perthshire and Dundee City into Tayside, controlled by Tayside Regional Council. Angus, along with Dundee City and Perth & Kinross were re-established under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994.


The earliest recorded name was 'Aberbrothock', referring to the Brothock Burn that runs through the town. The prefix Aber derived either from the Gaelic 'Obair', or the earlier Brythonic term Aber for confluence or river mouth. The name Aberbrothock was spelt numerous ways. The earliest manuscripts available have it as "Abirbrothoke" (in a letter to Edward I confirming the Treaty of Salisbury, which agreed that the Queen regnant, Margaret, Maid of Norway would marry Edward I) and "Aberbrothok" (in a subsequent letter of consent to the marriage). In the Declaration of Arbroath, it is seen as "Abirbrothoc". Early maps show a number of variants including Aberbrothock, Aberbrothik, Aberbrothick, and Aberbrothwick.
The modern name Arbroath became commoner in the mid-19th century, the older name being largely dropped by the time of the first Ordnance Survey edition. However, variants of 'Arbroath' had been used since the 17th century, including 'Arbroth' and Aberbreth.


The first verse of the Book of Isaiah states that Isaiah prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah (or Azariah), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah. Uzziah's reign was 52 years in the middle of the 8th century BC, and Isaiah must have begun his ministry a few years before Uzziah's death, probably in the 740s BC. He may have been contemporary for some years with Manasseh. Thus, Isaiah may have prophesied for as long as 64 years.
According to some modern interpretations, Isaiah's wife was called "the prophetess", either because she was endowed with the prophetic gift, like Deborah and Huldah, or simply because she was the "wife of the prophet". They had two sons, naming the eldest Shear-jashub, meaning "A remnant shall return", and the youngest, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, meaning, "Quickly to spoils, plunder speedily."
Soon after this, Shalmaneser V determined to subdue the kingdom of Israel, taking over and destroying Samaria (722 BC). So long as Ahaz reigned, the kingdom of Judah was untouched by the Assyrian power. But when Hezekiah gained the throne, he was encouraged to rebel "against the king of Assyria", and entered into an alliance with the king of Egypt. The king of Assyria threatened the king of Judah, and at length invaded the land. Sennacherib (701 BC) led a powerful army into Judah. Hezekiah was reduced to despair, and submitted to the Assyrians. But after a brief interval, war broke out again. Again Sennacherib led an army into Judah, one detachment of which threatened Jerusalem Isaiah on that occasion encouraged Hezekiah to resist the Assyrians, whereupon Sennacherib sent a threatening letter to Hezekiah, which he "spread before the LORD".
Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent unto Hezekiah, saying: "Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: Whereas thou hast prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria,
this is the word which the LORD hath spoken concerning him: The virgin daughter of Zion hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.

Whom hast thou taunted and blasphemed? And against whom hast thou exalted thy voice? Yea, thou hast lifted up thine eyes on high, even against the Holy One of Israel!"
According to the account in 2 Kings 19 (and its derivative account in 2 Chronicles 32) an angel of God fell on the Assyrian army and 185,000 of its men were killed in one night. "Like Xerxes in Greece, Sennacherib never recovered from the shock of the disaster in Judah. He made no more expeditions against either Southern Palestine or Egypt."
The remaining years of Hezekiah's reign were peaceful. Isaiah probably lived to its close, and possibly into the reign of Manasseh. The time and manner of his death are not specified in either the Bible or other primary sources. Later Jewish tradition says that he suffered martyrdom by being sawn in two under the orders of Manasseh.
The book of Isaiah, along with the book of Jeremiah, is distinctive in the Hebrew bible for its direct portrayal of the "wrath of the Lord" as presented, for example, in Isaiah 9:19 stating, "Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire."


Allusions in Jewish rabbinic literature to Isaiah contain various expansions, elaborations and inferences that go beyond what is presented in the text of the Bible itself.


Plovdiv (Bulgarian: Пловдив, [ˈpɫɔvdif]), is the second-largest city in Bulgaria (after Sofia), standing on the banks of the Maritsa river in the historical region of Thrace. It has a population of 346,893 as of 2018 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is the cultural capital of Bulgaria and was the European Capital of Culture in 2019. It is an important economic, transport, cultural, and educational center. Plovdiv joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in 2016.
Plovdiv is situated in a fertile region of south-central Bulgaria on the two banks of the Maritsa River. The city has historically developed on seven syenite hills, some of which are 250 metres (820 feet) high. Because of these hills, Plovdiv is often referred to in Bulgaria as "The City of the Seven Hills". There is evidence of habitation in the area dating back to the 6th millennium BCE, when the first Neolithic settlements were established. The city was subsequently a local Thracian settlement, later being conquered and ruled also by Persians, Ancient Macedonians, Celts, Romans, Byzantines, Goths, Huns, Bulgarians (Thracians, Bulgars, Slavic tribes, etc.), Crusaders, and Ottoman Turks.
Philippopolis was founded as a polis by the father of Alexander the Great, Philip the Great (r. 359–336 BCE), the king of ancient Macedonia, settling there both Thracians and 2,000 Macedonians and Greeks in 342 BCE. Control of the city alternated between the Macedonian kingdom and the Thracian Odrysian kingdom during the Hellenistic period; the Macedonian king Philip V (r. 221–179 BCE) reoccupied the city in 183 BCE and his successor Perseus (r. 179–168 BCE) held the city with the Odrysians until the Roman Republic conquered the Macedonian kingdom in 168 BCE. Philippopolis became the capital of the Roman province of Thracia. The city was at the centre of the road network of inland Thrace, and the strategic Via Militaris was crossed by several other roads at the site, leading to the Danube, the Aegean Sea, and the Black Sea. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180 CE) built a new wall around the city.
In Late Antiquity, Philippopolis was an important stronghold, but was sacked in 250 during the Crisis of the Third Century, after the Siege of Philippopolis by the Goths led by Cniva.  After this the settlement contracted, though it remained a major city, with the city walls rebuilt and new Christian basilicas and Roman baths constructed in the 4th century. The city was again sacked by the Huns in 441/442, and the walls were again rebuilt. Roman Philippopolis resisted another attack, by the Avars in the 580s, after the walls were renewed yet again by Justinian the Great (r. 527–565).
In the Middle Ages, Philippopolis fell to the Bulgars of the First Bulgarian Empire in 863, during the reign of Boris I (r. 852–889), having been briefly abandoned by the Christian inhabitants in 813 during a dispute with the khan Krum (r. c. 803 – 814). During the Byzantine–Bulgarian wars, the emperor Basil the Bulgar-Slayer (r. 960–1025) used Philippopolis as a major strategic fortification, governed by the protospatharios Nikephoros Xiphias. In the middle 11th century, the city was attacked by the Pechenegs, who occupied it briefly around 1090. The city continued to prosper, with the walls restored in the 12th century, during which the historian and politician Niketas Choniates was its governor and the physician Michael Italikos was its metropolitan bishop. According to the Latin historian of the Fourth Crusade, Geoffrey of Villehardouin, Philippopolis was the third largest city in the Byzantine Empire, after Constantinople (Istanbul) and Thessalonica (Thessaloniki). It suffered damage from the armies passing through the city during the Crusades as well as from sectarian violence between the Eastern Orthodox and the Armenian Orthodox and Paulician denominations. The city was destroyed by Kaloyan of Bulgaria (r. 1196–1207) in 1206 and rebuilt thereafter. In 1219, the city became the capital of the Crusader Duchy of Philippopolis, part of the Latin Empire. The Second Bulgarian Empire recovered the city in 1263, but lost it to Byzantine control before recapturing it in 1323. The Ottoman Empire conquered Philippopolis (Turkish: Filibe) in 1363 or 1364.
On 4 January 1878, at the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Plovdiv was taken away from Ottoman rule by the Russian army. It remained within the borders of Bulgaria until July of the same year, when it became the capital of the autonomous Ottoman region of Eastern Rumelia. In 1885, Plovdiv and Eastern Rumelia joined Bulgaria.
There are many preserved ruins such as the ancient Plovdiv Roman theatre, a Roman odeon, a Roman aqueduct, the Plovdiv Roman Stadium, the archaeological complex Eirene, and others. Plovdiv is host to a huge variety of cultural events such as the International Fair Plovdiv, the international theatrical festival "A stage on a crossroad", the TV festival "The golden chest", and many more novel festivals, such as Night/Plovdiv in September, Kapana Fest, and Opera Open. The oldest American educational institution outside the United States, the American College of Sofia, was founded in Plovdiv in 1860 and later moved to Sofia.
On 5 September 2014, Plovdiv was selected as the Bulgarian host of the European Capital of Culture 2019 alongside the Italian city of Matera. This happened with the help of the Municipal Foundation "Plovdiv 2019″, a non-government organization, which was established in 2011 by Plovdiv's City Council whose main objectives were to develop and to prepare Plovdiv's bid book for European Capital of Culture in 2019.


Plovdiv is located on the banks of the Maritsa river, southeast of the Bulgarian capital Sofia. The city is in the southern part of the Plain of Plovdiv, an alluvial plain that forms the western portion of the Upper Thracian Plain. From there, the peaks of the Sredna Gora mountain range rise to the northwest, the Chirpan Heights to the east, and the Rhodope mountains to the south. Originally, Plovdiv's development occurred south of Maritsa, with expansion across the river taking place only within the last 100 years. Modern Plovdiv covers an area of 101 km² (39 sq mi), less than 0.1% of Bulgaria's total area. It is the most densely populated city in Bulgaria, with 3,769 inhabitants per km².
Inside the city proper are six syenite hills. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were seven syenite hills, but one (Markovo tepe) was destroyed. Three of them are called the Three Hills (Bulgarian: Трихълмие Trihalmie), the others are called the Hill of the Youth (Bulgarian: Младежки хълм, Mladezhki halm), the Hill of the Liberators (Bulgarian: Хълм на освободителите, Halm na osvoboditelite), and the Hill of Danov (Bulgarian: Данов хълм, Danov halm).


Plovdiv has been given various names throughout its long history. The Odrysian capital Odryssa (Greek: ΟΔΡΥΣΣΑ, Latin: ODRYSSA) is suggested to have been modern Plovdiv by numismatic research or Odrin.
The Greek historian Theopompus mentioned it in the 4th century BCE as a town named Poneropolis (Greek: ΠΟΝΗΡΟΠΟΛΙΣ "town of villains") in pejorative relation to the conquest by king Philip II of Macedon who is said to have settled the town with 2,000 men who were false-accusers, sycophants, lawyers, and other possible disreputables. According to Plutarch, the town was named by this king after he had populated it with a crew of rogues and vagabonds, but this is possibly a folk name that did not actually exist. The names Dulon polis  (Greek: ΔΟΥΛΩΝ ΠΟΛΙΣ "slaves' town") and possibly Moichopolis (Greek: ΜΟΙΧΟΠΟΛΙΣ  "adulterer's town") likely have similar origins.
The city has been called Philippopolis (ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟΠΟΛΙΣ [pilpopolis]; Greek: Φιλιππούπολη, in modern Greek, Philippoupoli [filipupoli]) or "the city of Philip", from Greek Philippos "horse-lover", most likely in honor of Philip II of Macedon after his death or in honor of Philip V, as this name was first mentioned in the 2nd century BCE by Polybius in connection with the campaign of Philip V. Philippopolis was identified later by Plutarch and Pliny as the former Poneropolis. Strabo identified Philip II's settlement of most "evil, wicked" (Gr. πονηροτάτους ponerotatous) as Calybe (Kabyle), whereas Ptolemy considered the location of Poneropolis different than the rest.
Kendrisia (Greek: ΚΕΝΔΡΕΙϹΕΙΑ) was an old name of the city. Its earliest recorded use is on an artifact mentioning that king Beithys, priest of the Syrian goddess, brought gifts to Kendriso Apollo; the deity is recorded to be named multiple times after different cities. Later Roman coins mentioned the name which is possibly derived from Thracian god Kendriso who is equated with Apollo, the cedar forests, or from the Thracian tribe artifacts known as the kendrisi. Another assumed name is the 1st century CE Tiberias in honor of the Roman emperor Tiberius, under whom the Odrysian Kingdom was a client of Rome. After the Romans had taken control of the area, the city was named in Latin: TRIMONTIUM, meaning "The Three Hills", and mentioned in the 1st century by Pliny. At times the name was Ulpia, Flavia, Julia after the Roman families.
Ammianus Marcellinus wrote in the 4th century CE that the then city had been the old Eumolpias/Eumolpiada, (Latin: EVMOLPIAS, EVMOLPIADA), the oldest name chronologically. It was named after the mythical Thracian king Eumolpos, son of Poseidon or Jupiter, who may have founded the city around 1200 BCE or 1350 BCE. It is also possible that it was named after the Vestal Virgins in the temples – evmolpeya.
In the 6th century CE, Jordanes wrote that the former name of the city was Pulpudeva (Latin: PVLPVDEVA) and that Philip the Arab named the city after himself. This name is most likely a Thracian oral translation of the other as it kept all consonants of the name Philip + deva (city). Although the two names sound similar, they may not share the same origin as Odrin and Adrianople do, and Pulpudeva may have predated the other names meaning "lake city" in Thracian. Since the 9th century CE the Slavic name began to appear as Papaldiv/n, Plo(v)div, Pladiv, Pladin, Plapdiv, Plovdin, which originate from Pulpudeva. As a result, the name has lost any meaning. In British English the Bulgarian variant Plòvdiv has become prevalent after World War I. The Crusaders mentioned the city as Prineople, Sinople and Phinepople. The Ottomans called the city Filibe, a corruption of "Philip", in a document from 1448.


The history of the region spans more than eight millennia. Numerous nations have left their traces on the twelve-metre-thick (39-foot) cultural layers of the city. The earliest signs of habitation in the territory of Plovdiv date as far back as the 6th millennium BCE. Plovdiv has settlement traces including necropolises dating from the Neolithic era (roughly 6000–5000 BCE) like the mounds Yasa Tepe 1 in the Philipovo district and Yasa Tepe 2 in Lauta park. Archaeologists have discovered fine pottery and objects of everyday life on Nebet Tepe from as early as the Chalcolithic era, showing that at the end of the 4th millennium BCE, there was already an established settlement there which was continuously inhabited since then. Thracian necropolises dating back to the 2nd–3rd millennium BCE have been discovered, while the Thracian town was established between the 2nd and the 1st millennium BCE.
The town was a fort of the independent local Thracian tribe Bessi. In 516 BCE during the rule of Darius the Great, Thrace was included in the Persian empire. In 492 BCE, the Persian general Mardonius subjugated Thrace again, and it nominally became a vassal of Persia until 479 BCE and the early rule of Xerxes I. The town became part of the Odrysian kingdom (460 BCE – 46 CE), a Thracian tribal union. The town was conquered by Philip II of Macedon, and the Odrysian king was deposed in 342 BCE. Ten years after the Macedonian invasion, the Thracian kings started to exercise power again after the Odrysian Seuthes III had re-established their kingdom under Macedonian suzerainty as a result of a successful revolt against Alexander the Great's rule resulting in a stalemate. The Odrysian kingdom gradually overcame the Macedonian suzerainty, while the city was destroyed by the Celts as part of the Celtic settlement of Eastern Europe, most likely in the 270s BCE. In 183 BCE, Philip V of Macedon conquered the city, but shortly after, the Thracians re-conquered it.
In 72 BCE, the city was seized by the Roman general Marcus Lucullus but was soon restored to Thracian control. In 46 CE, the city was finally incorporated into the Roman Empire by emperor Claudius; it served as the capital of the province of Thrace. Although it was not the capital of the Province of Thrace, the city was the largest and most important centre in the province. As such, the city was the seat of the Union of Thracians. In those times, the Via Militaris (or Via Diagonalis), the most important military road in the Balkans, passed through the city. The Roman times were a period of growth and cultural excellence. The ancient ruins tell a story of a vibrant, growing city with numerous public buildings, shrines, baths, theatres, a stadium, and the only developed ancient water supply system in Bulgaria. The city had an advanced water system and sewerage. In 179 a second wall was built to encompass Trimontium which had already extended out of the Three hills into the valley. Many of those are still preserved and can be seen by tourists. Today only a small part of the ancient city has been excavated.
In 250 the city was captured and looted after the Battle of Philippopolis by the Goths, led by their ruler Cniva. Many of its citizens, 100,000 according to Ammianus Marcellinus, died or were taken captive. It took a century and hard work to recover the city. However, it was destroyed again by Attila's Huns in 441–442 and by the Goths of Teodoric Strabo in 471.
An ancient Roman inscription written in Ancient Greek dated to 253 – 255 AD were discovered in the Great Basilica. The inscription refers to the Dionysian Mysteries and also mentions Roman Emperors Valerian and Gallienus. It has been found on a large stele which was used as construction material during the building of the Great Basilica.


In 1364 the Ottoman Turks under Lala Shahin Pasha seized Plovdiv. According to other data, Plovdiv was not an Ottoman possession until the Battle of Maritsa in 1371, after which, the citizens and the Bulgarian army fled leaving the city without resistance. Refugees settled in Stanimaka. During the Ottoman Interregnum in 1410, Musa Çelebi conquered the city killing and displacing inhabitants. The city was the centre of the Rumelia Eyalet from 1364 until 1443, when it was replaced by Sofia as the capital of Rumelia. Plovdiv served as a sanjak centre within Rumelia between 1443 and 1593, the sanjak centre in Silistra Eyalet between 1593 and 1826, the sanjak centre in Eyalet of Adrianople between 1826 and 1867, and the sanjak centre of Edirne Vilayet between 1867 and 1878. During that period, Plovdiv was one of the major economic centers in the Balkans, along with Istanbul (Constantinople), Edirne, Thessaloniki, and Sofia.  The richer citizens constructed beautiful houses, many of which can still be seen in the architectural reserve of Old Plovdiv. From the early 15th century till the end of 17th century the city was predominantly inhabited by Muslims.


Under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, Filibe (as the city was known at that time) was a focal point for the Bulgarian national movement and survived as one of the major cultural centers for Bulgarian culture and tradition.
Filibe was described as consisting of Turks, Bulgarians, Hellenized Bulgarians, Armenians, Jews, Vlachs, Arvanites, Greeks, and Roma people. In the 16–17 century a significant number of Sephardic Jews settled along with a smaller Armenian community from Galicia. The Paulicians adopted Catholicism or lost their identity. The abolition of Slavonic as the language of the Bulgarian Church as well as the complete abolition of the church in 1767 and the introduction of the Millet System led to ethnic division among people of different religions. Christian and Muslim Bulgarians were subjected to Hellenization and Turkification respectively. A major part of the inhabitants was fully or partly Hellenized due to the Greek patriarchate. The "Langeris" are described as Greeks from the area of the nearby Stenimachos. The process of Hellenization flourished until the 1830s but declined with the Tanzimat as the idea of the Hellenic nation of Christians grew and was associated with ethnic Greeks.
The re-establishment of the Bulgarian Church in 1870 was a sign of ethnic and national consciousness. Thus, although there is a little doubt about the Bulgarian origin of the Gulidas, the city could be considered of Greek or Bulgarian majority in the 19th century. Raymond Detrez has suggested that when the Gudilas and Langeris claimed to be Greek it was more in the sense of "Romei than Ellines, in a cultural rather than an ethnic sense". According to the statistics by the Bulgarian and Greek authors, there were no Turks in the city; according to an alternative estimate the city was of Turkish majority.
Filibe had an important role in the struggle for Church independence which was, according to some historians, a peaceful bourgeois revolution. Filibe became the center of that struggle with leaders such as Nayden Gerov, Dr Valkovich, Joakim Gruev, and whole families. In 1836 the first Bulgarian school was inaugurated, and in 1850, modern secular education began when the "St Cyrill and Methodius" school was opened. On 11 May 1858, the day of Saints Cyril and Methodius was celebrated for the first time; this later became a National holiday which is still celebrated today (but on 24 May due to Bulgaria's 1916 transition from the Old Style (Julian) to the New Style (Gregorian) calendar). In 1858 in the Church of Virgin Mary, the Christmas liturgy was served for the first time in the Bulgarian language since the beginning of the Ottoman occupation. Until 1906 there were Bulgarian and Greek bishops in the city. In 1868 the school expanded into the first grammar school. Some of the intellectuals, politicians, and spiritual leaders of the nation graduated that school.
The city was conquered by the Russians under Aleksandr Burago for several hours during the Battle of Philippopolis on 17 January 1878. It was the capital of the Provisional Russian Administration in Bulgaria between May and October. According to the Russian census of the same year, Filibe had a population of 24,000 citizens, of which ethnic Bulgarians comprised 45.4%, Turks 23.1% and Greeks 19.9%.


The company operates from 15 regional design studios across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, in London, Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Bristol, Brussels, Dubai, Düsseldorf, Hyderabad, Madrid, Manchester, Milan, New Delhi, Prague, Shanghai, and Warsaw.


Chapman Taylor is a global practice of award-winning architects, masterplanners and interior designers, based in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
The practice has completed over 3,000 projects and won over 300 design awards over its history, including the UK Queen's Award.
It specialises in Residential, Retail, Leisure, Hospitality, Transportation and Workplace design, and the combination of these uses into large-scale mixed-use environments.


Chapman Taylor’s responsible approach extends beyond environmental sustainability; considering the wider socio-economic implications of projects, including the effect on the physical and mental well-being of those who inhabit and use its spaces. There is an available breakdown of sustainable projects and certifications, including BREEAM.


In May 2021, Chapman Taylor was awarded a contract for designing a 'masterplan' for Shusha (Azerbaijani: Şuşa), or Shushi (Armenian: Շուշի), a city in Azerbaijan. Shusha had recently been returned to Azerbaijan after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War.  This drew criticism from those in support of Armenia - two U.K. lawmakers, Baroness Cox and Tim Loughton, allegedly wrote a letter to Chapman Taylor's board urging them to abandon the contract, stating "[the agreement] would make you complicit in the falsification and erasure of history", adding that Chapman Taylor could find themselves in breach of the British Architects Act 1997, and that "various large Armenian diasporas throughout the world, many of whom are based in global locations where your firm has offices, are prepared to take appropriate, legal and very public action".


George Vancouver was born in the seaport town of King's Lynn (Norfolk, England) on 22 June 1757 - the sixth and youngest child of John Jasper Vancouver, a Dutch-born deputy collector of customs, and Bridget Berners. He came from an old respected family. The surname Vancouver comes from Coevorden, Drenthe province, Netherlands (Koevern in Dutch Low Saxon).
In 1771, at the age of 13, Vancouver entered the Royal Navy as a "young gentleman", a future candidate for midshipman. He was nominally an able seaman (AB) but, in reality, sailed as one of the midshipmen aboard HMS Resolution, on James Cook's second voyage (1772–1775) searching for Terra Australis. He also sailed with Cook's third voyage (1776–1780), this time aboard Resolution's companion ship, HMS Discovery, and was present during the first European sighting and exploration of the Hawaiian Islands. Upon his return to Britain in October 1780 Vancouver was commissioned as a lieutenant and posted aboard the sloop HMS Martin - initially on escort and patrol duty in the English Channel and North Sea. He accompanied the ship when it left Plymouth on 11 February 1782 for the West Indies. On 7 May 1782 he was appointed fourth lieutenant of the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Fame, which was at the time part of the British West Indies Fleet and assigned to patrolling the French-held Leeward Islands. Vancouver subsequently saw action at the Battle of the Saintes (April 1782), wherein he distinguished himself. Vancouver returned to England in June 1783.
In the late 1780s the Spanish Empire commissioned an expedition to the Pacific Northwest. In 1789 the Nootka Crisis developed, and Spain and Britain came close to war over ownership of Nootka Sound on contemporary Vancouver Island, and - of greater importance - over the right to colonise and settle the Pacific Northwest coast. Henry Roberts had recently taken command of the survey ship HMS Discovery (a new vessel named in honour of the ship on Cook's voyage) with the prospect of another round-the-world voyage, and Roberts selected Vancouver as his first lieutenant, but they both were then posted to other warships due to the crisis. Vancouver went with Joseph Whidbey to the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Courageux. When the first Nootka Convention ended the crisis in 1790, Vancouver was given command of Discovery to take possession of Nootka Sound and to survey the coasts.


Vancouver, at one time amongst Britain's greatest explorers and navigators, died in obscurity on 10 May 1798 at the age of 40, less than three years after completing his voyages and expeditions. No official cause of death was stated, as the medical records pertaining to Vancouver were destroyed; one doctor named John Naish claimed Vancouver died from kidney failure, while others believed it was a hyperthyroid condition. His grave is in the churchyard of St Peter's Church, Petersham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. The Hudson's Bay Company placed a memorial plaque in the church in 1841. His grave in Portland stone, renovated in the 1960s, is now Grade II listed in view of its historical associations.


Nowadays, Leipzig is an important economic centre in Germany. Since the 2010s, the city has been celebrated by the media as a hip urban centre with a very high quality of living. It is often called "The new Berlin". Leipzig is also Germany's fastest growing city. Leipzig was the German candidate for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but was unsuccessful. After ten years of construction, the Leipzig City Tunnel opened on 14 December 2013. Leipzig forms the centrepiece of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland public transit system, which operates in the four German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Brandenburg.


The Leipzig region was the arena of the 1813 Battle of Leipzig between Napoleonic France and an allied coalition of Prussia, Russia, Austria and Sweden. It was the largest battle in Europe before the First World War and the coalition victory ended Napoleon's presence in Germany and would ultimately lead to his first exile on Elba. The Monument to the Battle of the Nations celebrating the centenary of this event was completed in 1913. In addition to stimulating German nationalism, the war had a major impact in mobilizing a civic spirit in numerous volunteer activities. Many volunteer militias and civic associations were formed, and collaborated with churches and the press to support local and state militias, patriotic wartime mobilization, humanitarian relief and postwar commemorative practices and rituals.
When it was made a terminus of the first German long-distance railway to Dresden (the capital of Saxony) in 1839, Leipzig became a hub of Central European railway traffic, with Leipzig Hauptbahnhof the largest terminal station by area in Europe. The railway station has two grand entrance halls, the eastern one for the Royal Saxon State Railways and the western one for the Prussian state railways.
In the 19th century, Leipzig was a centre of the German and Saxon liberal movements. The first German labor party, the General German Workers' Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein, ADAV) was founded in Leipzig on 23 May 1863 by Ferdinand Lassalle; about 600 workers from across Germany travelled to the foundation on the new railway. Leipzig expanded rapidly to more than 700,000 inhabitants. Huge Gründerzeit areas were built, which mostly survived both war and post-war demolition.


In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well as the means by which a mayor is elected or otherwise mandated. Depending on the system chosen, a mayor may be the chief executive officer of the municipal government, may simply chair a multi-member governing body with little or no independent power, or may play a solely ceremonial role. A mayor's duties and responsibilities may be to appoint and oversee municipal managers and employees, provide basic governmental services to constituents, and execute the laws and ordinances passed by a municipal governing body (or mandated by a state, territorial or national governing body). Options for selection of a mayor include direct election by the public, or selection by an elected governing council or board.
The term mayor shares a linguistic origin with the military rank of Major, both ultimately derived from French majeur.


In Denmark all municipalities are led by a political official called borgmester, 'mayor'. The mayor of Copenhagen is however called overborgmester 'lord mayor'. In that city other mayors, borgmestre (plural), are subordinate to the lord mayor with different undertakings, like ministers to a prime minister. In other municipalities in Denmark there is only a single mayor.
In Norway and Sweden the mayoral title borgermester/borgmästare has now been abolished. Norway abolished it in 1937 as a title of the non-political top manager of (city) municipalities and replaced it with the title rådmann ('alderman' or 'magistrate'), which is still in use when referring to the top managers of the municipalities of Norway. The top elected official of the municipalities of Norway, on the other hand, has the title ordfører, which actually means 'word-bearer', i.e. 'chairperson' or 'president', an equivalent to the Swedish word ordförande.
In Sweden borgmästare was a title of the senior judge of the courts of the cities, courts which were called rådhusrätt, literally 'town hall court', somewhat of an equivalent to an English magistrates' court. These courts were abolished in 1971. Until 1965, these mayor judges on historical grounds also performed administrative functions in the board of magistrates, in Swedish known collegially as magistrat. Until 1965 there were also municipal mayors (kommunalborgmästare), who had these non-political administrative roles in smaller cities without a magistrates' court or magistrat. This office was an invention of the 20th century as the smaller cities in Sweden during the first half of the 20th century subsequently lost their own courts and magistrates.
In the 16th century in Sweden, king Gustav Vasa considerably centralised government and appointed the mayors directly. In 1693 king Charles XI accepted a compromise after repeated petitions from the Estate of the Burgesses over decades against the royal mayor appointments. The compromise was that the burgesses in a city could normally nominate a mayor under the supervision of the local governor. The nominee was then to be presented to and appointed by the king, but the king could appoint mayors directly in exceptional cases. This was codified in the Instrument of Government of 1720 and on 8 July the same year Riksrådet ("the Council of the Realm") decided, after a petition from the said Estate, that only the city could present nominees, not the king or anyone else. Thus the supervision of the local governor and directly appointed mayors by the king ceased after 1720 (the so-called Age of Liberty). On 16 October 1723, it was decided after a petition that the city should present three nominees, of whom the king (or the Council of the Realm) appointed one. This was kept as a rule from then on in all later regulations and was also kept as a tradition in the 1809 Instrument of Government (§ 31) until 1965.
In Finland, there are two mayors, in Tampere and Pirkkala. Usually in Finland the highest executive official is not democratically elected, but is appointed to a public office by the city council, and is called simply kaupunginjohtaja 'city manager' or kunnanjohtaja 'municipal manager', depending on whether the municipality defines itself as a city. The term pormestari 'mayor', from Swedish borgmästare confusingly on historical grounds has referred to the highest official in the registry office and in the city courts (abolished in 1993) as in Sweden, not the city manager. In addition, pormestari is also an honorary title, which may be given for distinguished service in the post of the city manager. The city manager of Helsinki is called ylipormestari, which translates to 'chief mayor', for historical reasons. Furthermore, the term city manager may be seen translated as mayor.


Parliament Square was laid out in 1868 in order to open up the space around the Palace of Westminster and improve traffic flow, and featured London's first traffic signals. A substantial amount of property had to be cleared from the site. The architect responsible was Sir Charles Barry. Its original features included the Buxton Memorial Fountain, which was removed in 1949 and placed in its present position in nearby Victoria Tower Gardens in 1957. In 1950 the square was redesigned by George Grey Wornum. The central garden of the square was transferred from the Parliamentary Estate to the control of the Greater London Authority by the Greater London Authority Act 1999. It has responsibility to light, cleanse, water, pave, and repair the garden, and has powers to make bylaws for the garden.
The east side of the square, lying opposite one of the key entrances to the Palace of Westminster, has historically been a common site of protest against government action or inaction. On May Day 2000 the square was transformed into a giant allotment by a Reclaim the Streets guerrilla gardening action. Most recently, Brian Haw staged a continual protest there for several years, campaigning against British and American action in Iraq. Starting on 2 June 2001, Haw left his post only once, on 10 May 2004 – and then because he had been arrested on the charge of failing to leave the area during a security alert, and returned the following day when he was released. The disruption that Haw's protest is alleged to have caused led Parliament to insert a clause into the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 making it illegal to have protests in Parliament Square (or, indeed, in a large area reaching roughly half a mile in all directions) without first seeking the permission of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.
The provisions of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act relating to Parliament Square were repealed by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, which provides for a different regime of "prohibited activities".
As well as sparking a great deal of protest from various groups on the grounds of infringement of civil liberties including the European Convention on Human Rights, the Act was initially unsuccessful in accomplishing its goals: Brian Haw was held to be exempt from needing authorisation in a High Court ruling, as his protest had started before the Act came into effect (though any new protests would be covered); Haw remained in Parliament Square. Later, the Court of Appeal overturned this ruling, forcing Haw to apply for police authorisation to continue his protest.


The square is home to twelve statues of British, Commonwealth and foreign political figures. They are listed here in anti-clockwise order, beginning with Winston Churchill's statue, which faces Parliament.


Puddefjorden, often anglicized as  Pudde Fjord, is an inlet or fjord in the central part of the city of Bergen in Vestland county, Norway. An arm off of the main Byfjorden, the Puddefjorden is 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) long and stretches from the tip of the Nordnes peninsula to the Solheimsviken bay at the entrance to the Store Lungegårdsvannet bay. The fjord is 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi) at its widest, between Nordnes and the inner part of the borough of Laksevåg. The innermost part of the fjord, known as Damsgårdssundet, is much narrower, scarcely 100 metres (330 ft) wide at its narrowest. The fjord is located next to some of Bergen's most important industrial areas, and has played a significant part in the city's development and industrialisation.


Despite being situated in the central part of the present-day city of Bergen, the Puddefjorden did not play a major role in the city's early history. The fjord experiences strong currents and has numerous small islets, rendering boat passage dangerous. Furthermore, its innermost parts used to lightly freeze over during winters.  Because of that, the nearby Vågen bay was the preferred entrance to the city for nearly all water-craft traffic.
The ice, islets, and strong current caused the kings of Alrekstad (today known as Årstad) to avoid using Puddefjorden. The ice also stopped an invasion attempt by Kristoffer Throndsen in 1536, when Puddefjorden went all the way in to what is now known as Lille Lungegårdsvann.
Puddefjorden was originally not considered a part of the city of Bergen, but rather a nearby area. This view held until the mid-1800s. The fjord's northeastern side belonged to the city, however, and scattered habitations appeared there at the end of the 17th century, later becoming the neighbourhoods of Møhlenpris and Nøstet.
The original Puddefjorden was both longer and broader than it is today, but after extensive industrialisation of the nearby areas in the 19th century, the fjord's form was altered. Formerly, the Puddefjord was wrapped around the city, ending only a few blocks away from Vågen. Following the final filling of the strait between Lille Lungegårdsvannet and Store Lungegårdsvannet in 1926, the fjord now stops in the Store Lungegårdsvannet bay.
Changes to the fjord over the centuries


Industry has had an environmental effect on the fjord, and its sediment has become polluted with PCB and mercury. There has never been a thorough record of the poisons released into Puddefjorden, and both smaller businesses and locals have used Store Lungegårdsvann as a disposal area. As a result, Puddefjorden is now divided into five sub-areas and the rinsing process is estimated to cost around 10 million kr.


In the 1920s, announcements seeking all-girl bands for vaudeville performances appeared in industry publications like Billboard, Variety and in newspapers. Bands like The Ingenues and The Dixie Sweethearts were well-publicized, while other groups were simply described as "all-girl Revue". According to Feminist Theory, similar trends in theater and film objectified women, an example of male gaze, as women's role in public life was expanding.
During the time period of vaudeville, women of the 19th century were obligated to work so they could support their families financially. The working class for women in this time had to also deal with getting unequal pay from their jobs. This resulted in women being seen as cheaper workers which eventually led to most work falling into the hands of women. Most of these challenges lied with women in the lower class, the upper and middle class women had different jobs that were seen in a more respected light, such as being a nurse. Jobs that were still off limits for women in the 19th century were those that were viewed as more professional, such as being a lawyer. The 19th century was also a time where women were still unable to vote and had very little control over their life. Most women were still under the power of their fathers or, if married, husbands. Beyond just being a woman struggling in the 19th century, women of different religions, races, and classes were faced with all sorts of challenges that would affect every aspect of their living.
These expectations and restrictions of women in the 19th century played a big role in the compelling aspects of vaudeville. Women often drew crowds to theaters because they were seen as a main attraction and they were seen as stars. This inspired other women, of the time, because vaudeville performers were challenging the status quo. It wasn’t easy for these women to get what they wanted but the choices they made in their fame created a voice for all of the female population. Female performers of the 19th century were a big part in kick starting the change in culture throughout america. They were bringing attention to the issues of women's suffrage in the U.S and being on stage, with the following they had, forced people to listen.
Through vaudeville, many women were allowed to join their male counterparts on the stage and found success in their acts. Leila Marie Koerber, later Marie Dressler, was a Canadian actress who specialized in vaudeville comedy, and eventually won an Academy Award for Best Actress later in her career. Being the daughter of a musician, she moved to the United States of America in her childhood. At just fourteen years old, she left home to begin her career, lying about her age and sending her mother half of her paycheck. Dressler found great success and was known for her comedic timing and physical comedy, like carrying her male co-stars. She eventually worked on Broadway, where she had a great desire to become a serious actress but was advised to remain in comedy.  She went on to star in a few films but again returned to vaudeville, her original career.
Another famous comedienne, one who brought in thousands of audience members with her signature improvisational skills, was May Irwin. She worked from about 1875 to 1914. Originally born Ada Campbell, she began her life on the stage at thirteen years old following the death of her father. She and her older sister created a singing act called the “Irwin Sisters”. Many years later, their act had taken off and with performances in both vaudeville and burlesque at famous music halls, until Irwin decided to continue her career on her own. She then changed her approach to vaudeville, performing African-American-influenced songs, even later writing her songs. She introduced her signature in vaudeville, “The Bully Song”, which was performed in a Broadway show. This is when she began experimenting with improvisational comedy and quickly found her unique success, even taking her performances global with acts in the U.K.
Another famous vaudevillian actress was Trixi Friganza, originally born Delia O’Callaghan. She had a famous catchphrase; “You know Trixi with her bag of tricks.” She began her career in opera, performing to help provide for her family. The oldest of three daughters, she wanted to help her family financially but had to do it secretly, as female performers were frowned on at the time. She worked largely in comedy and gained acclaim and success due to her willingness to step into other's roles who had fallen ill, and were otherwise unable to perform. In her acts, she often emphasized her plus-size figure, calling herself the “perfect forty-six”. Friganza was also a poet and writer. She used many of her performances as ways to raise money to support the poor or disenfranchised and went on record publicly numerous times to support these social causes. Friganza also spent much of her life fighting for women’s equality and pushing for self-acceptance for women, both publicly and within themselves, as well as their rights in comparison to men.


Two seasonal events are held annually: Fright Nights during Halloween and White Christmas during the Christmas holidays. Fright Nights features mazes, street parades performed by Halloween characters and night rides on several attractions. It is a consistently popular event, with around 7,000 guests attending each Fright Night evening in October 2017. The park offers a paid Fast Track priority pass and free virtual queueing on select attractions, as well as mobile ordering and queueing at certain food outlets. Star Tours began in July 2016 and offer a behind-the-scenes look at several attractions. Included in the experience are Fast Track passes, priority seating for the afternoon parade and other features. A climb up the 282 steps of DC Rivals' lift hill began in September 2018.
To celebrate the park's first anniversary in 1992, a daily parade featuring Bugs Bunny and other Looney Tunes characters was held each afternoon from 1 June. Evenings from 20 June onwards played host to Illuminanza—a sound and light show featuring Batman and Catwoman—followed by screenings of Batman Returns at the Roxy Theatre. Celebrations concluded by 19 July. Easter 1994 was marked with the $200,000 Bugs Bunny Megga Easter Party from 1 to 10 April. An evening parade starring 140 cast members concluded with a fireworks display. A tenth anniversary celebration hosted by B105 FM was held on 4 August 2001. More than 1,000 attendees were treated to live performances by Human Nature, Invertigo, A Touch of Class and Joanne Accom. Halloween Family Fun Night, the first Halloween event, was held on 31 October 2006 and offered guests night rides on several attractions. The sold-out event was immediately popular with more than 7,500 attendees, such that it was extended into the following evening. It has since become Fright Nights, an annual tradition.
In 2010, a DC Heroes vs. Villains parade ran during the June–July school holiday period to celebrate DC Comics' 75th anniversary. In partnership with the Gold Coast's newspaper and AFL team, a Christmas charity event was held on 3 December for 3,000 disadvantaged  locals. Later that month, the first annual White Christmas events were held for the public. More than one million Christmas lights decorated the park, which hosted festivities such as a Looney Tunes ice-skating show, a Christmas parade and a visit from Santa Claus. The event was immediately popular and reached its maximum 7,500 person capacity on several evenings. Throughout June–July 2014, Carnivale events were held on select evenings and featured music, parades and cuisine inspired by the Brazilian Carnival. Festivities and a parade commemorated the park's 25th anniversary on 3 June 2016. In 2020, Fright Nights was cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions, while White Christmas went ahead. To celebrate the park's 30th anniversary, the Hooray for Hollywood event ran from 26 June to 18 July 2021, with guest interactions and a daily parade themed to classic Hollywood cinema.


During its first year of operation, Movie World received 1.2 million visitors, exceeding its conservative target of one million. John Menzies, CEO of Warner Village Theme Parks, said that attendance at Sea World and local competitor Dreamworld was consistent with prior years. "So long as the themes are different, parks like this can [proliferate] ad infinitum", he said. Nationwide theme park attendance grew 12% from 1992 to 1993 and Movie World recorded 1.3 million visitors during the financial year. Park general manager Mark Germyn attributed attendance growth in part to success with the international market: about 25% of the park's visitors were from overseas, and half of these were from Japan. "We're coming on strong in the Asian markets", he said, "including Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand". He further noted retail sales of about 2.6 million units of stock across its 25 outlets generating $17 million in revenue. In 1998, Village marketing manager Ken Minnikin highlighted the success of the "3 Park Super Pass", which recorded a 20% sales increase during Christmas 1997 over the prior year's period, and cited the Gold Coast's theme park industry as a major domestic tourism drawcard. A 20% decline in attendance during 2000 was attributed to Y2K hysteria, but the "Super Pass" deal continued to be popular, contributing about one third of park ticket sales.
There were more than 10 million lifetime visitors by 2001. International visits that year were negatively impacted by the September 11 attacks and although park visits fell slightly during financial 2001, Sea World and Wet'n'Wild's attendance increased and Village's parks division posted an EBITDA rise of 23.1%. In 2003, visits by international tourists declined by about 50%, with the war on terror and 2002–2004 SARS outbreak cited as key factors. In response, daily operating hours for several rides were reduced. Visits from key Asian markets to the Gold Coast had dropped by about 95% and Village emphasised a need to target their domestic market with discounted tickets and Shopa Docket vouchers. In May 2006, Village acquired Warner's stake in their theme park division for $254 million but maintained the latter's licence and branding. The deal let Village take sole ownership of several park properties, including Movie World. Strong attendance figures over financial 2007 contributed in part to a net profit of around $45 million, offsetting $40 million in losses the previous year. More than 1.32 million people visited during 2007 (a 5.8% increase from the year prior) and the park was Australia's third highest attended that year. Village considered Superman Escape and Batwing Spaceshot's openings to be contributing factors to the increased attendance. A decline in attendance during financial 2008 was attributed to unseasonably poor weather during the key summer months.


Road Runner Rollercoaster, a Vekoma Junior model, opened on Boxing Day 2000; it was Australia's first coaster designed for children. During 2001, the Great Gremlins and Gravity Homestead attractions closed, and the Looney Tunes Splash Zone was added to Looney Tunes Village. Two new attractions opened on Boxing Day: Batman Adventure – The Ride 2, a refurbishment of the original, and the Harry Potter Movie Magic Experience. Built on the Gravity Homestead's footprint, the $2 million Harry Potter attraction was a direct tie-in to the film series' first film, The Philosopher's Stone, and featured a walk-through replica of Diagon Alley and a live owl show. The following year, it was updated with the release of The Chamber of Secrets to feature film set pieces such as the flying car and creatures of the Forbidden Forest. Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster opened on 17 June 2002; the $13 million Wild Mouse coaster by Mack Rides was themed to the 2002 film Scooby-Doo. The indoor ride featured ghost train elements, an elevator lift and a coaster section.
The Harry Potter attraction closed and was replaced in September 2003 by The Official Matrix Exhibit, which featured props from the Matrix film series. In 2005, Village announced expansion plans totalling $65 million for their Gold Coast parks, in which Movie World would receive a share with two new attractions. First, the Roxy Theatre was refurbished for a new film, Shrek 4D Adventure. Opened on 17 September, the experience used sensory effects, moving seats and animatronics. Superman Escape, the other attraction, opened on Boxing Day. The $16 million Accelerator Coaster by Intamin was the park's first major thrill ride in about a decade. Batwing Spaceshot, a $5 million Space Shot by S&S Power, opened in December 2006.
Looney Tunes Village was renamed to Kids' WB Fun Zone in 2007, with two new rides added. Police Academy Stunt Show drew its final curtain call on 30 April 2008 after 16 years and 18,000 performances; the enduringly popular attraction was among the world's longest-running stunt shows at the time. Its replacement, the $10 million Hollywood Stunt Driver, opened on Boxing Day. A cast of 10 stunt drivers were selected from more than 200 applicants and, in preparation for the show, the venue was renovated to increase its stage area and seating capacity from 1,400 to 2,000 guests. Another new live show, Looney Tunes: What's Up Rock?, replaced The Musical Revue. In October, construction of a roof over Main Street was completed. The 4,000 square metre (43,000 sq ft) roof supplied by MakMax Australia was designed to improve guest protection from the elements and provide for a 2,000-person capacity venue for functions and events.


Movie World is located in Oxenford on the Gold Coast, Queensland, approximately 20 km (13 miles) from Surfers Paradise. It is part of a 154-hectare (380.5-acre) precinct that includes three other Village properties: Wet'n'Wild Gold Coast, Australian Outback Spectacular and Paradise Country. The 15 attractions can be divided into five broad areas: Main Street, Kids' WB Fun Zone, the wild west, DC Comics Super-Villains Unleashed and the DC Comics superhero hub.

The opening plaza encircles its centrepiece, the Fountain of Fame, just beyond the entrance. Main Street continues with guest services, dining, gift shops and other amenities lining the footpaths. The Roxy Theatre off Main Street screens Yogi Bear 4-D Experience. Hollywood Stunt Driver's crew perform motorcycle and rally car stunts daily. Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster passes corridors of eerie projections and booby traps before its elevator lift drops riders backwards into tight, unbanked turns. WB Studio Showcase exhibits props from the studio's oeuvre. Characters such as Batman, the Joker, Scooby-Doo, Austin Powers and the Looney Tunes cast roam the grounds and pose for photos; each afternoon, they parade with themed floats and vehicles along Main Street.
Kids' WB Fun Zone features attractions from car rides and carousels to frog hoppers and splash pads. Patrons ride through Junior Driving School's miniature park replica and embark on the Road Runner Rollercoaster. DC Comics Super-Villains Unleashed displays DC supervillain statues amid criminal acts. Guests use RFID wristbands to help the villains destroy the area or hang upside-down on Doomsday Destroyer. In the DC Comics superhero hub, Batwing Spaceshot exerts 4 g-forces as it launches up a vertical tower. DC Rivals navigates a camelback and non-inverting loop while riders on each train's last row face backwards. Green Lantern drops beyond vertical into outer-banked turns and two inversions. Justice League patrons blast animatronic aliens on 3D screens. Superman Escape catapults from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 2 seconds up a top hat element. Wild West Falls, which headlines its eponymous area, traverses a Native American village and ghost town before a splashdown finale.


Wolsey, the clothes manufacturer, is established in Leicester, England; the business celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2005.
Construction of the Puning Temple complex in Chengde, China is completed, during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor.
Construction of St Ninian's Church, Tynet, Scotland, the country's oldest surviving post-Reformation Roman Catholic clandestine church, is completed.
The brine shrimp Artemia salina is first described, in Linnaeus' Systema Naturæ.


February 10 – Montesquieu, French writer (b. 1689)
February 11 – Francesco Scipione, marchese di Maffei, Italian archaeologist (b. 1675)
March 2 – Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, French writer (b. 1675)
March 7 – Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man (b. 1663)
March 10 – Johann David Köhler, German historian (b. 1684)
April 6 – Richard Rawlinson, English minister, antiquarian (b. 1690)
April 30 – Jean-Baptiste Oudry, French painter (b. 1686)
June 26 – Iyasu II, Emperor of Ethiopia (b. c. 1723)
July 9 – Daniel Liénard de Beaujeu, Canadian officer during the Seven Years' War (b. 1711)
July 13 – Edward Braddock, British general (b. c. 1695)
July 14 – Jacques-Nompar III de Caumont, duc de La Force, French nobleman (b. 1714)
August 13 – Francesco Durante, Italian composer (b. 1684)
September 2 – Princess Marie Zéphyrine of France, sister of Louis XVI (b. 1750)
September 8
Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, Canadian military commander (b. 1701)
Hendrick Theyanoguin, Mohawk Council leader killed in the Battle of Lake George.
Ephraim Williams, American philanthropist (b. 1715)
September 9 – Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, German historian (b. 1694)
September 13 – Pierre Gaultier de La Vérendrye, French-Canadian explorer (b. 1714)
October 4 – Georg Christian, Fürst von Lobkowitz, Austrian field marshal (b. 1686)
October 16 – Gerard Majella, Italian Roman Catholic lay brother and saint (b. 1725)
October 22 – Elisha Williams, American rector of Yale College (b. 1694)
October 28 – Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, French composer (b. 1689)
November 25 – Johann Georg Pisendel, German musician (b. 1687)
December 1 – Maurice Greene, English composer (b. 1696)
December 5 – William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire (b. 1698)
approximate date
Queen Nanny of the Maroons, Jamaican national heroine (b. 1686)
Cai Wan, politically influential Chinese poet (b. 1695)


January 21 – Russia and Persia sign the Treaty of Riascha at Resht. Based on the terms of the agreement, Russia will no longer establish claims over Persian territories.
February 9 – The Swedish East India Company begins its profitable first expedition to China, departing Gothenburg on the ship  Friedericus Rex Sueciae under the command of Colin Campbell.
February 14 – Henry Fielding's comedy The Modern Husband premieres at the Royal Theatre on Drury Lane in London.
February 25 – John Stackhouse is appointed by the British East India Company as the new  President of the Bengal Presidency and serves for seven years.
February 27 – Herat Campaign: general Nader Shah of Persia (now Iran) suppresses the rebellion by Zulfiqar Khan in the city of Herat in what is now Afghanistan.
March 19 – Chamaraja Wodeyar VII becomes the new Maharaja of the Kingdom of Mysore in Southern India, now the state of Karnataka and parts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
March 3 – English Captain Charles Gough rediscovers Gough Island in the South Atlantic.
March 30 – MPs John Birch and Denis Bond are expelled from the House of Commons of Great Britain after using their positions on the Commission for Forfeited Lands to make fraudulent sales.


Herman Boerhaave publishes the authorized edition of his Elementa chemiae, recognised as the first text on chemistry.
The world's first lightship is moored at the Nore, in the Thames Estuary of England.
This year's General Assembly of the Church of Scotland gives rise to the First Secession of 1733.


According to Hindu legends, Hanuman was born to mother Anjana and father Kesari. Hanuman is also called the son of the deity Vayu (Wind god) because of legends associated with Vayu's role in Hanuman's birth. One story mentioned in Eknath's Bhavartha Ramayana (16th century CE) states that when Anjana was worshiping Vayu, the King Dasharatha of Ayodhya was also performing the ritual of Putrakameshti yagna in order to have children. As a result, he received some sacred pudding (payasam) to be shared by his three wives, leading to the births of Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata and Shatrughna. By divine ordinance, a kite snatched a fragment of that pudding and dropped it while flying over the forest where Anjana was engaged in worship. Vayu, the Hindu deity of the wind, delivered the falling pudding to the outstretched hands of Anjana, who consumed it, leading to the birth of Hanuman.
Maharshi Veda Vyasa proposed Anjanadri Hill at Tirumala is the birthplace of Hanuman. Anjaneri in Nasik, Maharashtra along with Anjeneri Anjanadri (Near Hampi) in Gangavathi Taluk Koppal District, Karnataka is one of a number of places that claim to be the location of Kishkinda.


Hanuman is mentioned in both the Hindu epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata. A twentieth-century Jesuit missionary Camille Bulcke, in his Ramkatha: Utpatti Aur Vikas ("The tale of Rama: its origin and development"), proposed that Hanuman's worship had its basis in the cults of aboriginal tribes of Central India.
Hanuman is mentioned in the Puranas. Hanuman is mentioned as an avatar of Rudra in few medieval-era Sanskrit texts. Only Shiva Purana mentions Hanuman as an avatar of Shiva; all other Puranas and scriptures clearly mention him as an avatar of Vayu or spiritual son of Vayu or sometimes avatar of Rudra (which is also another name of Vayu). Author Devdutt Patnaik says, "In Vaishnava traditions, Hanuman is not related to Shiva. In Shaiva traditions, Hanuman is either Shiva's avatar or son". Indologist Philip Lutgendorf writes, "The later identification of Hanuman as one of the eleven rudras may reflect a Shaiva sectarian claim on an increasing popular god, it also suggests his kinship with, and hence potential control over, a class of awesome and ambivalent deities". Lutgendorf also writes, "Other skills in Hanuman's resume also seem to derive in part from his windy patrimony, reflecting Vayu's role in both body and cosmos".
Other mythologies, such as those found in South India, present Hanuman as a being who is the union of Shiva and Vishnu, or associated with the origin of Ayyappa. The 17th century Odia work Rasavinoda by Dinakrishnadasa goes on to mention that the three gods – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva – combined to take to the form of Hanuman.


From the confluence of the North and South Tyne at Warden Rock just to the north west of Hexham, the river enters the county of Tyne and Wear between Clara Vale (in the Borough of Gateshead on the south bank) and Tyne Riverside Country Park (in Newcastle upon Tyne on the north bank) and continues to divide Newcastle and Gateshead for 13 miles (21 km), in the course of which it flows under ten bridges. To the east of Gateshead and Newcastle, the Tyne divides Hebburn and Jarrow on the south bank from Walker and Wallsend on the north bank. The Tyne Tunnel runs under the river to link Jarrow and Wallsend. Finally the river flows between South Shields and Tynemouth into the North Sea.


The river is represented, and personified, in a sculpture unveiled in 1968 as part of the new Civic Centre (seat of Newcastle City Council). Sculpted by David Wynne, the massive bronze figure incorporates flowing water into its design.


The conservation of the Tyne has been handled by various bodies over the past 500 years. Conservation bodies have included: Newcastle Trinity House, and the Tyne Improvement Commission. The Tyne Improvement Commission conservation lasted from 1850 until 1968. The 1850–1950 era was the worst period for pollution of the river. The Tyne Improvement Commission laid the foundations for what has become the modern day Port of Tyne. Under the management of the Tyne Improvement Commissioners, over a period of the first 70 years the Tyne was deepened from 1.83 to 9.14 m (6 feet 0 inches to 30 feet 0 inches) and had 150 million tonnes dredged from it. Inside these 70 years, the two Tyne piers were built; Northumbrian, Tyne and Albert Docks were built, as well as the staithes at Whitehill and Dunston. This infrastructure enabled millions of tonnes of cargo to be handled by the Port by 1910.
The tidal river has been managed by the Port of Tyne Authority since 1968.


Dublin City Council is a unicameral assembly of 63 members elected every five years from local electoral areas. It is presided over by the Lord Mayor, who is elected for a yearly term and resides in Dublin's Mansion House. Council meetings occur at Dublin City Hall, while most of its administrative activities are based in the Civic Offices on Wood Quay. The party or coalition of parties with the majority of seats assigns committee members, introduces policies, and proposes the Lord Mayor. The Council passes an annual budget for spending on areas such as housing, traffic management, refuse, drainage, and planning. The Dublin City Manager is responsible for implementing City Council decisions but also has considerable executive power.


Dublin (/ˈdʌblɪn/; Irish: Baile Átha Cliath, [ˈbˠalʲə aːhə ˈclʲiə] or [ˌbʲlʲaː ˈclʲiə]) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. Situated on a bay on the east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster and the Eastern and Midland Region. It is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 census, it had an urban area population of 1,173,179, while the population of the traditional County Dublin as a whole was 1,347,359. The population of the Greater Dublin Area was 1,904,806.
There is archaeological debate regarding precisely where and when Dublin originated, with a settlement established by the Gaels during or before the 7th century CE, and a second, Viking, settlement, following. As the small Kingdom of Dublin, the city grew, and it became Ireland's principal settlement after the 12th century Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire and the sixth largest in Western Europe after the Acts of Union in 1800. Following independence in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, later renamed Ireland in 1937.
Dublin is a contemporary and historical centre for Irish education, arts and culture, administration and industry. As of 2018 the city was listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) as a global city, with a ranking of "Alpha minus", which places it as one of the top thirty cities in the world.


Birkholz is a village and a former municipality in the district of Stendal, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 31 May 2010, it is part of the town Tangerhütte.


According to Walter Burkert, both Hera and Demeter have many characteristic attributes of Pre-Greek Great Goddesses.
In the same vein, British scholar Charles Francis Keary suggests that Hera had some sort of "Earth Goddess" worship in ancient times, connected to her possible origin as a Pelasgian goddess (as mentioned by Herodotus).
According to Homeric Hymn II to Delian Apollo, Hera detained Eileithyia to prevent Leto from going into labor with Artemis and Apollo, since the father was Zeus. The other goddesses present at the birthing on Delos sent Iris to bring her. As she stepped upon the island, the divine birth began. In the myth of the birth of Heracles, it is Hera herself who sits at the door, delaying the birth of Heracles until her protégé, Eurystheus, had been born first.
The Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo makes the monster Typhaon the offspring of archaic Hera in her Minoan form, produced out of herself, like a monstrous version of Hephaestus, and whelped in a cave in Cilicia. She gave the creature to Python to raise.
In the Temple of Hera, Olympia, Hera's seated cult figure was older than the warrior figure of Zeus that accompanied it. Homer expressed her relationship with Zeus delicately in the Iliad, in which she declares to Zeus, "I am Cronus' eldest daughter, and am honourable not on this ground only, but also because I am your wife, and you are king of the gods."


The name of Hera has several possible and mutually exclusive etymologies; one possibility is to connect it with Greek ὥρα hōra, season, and to interpret it as ripe for marriage and according to Plato ἐρατή eratē, "beloved" as Zeus is said to have married her for love. According to Plutarch, Hera was an allegorical name and an anagram of aēr (ἀήρ, "air"). So begins the section on Hera in Walter Burkert's Greek Religion. In a note, he records other scholars' arguments "for the meaning Mistress as a feminine to Heros, Master." John Chadwick, a decipherer of Linear B, remarks "her name may be connected with hērōs, ἥρως, 'hero', but that is no help since it too is etymologically obscure." A. J. van Windekens, offers "young cow, heifer", which is consonant with Hera's common epithet βοῶπις (boōpis, "cow-eyed"). R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin. Her name is attested in Mycenaean Greek written in the Linear B syllabic script as 𐀁𐀨 e-ra, appearing on tablets found in Pylos and Thebes, as well in the Cypriotic dialect in the dative e-ra-i.


1624 (MDCXXIV) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar, the 1624th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 624th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 24th  year of the 17th century, and the  5th   year of the 1620s decade. As of the start of 1624, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


Warhol had a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1971. His famous portrait of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong was created in 1973. In 1975, he published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975). An idea expressed in the book: "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art."
Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the 1970s were a much quieter decade, as he became more entrepreneurial. He socialized at various nightspots in New York City, including Max's Kansas City and, later in the 1970s, Studio 54. He was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square".
In 1977, Warhol was commissioned by art collector Richard Weisman to create Athletes, ten portraits consisting of the leading athletes of the day.
According to Bob Colacello, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions—including Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, his wife Empress Farah Pahlavi, his sister Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross, and Brigitte Bardot. In 1979, reviewers disliked his exhibits of portraits of 1970s personalities and celebrities, calling them superficial, facile and commercial, with no depth or indication of the significance of the subjects.
In 1979, Warhol and his longtime friend Stuart Pivar founded the New York Academy of Art.


Warhol died in Manhattan at 6:32 a.m. on February 22, 1987, at age 58. According to news reports, he had been making a good recovery from gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden post-operative irregular heartbeat. Prior to his diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked, as he was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors. His family sued the hospital for inadequate care, saying that the arrhythmia was caused by improper care and water intoxication. The malpractice case was quickly settled out of court; Warhol's family received an undisclosed sum of money.
Shortly before Warhol's death, doctors expected Warhol to survive the surgery, though a re-evaluation of the case about thirty years after his death showed many indications that Warhol's surgery was in fact riskier than originally thought. It was widely reported at the time that Warhol had died of a "routine" surgery, though when considering factors such as his age, a family history of gallbladder problems, his previous gunshot wound, and his medical state in the weeks leading up to the procedure, the potential risk of death following the surgery appeared to have been significant.
Warhol's brothers took his body back to Pittsburgh, where an open-coffin wake was held at the Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home. The solid bronze casket had gold-plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol was dressed in a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, a platinum wig, and sunglasses. He was laid out holding a small prayer book and a red rose. The funeral liturgy was held at the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church on Pittsburgh's North Side on February 27, 1987. The eulogy was given by Monsignor Peter Tay. Yoko Ono and John Richardson were speakers. The coffin was covered with white roses and asparagus ferns. After the liturgy, the coffin was driven to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh, where Warhol was buried near his parents. The priest said a brief prayer at the graveside and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the coffin was lowered, Warhol's close friend and associate publisher of Interview, Paige Powell, dropped a copy of the magazine and a bottle of Beautiful Eau de Parfum by Estée Lauder into the grave. A memorial service was held in Manhattan for Warhol at St. Patrick's Cathedral on April 1, 1987.


The exact sequence that led to the mutilation of his ear are not known. Gauguin said, fifteen years later, that the night followed several instances of physically threatening behaviour. Their relationship was complex and Theo may have owed money to Gauguin, who suspected the brothers were exploiting him financially. It seems likely that Vincent realised that Gauguin was planning to leave. The following days saw heavy rain, leading to the two men being shut in the Yellow House. Gauguin recalled that Van Gogh followed him after he left for a walk and "rushed towards me, an open razor in his hand." This account is uncorroborated; Gauguin was almost certainly absent from the Yellow House that night, most likely staying in a hotel.
After an altercation on the evening of 23 December 1888, Van Gogh returned to his room where he seemingly heard voices and either wholly or in part severed his left ear with a razor causing severe bleeding. He bandaged the wound, wrapped the ear in paper and delivered the package to a woman at a brothel Van Gogh and Gauguin both frequented. Van Gogh was found unconscious the next morning by a policeman and taken to hospital, where he was treated by Félix Rey, a young doctor still in training. The ear was brought to the hospital, but Rey did not attempt to reattach it as too much time had passed. Van Gogh researcher and art historian Bernadette Murphy discovered the true identity of the woman named Gabrielle, who died in Arles at the age of 80 in 1952, and whose descendants still live just outside Arles. Gabrielle, known in her youth as "Gaby," was a 17-year-old cleaning girl at the brothel and other local establishments at the time Van Gogh presented her with his ear.
Van Gogh had no recollection of the event, suggesting that he may have suffered an acute mental breakdown. The hospital diagnosis was "acute mania with generalised delirium", and within a few days, the local police ordered that he be placed in hospital care. Gauguin immediately notified Theo, who, on 24 December, had proposed marriage to his old friend Andries Bonger's sister Johanna. That evening, Theo rushed to the station to board a night train to Arles. He arrived on Christmas Day and comforted Vincent, who seemed to be semi-lucid. That evening, he left Arles for the return trip to Paris.
During the first days of his treatment, Van Gogh repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked for Gauguin, who asked a policeman attending the case to "be kind enough, Monsieur, to awaken this man with great care, and if he asks for me tell him I have left for Paris; the sight of me might prove fatal for him." Gauguin fled Arles, never to see Van Gogh again. They continued to correspond, and in 1890, Gauguin proposed they form a studio in Antwerp. Meanwhile, other visitors to the hospital included Marie Ginoux and Roulin.
Despite a pessimistic diagnosis, Van Gogh recovered and returned to the Yellow House on 7 January 1889. He spent the following month between hospital and home, suffering from hallucinations and delusions of poisoning. In March, the police closed his house after a petition by 30 townspeople (including the Ginoux family) who described him as "le fou roux" (the redheaded madman); Van Gogh returned to hospital. Paul Signac visited him twice in March; in April Van Gogh moved into rooms owned by Dr Rey after floods damaged paintings in his own home. Two months later, he left Arles and voluntarily entered an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Around this time, he wrote, "Sometimes moods of indescribable anguish, sometimes moments when the veil of time and fatality of circumstances seemed to be torn apart for an instant."
Van Gogh gave his 1889 Portrait of Doctor Félix Rey to Dr Rey. The physician was not fond of the painting and used it to repair a chicken coop, then gave it away. In 2016, the portrait was housed at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and estimated to be worth over $50 million.


Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853 in Groot-Zundert, in the predominantly Catholic province of North Brabant in the Netherlands. He was the oldest surviving child of Theodorus van Gogh (1822–1885), a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, and his wife, Anna Cornelia Carbentus (1819–1907). Van Gogh was given the name of his grandfather and of a brother stillborn exactly a year before his birth. Vincent was a common name in the Van Gogh family. The name had been borne by his grandfather, the prominent art dealer Vincent (1789–1874), and a theology graduate at the University of Leiden in 1811. This Vincent had six sons, three of whom became art dealers, and may have been named after his own great-uncle, a sculptor (1729–1802).
Van Gogh's mother came from a prosperous family in The Hague, and his father was the youngest son of a minister. The two met when Anna's younger sister, Cornelia, married Theodorus's older brother Vincent (Cent). Van Gogh's parents married in May 1851, and moved to Zundert. His brother Theo was born on 1 May 1857. There was another brother, Cor, and three sisters: Elisabeth, Anna, and Willemina (known as "Wil"). In later life, Van Gogh remained in touch only with Willemina and Theo. Van Gogh's mother was a rigid and religious woman who emphasised the importance of family to the point of claustrophobia for those around her. Theodorus's salary was modest, but the Church supplied the family with a house, a maid, two cooks, a gardener, a carriage and horse, and Anna instilled in the children a duty to uphold the family's high social position.
Van Gogh was a serious and thoughtful child. He was taught at home by his mother and a governess, and in 1860, was sent to the village school. In 1864, he was placed in a boarding school at Zevenbergen, where he felt abandoned, and he campaigned to come home. Instead, in 1866, his parents sent him to the middle school in Tilburg, where he was deeply unhappy. His interest in art began at a young age. He was encouraged to draw as a child by his mother, and his early drawings are expressive, but do not approach the intensity of his later work. Constant Cornelis Huijsmans, who had been a successful artist in Paris, taught the students at Tilburg. His philosophy was to reject technique in favour of capturing the impressions of things, particularly nature or common objects. Van Gogh's profound unhappiness seems to have overshadowed the lessons, which had little effect. In March 1868, he abruptly returned home. He later wrote that his youth was "austere and cold, and sterile".
In July 1869, Van Gogh's uncle Cent obtained a position for him at the art dealers Goupil & Cie in The Hague. After completing his training in 1873, he was transferred to Goupil's London branch on Southampton Street, and took lodgings at 87 Hackford Road, Stockwell. This was a happy time for Van Gogh; he was successful at work and, at 20, was earning more than his father. Theo's wife later remarked that this was the best year of Vincent's life. He became infatuated with his landlady's daughter, Eugénie Loyer, but was rejected after confessing his feelings; she was secretly engaged to a former lodger. He grew more isolated and religiously fervent. His father and uncle arranged a transfer to Paris in 1875, where he became resentful of issues such as the degree to which the firm commodified art, and he was dismissed a year later.
In April 1876, he returned to England to take unpaid work as a supply teacher in a small boarding school in Ramsgate. When the proprietor moved to Isleworth in Middlesex, Van Gogh went with him. The arrangement did not work out, and he left to become a Methodist minister's assistant. His parents had meanwhile moved to Etten; in 1876 he returned home at Christmas for six months and took work at a bookshop in Dordrecht. He was unhappy in the position and spent his time doodling or translating passages from the Bible into English, French and German. He immersed himself in religion, and became increasingly pious and monastic. According to his flatmate of the time, Paulus van Görlitz, Van Gogh ate frugally, avoiding meat.
To support his religious conviction and his desire to become a pastor, in 1877, the family sent him to live with his uncle Johannes Stricker, a respected theologian, in Amsterdam. Van Gogh prepared for the University of Amsterdam theology entrance examination; he failed the exam and left his uncle's house in July 1878. He undertook, but also failed, a three-month course at a Protestant missionary school in Laken, near Brussels.
In January 1879, he took up a post as a missionary at Petit-Wasmes in the coal-mining district of Borinage in Belgium. To show support for his impoverished congregation, he gave up his comfortable lodgings at a bakery to a homeless person and moved to a small hut, where he slept on straw. His squalid living conditions did not endear him to church authorities, who dismissed him for "undermining the dignity of the priesthood". He then walked the 75 kilometres (47 mi) to Brussels, returned briefly to Cuesmes in the Borinage, but gave in to pressure from his parents to return home to Etten. He stayed there until around March 1880, which caused concern and frustration for his parents. His father was especially frustrated and advised that his son be committed to the lunatic asylum Geel.
Van Gogh returned to Cuesmes in August 1880, where he lodged with a miner until October. He became interested in the people and scenes around him, and he recorded them in drawings after Theo's suggestion that he take up art in earnest. He traveled to Brussels later in the year, to follow Theo's recommendation that he study with the Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, who persuaded him – in spite of his dislike of formal schools of art – to attend the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. He registered at the Académie in November 1880, where he studied anatomy and the standard rules of modelling and perspective.


Van Gogh returned to Etten in April 1881 for an extended stay with his parents. He continued to draw, often using his neighbours as subjects. In August 1881, his recently widowed cousin, Cornelia "Kee" Vos-Stricker, daughter of his mother's older sister Willemina and Johannes Stricker, arrived for a visit. He was thrilled and took long walks with her. Kee was seven years older than he was and had an eight-year-old son. Van Gogh surprised everyone by declaring his love to her and proposing marriage. She refused with the words "No, nay, never" ("nooit, neen, nimmer"). After Kee returned to Amsterdam, Van Gogh went to The Hague to try to sell paintings and to meet with his second cousin, Anton Mauve. Mauve was the successful artist Van Gogh longed to be. Mauve invited him to return in a few months and suggested he spend the intervening time working in charcoal and pastels; Van Gogh returned to Etten and followed this advice.
Late in November 1881, Van Gogh wrote a letter to Johannes Stricker, one which he described to Theo as an attack. Within days he left for Amsterdam. Kee would not meet him, and her parents wrote that his "persistence is disgusting". In despair, he held his left hand in the flame of a lamp, with the words: "Let me see her for as long as I can keep my hand in the flame." He did not recall the event well, but later assumed that his uncle had blown out the flame. Kee's father made it clear that her refusal should be heeded and that the two would not marry, largely because of Van Gogh's inability to support himself.
Mauve took Van Gogh on as a student and introduced him to watercolour, which he worked on for the next month before returning home for Christmas. He quarrelled with his father, refusing to attend church, and left for The Hague. In January 1882, Mauve introduced him to painting in oil and lent him money to set up a studio. Within a month Van Gogh and Mauve fell out, possibly over the viability of drawing from plaster casts. Van Gogh could afford to hire only people from the street as models, a practice of which Mauve seems to have disapproved. In June Van Gogh suffered a bout of gonorrhoea and spent three weeks in hospital. Soon after, he first painted in oils, bought with money borrowed from Theo. He liked the medium, and he spread the paint liberally, scraping from the canvas and working back with the brush. He wrote that he was surprised at how good the results were.
By March 1882, Mauve appeared to have gone cold towards Van Gogh, and he stopped replying to his letters. He had learned of Van Gogh's new domestic arrangement with an alcoholic prostitute, Clasina Maria "Sien" Hoornik (1850–1904), and her young daughter. Van Gogh had met Sien towards the end of January 1882, when she had a five-year-old daughter and was pregnant. She had previously borne two children who died, but Van Gogh was unaware of this. On 2 July, she gave birth to a baby boy, Willem. When Van Gogh's father discovered the details of their relationship, he put pressure on his son to abandon Sien and her two children. Vincent at first defied him, and considered moving the family out of the city, but in late 1883, he left Sien and the children.
Poverty may have pushed Sien back into prostitution; the home became less happy and Van Gogh may have felt family life was irreconcilable with his artistic development. Sien gave her daughter to her mother and baby Willem to her brother. Willem remembered visiting Rotterdam when he was about 12, when an uncle tried to persuade Sien to marry to legitimise the child. He believed Van Gogh was his father, but the timing of his birth makes this unlikely. Sien drowned herself in the River Scheldt in 1904.
In September 1883, Van Gogh moved to Drenthe in the northern Netherlands. In December driven by loneliness, he went to live with his parents, then in Nuenen, North Brabant.


Vincent Willem van Gogh (Dutch: [ˈvɪnsɛnt ˈʋɪləɱ vɑŋ ˈɣɔx] (listen); 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He was not commercially successful and, struggling with severe depression and poverty, committed suicide at the age of 37.
Van Gogh was born into an upper-middle-class family. As a child he was serious, quiet and thoughtful. He began drawing at an early age and as a young man  worked as an art dealer, often traveling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion and spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium. He drifted in ill health and solitude before taking up painting in 1881, having returned home to his parents. His younger brother Theo supported him financially; the two kept a long correspondence by letter.
His early works, mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers, contain few signs of the vivid colour that distinguished his later work. In 1886, he moved to Paris where he met members of the avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were reacting against the Impressionist sensibility. As his work developed he created a new approach to still life and  landscape. His paintings grew brighter as he developed a style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in the South of France in 1888. During this period he broadened his subject matter to include series of olive trees, wheat fields and sunflowers.
Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions and though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly and drank heavily. His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation between the two when, in a rage, Van Gogh severed a part of his own left ear with a razor. After, he spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a period at Saint-Rémy. After he discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, he came under the care of the homeopathic doctor Paul Gachet. His depression persisted and on 27 July 1890, Van Gogh is believed to have shot himself in the chest with a revolver, dying from his injuries two days later.
Van Gogh's paintings did not sell during his lifetime, during which he was generally considered a madman and a failure, although some collectors recognised the value of his work and his work became more appreciated during the last two years of his life. His fame came mostly after his death, when he evolved in the public imagination into a misunderstood genius. His reputation grew in the early 20th century as elements of his style came to be incorporated by the Fauves and German Expressionists. He attained widespread critical and commercial success over the ensuing decades, and is remembered as an important but tragic painter whose troubled personality typifies the romantic ideal of the tortured artist.
Today, Van Gogh's works are among the world's most expensive paintings to have ever sold, and his legacy is honoured by a museum in his name, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which holds the world's largest collection of his paintings and drawings.


The Bronze Age is a historic period, approximately 3300 BC to 1200 BC, that was characterized by the use of bronze, in some areas writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age system, as proposed in 1836 by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, for classifying and studying ancient societies and history.
An ancient civilization is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age because it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Bronze was harder and more durable than other metals available at the time, allowing Bronze Age civilizations to gain a technological advantage.
While terrestrial iron is naturally abundant, the higher temperature required for smelting, 1,250 °C (2,280 °F), in addition to the greater difficulty of working with the metal, placed it out of reach of common use until the end of the second millennium BC. Tin's low melting point of 231.9 °C (449.4 °F) and copper's relatively moderate melting point of 1,085 °C (1,985 °F) placed them within the capabilities of the Neolithic pottery kilns, which date back to 6,000 BC and were able to produce temperatures greater than 900 °C (1,650 °F). Copper and tin ores are rare, since there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the 3rd millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition.
Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of writing. According to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia (cuneiform script) and Egypt (hieroglyphs) developed the earliest practical writing systems.


In Ancient Egypt, the Bronze Age begins in the Protodynastic period, c. 3150 BC. The archaic Early Bronze Age of Egypt, known as the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt, immediately follows the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt, c. 3100 BC. It is generally taken to include the First and Second Dynasties, lasting from the Protodynastic Period of Egypt until about 2686 BC, or the beginning of the Old Kingdom. With the First Dynasty, the capital moved from Abydos to Memphis with a unified Egypt ruled by an Egyptian god-king. Abydos remained the major holy land in the south. The hallmarks of ancient Egyptian civilization, such as art, architecture and many aspects of religion, took shape during the Early Dynastic Period. Memphis in the Early Bronze Age was the largest city of the time.
The Old Kingdom of the regional Bronze Age is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley (the others being Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom).
The First Intermediate Period of Egypt, often described as a "dark period" in ancient Egyptian history, spanned about 100 years after the end of the Old Kingdom from about 2181 to 2055 BC. Very little monumental evidence survives from this period, especially from the early part of it. The First Intermediate Period was a dynamic time when the rule of Egypt was roughly divided between two competing for power bases: Heracleopolis in Lower Egypt and Thebes in Upper Egypt. These two kingdoms would eventually come into conflict, with the Theban kings conquering the north, resulting in the reunification of Egypt under a single ruler during the second part of the 11th Dynasty.


The overall period is characterized by the widespread use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction and development of bronze technology were not universally synchronous. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques. Tin must be mined (mainly as the tin ore cassiterite) and smelted separately, then added to hot copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of extensive use of metals and of developing trade networks (See Tin sources and trade in ancient times). A 2013 report suggests that the earliest tin-alloy bronze dates to the mid-5th millennium BC in a Vinča culture site in Pločnik (Serbia), although this culture is not conventionally considered part of the Bronze Age. The dating of the foil has been disputed.