Portal:United Kingdom/Featured article
Featured articles
These are
featured articles related to the United Kingdom which appear on Portal:United Kingdom
.
Biographical articles are at Portal:United Kingdom/Featured biography.
For a full list of UK related FAs sorted by topic see Portal:United Kingdom/Featured article/List.
school of British history painting. Boydell planned to focus on an illustrated edition of William Shakespeare's plays and a folio of prints, but during the 1790s the London gallery that showed the original paintings emerged as the project's most popular element. Boydell decided to publish a grand illustrated edition of Shakespeare's plays that would showcase the talents of British painters and engravers. He chose the noted scholar and Shakespeare editor George Steevens to oversee the edition, which was released between 1791 and 1803. The press reported weekly on the building of Boydell's gallery, designed by George Dance the Younger, on a site in Pall Mall. Boydell commissioned works from famous painters of the day, such as Joshua Reynolds, and the folio of engravings proved the enterprise's most lasting legacy. However, the long delay in publishing the prints and the illustrated edition prompted criticism. Because they were hurried, and many illustrations had to be done by lesser artists, the final products of Boydell's venture were judged to be disappointing. The project caused the Boydell firm to become insolvent, and they were forced to sell the gallery at a lottery. (Full article...
) 
Tudor mansion in Bramhall, within the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. Dating to Saxon times, the manor of Bramall was first described in the Domesday Book in 1086. It was first held by the Masseys, then from the late 14th century by the Davenports, a wealthy family and a significant landowner in the north-west of England. The Davenports built the present house, and remained lords of the manor for about 500 years before selling the house to the Nevill family. It was subsequently purchased by John Henry Davies, and then acquired by the local council. Bramall Hall is owned by the Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, who describe it as "the most prestigious and historically significant building in the Conservation Area". It is a timber-framed manor house surrounded by 70 acres (28 ha) of landscaped parkland featuring lakes, woodland, and gardens; its oak timber framing was originally infilled by wattle and daub. The oldest parts of the house date from the 14th century, with later additions from the 16th and 19th centuries. The house and grounds are open to the public, and the house functions as a museum where special events are held throughout the year. (Full article...
) .jpg)
city centre suffered from extensive bombing during the Bristol Blitz. The redevelopment of shopping centres, office buildings, and the harbourside continues to this day. (Full article...
) 
postal service. The building also houses the archives of the London Borough of Haringey. Since 1892 the grounds have been a public park, Tottenham's oldest. The building was Grade I listed in 1949 and the 17th-century southern and western boundary walls of the park were Grade II listed in 1974. In 1969, the castle additionally became home to the regimental museum of the Middlesex Regiment. (Full article...
) 
The Mall, and the removal of the former state entrance, Marble Arch, to its present position near Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. (continued...)
National Gallery since 1863 and is still regarded as a masterpiece of British art. The painting depicts a natural philosopher, a forerunner of the modern scientist, recreating one of Robert Boyle's air pump experiments, in which a bird is deprived of oxygen, before a varied group of onlookers. The group exhibit different reactions, but for most scientific curiosity overcomes concern for the bird. The central figure looks out of the picture as if inviting the viewer's participation in the outcome. (Full article...
) 
Freemason staggering home from a night of celebration . (Full article...
) 
estate, formerly known as Neals, had been purchased by Sir Edward Coke, the founder of the family fortune, in 1609. It remains today the ancestral home of the Coke family, the Earls of Leicester of Holkham.
freeze-drying and is on permanent display at the British Museum, although it occasionally travels to other venues such as Manchester Museum. (Full article...
) 
Scheduled Ancient Monument and is maintained by English Heritage. (Full article...
) 
King Henry VIII in the first half of the 16th century. During four decades of service in wars against France, Scotland and Brittany, she was one of the largest ships in the English navy and one of the earliest ships specially built for warfare. The Mary Rose is well-known today due to the fact that she sank intact on 19 July 1545 in the battle of the Solent north of the Isle of Wight, while leading an attack on French galleys. The wreck of the Mary Rose was rediscovered in 1971 and salvaged in October 1982 by the Mary Rose Trust in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology. Though much of the ship has deteriorated, the surviving section of the hull, with thousands of artefacts, is of immeasurable value as a time capsule of the Tudor period. The excavation and salvage of the Mary Rose has since become a milestone in the field of maritime archaeology, comparable only to the raising of the Swedish 17th-century warship Vasa in 1961. The finds include weapons, sailing equipment, naval supplies and a wide array of objects used by the crew, providing detailed knowledge of the era in which the ship was built, in peacetime as in war. Many of the artefacts are unique to the Mary Rose and have provided insights into topics ranging from naval warfare to the history of musical instruments. While undergoing conservation, the remains of the hull and many of its related artefacts have been on display since the mid-1980s in the Mary Rose Museum in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. (Full article...
) 
statue of Saint Christopher. The site, including a museum, the excavated ruins, and the surrounding garden and woodland, was opened to the public in the 1970s. In 1984, a redesigned walled garden was also opened. Norton Priory is now a visitor attraction, and the museum trust organises a programme of events, exhibitions, educational courses, and outreach projects. (Full article...
) 
Members of the Scottish Parliament held their first debate in the new building on Tuesday, 7 September 2004. The formal opening by Queen Elizabeth II took place on 9 October 2004. Enric Miralles, the Catalan architect who designed the building, died during the course of its construction. From the outset, the building and its construction have proven to be highly controversial. The choices of location, architect, design and construction company were all criticised by politicians, the media and the Scottish public. Scheduled to open in 2001, it did so in 2004, more than three years late with an estimated final cost of £414m, substantially higher than initial costings of between £10m and £40m. A major public inquiry into the handling of the construction, chaired by the former Lord Advocate, Peter Fraser, was established in 2003. The inquiry concluded in September 2004 and criticised the management of the whole project from the realisation of cost increases down to the way in which major design changes were implemented. Despite these criticisms and a mixed public reaction, the building was welcomed by architectural academics and critics. (Full article...
) fibre board, and was completed within the space of two weeks. The work summarizes themes explored in Bacon's previous paintings, including his examination of Picasso's biomorphs, and his interpretations of the Crucifixion and the Greek Furies. Bacon did not realize his intention to paint a large crucifixion scene and place the figures at the foot of the cross. The Three Studies triptych is generally considered Bacon's first mature piece; he regarded his works before the triptych as irrelevant, and throughout his life he tried to suppress their appearance in the art market. When the painting was first exhibited in 1945, it caused a sensation, and helped to establish him as one of England's foremost post-war painters. Commenting on the cultural significance of Three Studies, the critic John Russell observed in 1971 that "there was painting in England before the Three Studies, and painting after them, and no one ... can confuse the two." (Full article...
) 
Elizabeth I before she became queen, were held within its walls. Today the Tower of London is a popular tourist attraction. It is cared for by the charity Historic Royal Palaces and is protected as a World Heritage Site. (Full article...
) Francis Bacon. The oil-on-canvas work was painted in memory of Bacon's lover George Dyer, who committed suicide on the eve of the artist's retrospective at Paris's Grand Palais in October 1971. The triptych is a portrait of the moments before Dyer's death. Bacon was preoccupied by Dyer's suicide in his last twenty years, during which time he painted a number of similarly themed works. He admitted to friends that he never fully recovered from the event, and described painting the triptych as an exorcism of his feelings of loss and guilt. The work is stylistically more static and monumental than Bacon's earlier triptychs. It has been described as one of his "supreme achievements", and is generally viewed as his most intense and tragic canvas. Of the three "Black Triptychs" that Bacon created to confront Dyer's death, Triptych, May–June 1973 is generally regarded as the most accomplished. In 2006, The Daily Telegraph's art critic Sarah Crompton wrote that "emotion seeps into each panel of this giant canvas…the sheer power and control of Bacon's brushwork take the breath away". In 1989, the work sold at Sotheby's for US$6,270,000, the highest price then paid for a Bacon work. (Full article...
) 
Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade I listed building. The castle is a popular tourist attraction and features one of the world's largest siege engines. (Full article...
) .png)
National Trust in 1943 by Sir John Dashwood, 10th Baronet, an action strongly resented by his heir. Dashwood retained ownership of the contents of the house, much of which he sold; after his death, the house was restored at the expense of his son, Sir Francis Dashwood. Today, while the structure is owned by the National Trust, the house is the home of Sir Edward Dashwood and his family. The house is open to the public during the summer months and a venue for civil weddings and corporate entertainment, which help to fund its maintenance and upkeep. (Full article...
) 
British honours system, after Order of the Garter, Order of the Thistle, and Order of St Patrick. The last of the aforementioned Orders—which relates to Ireland, which, except for Northern Ireland, is no longer a part of the United Kingdom—still exists but is in disuse; no appointments have been made to it since 1934. (Full article...
) 
Sovereign and not more than twenty-five full members. Male members are known as Knights Companion, whilst female members are known as Ladies Companion. The Sovereign alone grants membership of the Order; the Prime Minister does not tender binding advice as to appointments, as is done for most other orders. (Full article...
) 
Edward VII. Their whereabouts remain a mystery. (continued...
) 
St Andrew. Most British orders of chivalry cover the entire kingdom, but the three most exalted ones each pertain to one constituent country only. The Order of the Thistle, which pertains to Scotland, is the second-most senior in precedence. (Full article...
) The
Lord Ashcroft, which contains over one-tenth of the total VCs awarded. (Full article...
) 
scientific naturalism. Within two decades there was widespread scientific agreement that evolution had occurred, but until the modern synthesis of the 20th century there was much less agreement on the significance of natural selection. (Full article...
) 
marine life, threaten much of the fauna of Scotland. (Full article...
) 
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, there has been a resurgence in interest, and population numbers are increasing. As well as being used for farm work, the breed pulled artillery and non-motorised commercial vans and buses. It was also exported to other countries to upgrade local equine stock. (Full article...
) 
F-35 Lightning II, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Royal Navy Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. The company has been the subject of criticism, both general opposition to the arms trade and also specific allegations of unethical and corrupt practices, including the Al-Yamama contracts with Saudi Arabia that have earned BAE and its predecessor £43 billion in twenty years. (Full article...
) 
John, his brother and successor, in 1200; and John's son, Henry III, in 1217, 1220, and 1224, after which it was replaced by taxes on income and personal property. The taxable value of an estate was initially assessed from the Domesday Survey, but other methods were later employed, such as valuations based on the sworn testimony of neighbours or on the number of plough-teams the taxpayer used. Carucage never raised as much as other taxes, but nevertheless helped to fund several projects dear to the kings' hearts. It paid the ransom for Richard's release in 1194, after he was taken prisoner by Leopold V, Duke of Austria; it covered the tax John had to pay Philip II of France in 1200 on land he inherited in that country; and it helped to finance Henry III's military campaigns in England and on the European continent. Carucage was an attempt to secure new sources of revenue to supplement and increase royal income in a time when new demands were being made on royal finances. (Full article...
) 
Bethesda, the Dinorwig Quarry near Llanberis, the Nantlle Valley quarries and Blaenau Ffestiniog, where the slate was mined rather than quarried. Penrhyn and Dinorwig were the two largest slate quarries in the world, and the Oakeley mine at Blaenau Ffestiniog was the largest slate mine in the world. The Great Depression and the Second World War led to the closure of many smaller quarries, and competition from other roofing materials, particularly tiles, resulted in the closure of most of the larger quarries in the 1960s and 1970s. Slate production continues on a much reduced scale. (Full article...
) The
accountancy and law firms and by banks have threatened the tax base. The British government has responded to the last two by introducing ever more complex legislation to counter the threats. (Full article...
) The
Frederic C. Williams and Tom Kilburn, concluded from their experiences with the Mark 1 that computers would be used more in scientific roles than in pure mathematics. (Full article...
) 
Full article...
) ,_-_Vanity_fair_nov_19_1887.jpg)
libel. The British press never named Prince Albert Victor, and there is no evidence he ever visited the brothel, but his inclusion in the rumours has coloured biographers' perceptions of him since. The scandal fuelled the attitude that male homosexuality was an aristocratic vice that corrupted lower-class youths. (Full article...
) 
Anglicans, and was reported on by celebrities of the period such as Samuel Johnson. Charles Dickens referred to the phenomenon in several of his books, including Nicholas Nickleby and A Tale of Two Cities, and other Victorian authors also alluded to it in their work. One enterprising resident diverted the crowds that gathered in Cock Lane by allowing them to converse with a ghost he claimed was haunting his home, to which he charged an entrance fee. Fanny scratching eventually resulted in several prosecutions, and the pillorying of a father. (Full article...
) 
grope" and "cunt". Streets with that name were often in the busiest parts of medieval towns and cities, and at least one appears to have been an important thoroughfare. Variations include Gropecunte, Gropecountelane, Gropecontelane, Groppecountelane, and Gropekuntelane. Although the name was once common throughout England, changes in attitude resulted in it being replaced by more innocuous versions such as Grape Lane. Gropecunt was last recorded as a street name in 1561. (Full article...
) 
multiple works of fiction. (Full article...
) 
Full article...
) 
Metropolitan Police Service, City of London Police, and private organisations such as the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee were involved in the search for the killer or killers. Despite extensive inquiries and several arrests, the culprit or culprits evaded identification and capture. The murders drew attention to the poor living conditions in the East End slums, which were subsequently improved. The enduring mystery of who committed the crimes has captured the imagination of writers to the present day. (Full article...
) 
.jpg)
educational reformers on many issues, such as the damaging effects of rote learning and the irrationalism of fairy tales. The Guardian of Education was the first periodical to review children's books seriously and with a distinctive set of criteria. Trimmer's reviews were carefully thought out; they influenced publishers and authors to alter the content of their books, helped to define the new genre of children's literature, and greatly affected the sales of children's books. (Full article...
) 
Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills inspection in 2007 graded The Judd School as "outstanding", and in 2009, The Sunday Times newspaper ranked The Judd School as the 27th best state secondary school in the country. The Judd School is a music, English, science and mathematics specialist school. (Full article...
) 
Full article...
) 
eighteenth-century British conduct book drew on several literary traditions, such as advice manuals and religious narratives. There was an explosion in the number of conduct books published during the second half of the eighteenth century, and Wollstonecraft took advantage of this burgeoning market when she published Thoughts. However, the book was only moderately successful: it was favourably reviewed, but only by one journal and it was reprinted only once. Although it was excerpted in popular magazines of the time, it was not republished until the rise of feminist literary criticism in the 1970s. The book encourages mothers to teach their daughters analytical thinking, self-discipline, honesty, contentment in their social position, and marketable skills (in case they should ever need to support themselves). (Full article...
) 
biofuels. Although the finances of many projects remain either speculative or dependent on subsidies, it is probable that there has been a significant, and in all likelihood long-term, change in the underpinning economics. (Full article...
) 
Packard V-1650 was a version of the Merlin built in the United States. Production ceased in 1950 after a total of almost 150,000 engines had been delivered, the later variants being used for airliners and military transport aircraft. In military use the Merlin was superseded by its larger capacity stablemate, the Rolls-Royce Griffon. Merlin engines remain in Royal Air Force service today with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, and power many restored aircraft in private ownership worldwide. (Full article...
) .JPG)
MWh per annum, enough to serve the average needs of 40,000 homes. The site occupies 1,347 acres (545 ha) of open moorland between Edenfield, Rawtenstall and Rochdale, and is split between the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale in northern Greater Manchester and the Borough of Rossendale in south-eastern Lancashire. The turbines are visible from as far away as south Manchester, 15–20 miles (24–32 km) away. A protest group formed to resist the proposed construction, and attracted support from botanist and environmental campaigner David Bellamy. Despite the opposition, planning permission was granted in 2005, and construction began in 2007. Although work on the project was hampered by harsh weather, difficult terrain and previous mining activity, the wind farm was officially opened on 25 September 2008 after "years of controversy", at a cost of £50 million. (Full article...
) 
.38/200 Webley Mk IV variant is still sporadically in use as a police sidearm in a number of countries. (Full article...
) 
The Royal Crescent. The city has a population of over 90,000 and is a World Heritage Site. (Full article...
) 
Yeo Valley and eastern Mendip Hills respectively. (Full article...
) 
habitats and include some of the less common plants and insects. Some restricted use for recreational activities is permitted by the owners, including Dinghy sailing and fishing, primarily for trout. (Full article...
) 
Olympic Park mean that the East End is undergoing further change, but some of its parts continue to contain some of the worst poverty in Britain. (Full article...
) 
Environmentally Sensitive Area. (Full article...
) 
conferences. (Full article...
) 
2012 Olympic Games. (Full article...
) 
Manchester City Centre is now on a tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, mainly due to the network of canals and mills constructed during its 19th-century development. (Full article...
) 
hillwalkers and those interested in natural history. (Full article...
) 
rural, covering more than 2,100 acres (8.5 km2). It straddles Ermine Street, a Roman road built between 45 and 75 AD, which runs between London and York. The Viking Way, a 147-mile (237 km) footpath between the Humber Bridge in North Lincolnshire and Oakham in Rutland, also cuts through the village. Among the buildings of note in Navenby is Mrs Smith's Cottage, a mid-19th century Grade II listed building made from early Victorian red bricks which is now run as a museum. (Full article...
) 
commuter village, supported by its position between Paisley and Glasgow, from roughly 1,000 people in 1800 to 5,168 in 2001. (Full article...
) 
Second World War, growth was limited until designation as a New Town in the 1960s. In common with much of the United Kingdom, industrial employment has fallen, with new jobs tending to be in financial services and distribution. (Full article...
) 
co-operative societies and the world's first multi-storey building with a rigid metal frame. (Full article...
) 
North Atlantic Ocean. It contains the westernmost islands of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The largest island is Hirta, whose sea cliffs are the highest in the United Kingdom. The Gaelic-speaking population probably never exceeded 180 and was never more than 100 after 1851. Although St Kilda was permanently inhabited for at least two millennia, and despite the inhabitants' unique way of life, the entire population was evacuated in 1930. The only residents are now military personnel. The islands are administratively a part of the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar local authority area. The islands' human heritage includes numerous unique architectural features from the historic and prehistoric periods, although the earliest written records of island life date from the Late Middle Ages. The medieval village on Hirta was rebuilt in the 19th century, but the influences of religion, tourism and the First World War contributed to the island's evacuation in 1930. The story of St Kilda has attracted artistic interpretations, including a recent opera. The entire archipelago is owned by the National Trust for Scotland. It became one of Scotland's four World Heritage Sites in 1986 and is one of the few in the world to hold joint status for its natural, marine and cultural qualities. (Full article...
) 
City of Manchester, Trafford is the only borough to be above the national average for weekly income. Socially, the area is middle class and contains commuter towns. (Full article...
) 2012 Olympic Games will be held. (Full article...
) 
Member of Parliament during the strike, prompting media interest from around the world. By the end of the strike, ten prisoners had starved themselves to death including Sands, and 100,000 people attended his funeral. The strike radicalised nationalist politics, and was the driving force that enabled Sinn Féin to become a mainstream political party. (Full article...
)
Royal Commission to investigate the use of animals in experiments. The affair was triggered by allegations, vigorously denied, that Dr. William Bayliss of University College, London had performed an illegal dissection on a brown terrier dog — anaesthetized according to Bayliss, conscious according to the Swedish activists. A statue erected by antivivisectionists in memory of the dog led to violent protests by London's medical students, who saw the memorial as an assault on the entire medical profession. The unrest culminated in rioting in Trafalgar Square on December 10, 1907, when 1,000 students marched down the Strand, clashing with 400 police officers, in what became known as the Brown Dog riots. (Full article...
) .jpg)
British history. The phrase is known so widely in Britain that it has entered the British popular consciousness. Today "England expects…", as an abbreviated version of the phrase, is often adapted for use in the media, especially in relation to the expectations for the victory of English sporting teams. (Full article...
) 
Dutch Revolt, was given charge of the explosives. (Full article...
) 
South Georgia—that led eventually to their rescue with not a life lost. Meanwhile, the Ross Sea party overcame great hardships to fulfil its mission, after Aurora was blown from her moorings during a gale and could not return. (Full article...
) 
Camlann and final rest in Avalon. The 12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes, who added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story, began the genre of Arthurian romance that became a significant strand of medieval literature. In the 21st century, the legend lives on, both in literature and in adaptations for theatre, film, television, comics and other media. (Full article...
) 
.jpg)
Australian Antarctic Expedition leader Douglas Mawson, carried out extensive geological, zoological and meteorological work. Shackleton’s transport arrangements, based on Manchurian ponies, motor traction, and sledge dogs, were innovations which, despite limited success, were later copied by Scott for his ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition. (Full article...
) 
16 August 1819, when cavalry charged into a crowd of 60–80,000 gathered at a meeting to demand the reform of parliamentary representation. The Manchester Patriotic Union, a group agitating for parliamentary reform, organised a demonstration to be addressed by the well-known radical orator Henry Hunt. Shortly after the meeting began, local magistrates called on the military to arrest Hunt and several others on the hustings with him, and to disperse the crowd. Cavalry charged into the crowd with sabres drawn, and in the ensuing confusion, 15 people were killed and 400–700 were injured, among them many women and children. The massacre was given the name Peterloo in ironic comparison to the Battle of Waterloo, which had taken place four years earlier. Historian Robert Poole has called the Peterloo Massacre one of the defining moments of its age. In its own time, the London and national papers shared the horror felt in the Manchester region, but Peterloo's immediate effect was to cause the government to crack down on reform, with the passing of what became known as the Six Acts. It also led directly to the foundation of The Manchester Guardian (now The Guardian), but had little other effect on the pace of reform. (Full article...
) 
Bury St. Edmunds in 1828; the execution was watched by a huge crowd. The story provoked numerous articles in the newspapers, and songs and plays. The village where the crime had taken place became a tourist attraction and the barn was stripped by souvenir hunters. The plays and ballads remained popular throughout the next century and continue to be performed today. (Full article...
) 
French culture to native Scottish culture, although Gaelic remained the dominant language of the people throughout the period. After the twelfth century too, the trend was towards unity under the Scottish crown, a unity which was not maintained after the Wars of Scottish Independence. (Full article...
) .jpg)
The Sir Ernest Shackleton (pictured), and the final episode in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. The venture, lasting from 1921 to 1922, financed by businessman John Quiller Rowett, is
pack ice, Wild returned the ship to South Georgia, after a nostalgic visit to Elephant Island, where he and 21 others had been stranded during Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition six years earlier. Although not greatly regarded in the histories of polar exploration, the Quest voyage is of historical significance, standing at the very end of the Heroic Age and the beginning of the "Mechanical Age" that followed it. (Full article...
) 
Emperor Penguin eggs). For many years after his death, Scott's status as tragic hero was unchallenged and few questions were asked about the causes of the disaster which overtook his party. In the final quarter of the 20th century, the expedition came under closer scrutiny and more critical views were expressed about its organisation and management. The degree of Scott's personal culpability remains a matter of controversy among commentators. (Full article...
) 
trial by battle. In 1817, Abraham Thornton (pictured) was charged with the murder of Mary Ashford. Thornton met Ashford at a dance, and walked with her from the event. The next morning, Ashford was found drowned in a pit, with little outward signs of violence. Although public opinion was heavily against Thornton, the jury quickly acquitted him, and also found him not guilty of rape. Mary's brother, William Ashford, launched an appeal, and Thornton was rearrested. Thornton claimed the right to trial by battle, a medieval usage which had never been repealed by Parliament. Ashford argued that the evidence against Thornton was overwhelming, and that he was thus ineligible to wager battle. The court decided that the evidence against Thornton was not overwhelming, and that trial by battle was a permissible option under law; thus Thornton was granted trial by battle. Ashford declined the offer of battle and Thornton was freed from custody. Appeals such as Ashford's were abolished by statute the following year, and with them the right to trial by battle. Thornton emigrated to the United States, where he died about 1860. (Full article...
) 
G-20 summit protests. A first postmortem examination suggested he had suffered a heart attack and had died of natural causes, but his death became controversial a week later when The Guardian obtained footage of his last moments, filmed by an American investment fund manager who was visiting London. The video shows Tomlinson being struck on the leg from behind by a police officer wielding an expandable baton, then pushed to the ground by the same officer. It appears to show no provocation on Tomlinson's part—he was not a protester, and at the time he was struck, the footage shows him walking along with his hands in his pockets. He walked away from the incident but died moments later. After the newspaper published the video, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) began a criminal inquiry from which the police were removed, and ordered a second postmortem, this one indicating that Tomlinson had died from an abdominal haemorrhage, the cause of which remains unknown. The IPCC completed its investigation in August 2009 and passed its file to the Crown Prosecution Service. A police officer has been interviewed on suspicion of manslaughter but has not been named or charged. The incident sparked an intense debate in the UK about what appeared to be a deteriorating relationship between the police and the public, the degree to which the IPCC is independent of the police, and the role of citizens in monitoring police and government activity—so-called sousveillance. (Full article...
) .jpg)
Full article...
) 
English Restoration, which saw the end of the traditional method of legal education. Although now more prosperous, Gray's Inn is still the smallest of the Inns of Court. (Full article...
) 
court martial for crimes at sea, including "unnatural crimes", political figures and intellectuals accused of sedition or other inappropriate behaviour, and—most famously—London's debtors, the length of their stay determined largely by the whim of their creditors. Run privately for profit, as were all prisons in England until the 19th century, the Marshalsea looked like an Oxbridge college and functioned largely as an extortion racket. For prisoners who could afford the fees, it came with access to a bar, shop, and restaurant, and the crucial privilege of being allowed to leave the prison during the day, which meant debtors could earn money to pay off their creditors. Everyone else was crammed into one of nine small rooms with dozens of others, possibly for decades for the most modest of debts, which increased as unpaid prison fees accumulated. The prison became known around the world during the 19th century through the writings of the English novelist Charles Dickens, whose father was sent there in 1824 for a debt of £40 and 10 shillings. Much of it was demolished in the 1870s, though some of its buildings were used into the 20th century. (Full article...
) 
criminally insane in 1985, since when he has been confined in the high-security Ashworth Hospital. He has made it clear that he never wants to be released, and has repeatedly asked that he be allowed to die. (Full article...
) 
Thomas of Lancaster – the leader of the Ordainers – was executed in 1322. (Full article...
) 
Full article...
) 
Full article...
) 
maleficium—causing harm by witchcraft. The case against the three women collapsed "spectacularly" when Grace Sowerbutts was exposed by the trial judge to be "the perjuring tool of a Catholic priest". Many historians, notably Hugh Trevor-Roper, have suggested that the witch trials of the 16th and 17th century were a consequence of the religious struggles of the period, with both Catholic and Protestant Churches determined to stamp out what they regarded as heresy. (Full article...
) 
Old English narrating the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The annals were created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great. Multiple manuscript copies were made and distributed to monasteries across England and were independently updated. In one case, the chronicle was still being actively updated in 1154. Nine manuscripts survive in whole or in part, though not all are of equal historical value, and none of them is the original version. The oldest seems to have been started towards the end of Alfred's reign, while the most recent was written at Peterborough Abbey after a fire at the monastery there in 1116. Much of the information given in the Chronicle is not recorded elsewhere. In addition, the manuscripts are important sources for the history of the English language; in particular, the later Peterborough text is one of the earliest examples of Middle English in existence. Seven of the nine surviving manuscripts and fragments now reside in the British Library. The remaining two are in the Bodleian Library and the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. (Full article...
) 
academic critics, who praise its linguistic energy, sharp social satire, and openness to different interpretations. (Full article...
) 
Savoy operas (composed by Arthur Sullivan) between 1871 and 1896. (Full article...
) .jpg)
Indo-European legend—preserved by a 13th-century chronicler, and retold by a 16th-century scholar—and a lost Elizabethan play known today as the Ur-Hamlet. The play's dramatic structure and Shakespeare's depth of characterisation mean that Hamlet can be analysed and interpreted—and argued about—from many perspectives. Hamlet is by far Shakespeare's longest play, and among the most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language. The title role was almost certainly created for Richard Burbage, the leading tragedian of Shakespeare's time; in the four hundred years since, it has been played by the greatest actors, and sometimes actresses, of each successive age. (Full article...
) 
Full article...
) 
feminist historiography are reflected in these works. At times Shelley had trouble finding sufficient research materials and had to make do with fewer resources than she would have liked, particularly for the Spanish and Portuguese Lives. She wrote in a style that combined secondary sources, memoir, anecdote, and her own opinions. (Full article...
) 
feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. It covers a wide range of topics, from sociological reflections on Scandinavia and its peoples to philosophical questions regarding identity. Published by Wollstonecraft's career-long publisher, Joseph Johnson, it was the last work issued during her lifetime. Wollstonecraft undertook the tour of the three countries in order to retrieve a stolen treasure ship for her lover, Gilbert Imlay, believing that the journey would restore their strained relationship. However, over the course of the three-month trip, she realized that Imlay had no intention of renewing the relationship. The twenty-five letters which constitute the text, drawn from her journal and from missives she sent to Imlay, reflect her anger and melancholy over his repeated betrayals. Using the rhetoric of the sublime, Wollstonecraft explores the relationship between the self and society in the text. Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark is both a travel narrative and an autobiographical memoir, and was Wollstonecraft's most popular book in the 1790s—it sold well and was reviewed positively by most critics. (Full article...
) 
.jpg)
philosophical and gothic novel revolves around the story of a woman imprisoned in an insane asylum by her husband. It focuses on the societal rather than the individual "wrongs of woman" and criticizes what Wollstonecraft viewed as the patriarchal institution of marriage in eighteenth-century Britain and the legal system that protected it. The novel pioneered the celebration of female sexuality and cross-class identification between women. Such themes, coupled with the publication of Godwin's scandalous Memoirs of Wollstonecraft's life, made the novel unpopular at the time it was published. Twentieth-century feminist critics embraced the work, integrating it into the history of the novel and feminist discourse. (Full article...
) 
feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Published in 1788, it tells the story of a heroine's successive "romantic friendships" with a woman and a man. Helping to redefine genius, Wollstonecraft describes Mary as independent and capable of defining femininity and marriage for herself. It is Mary's "strong, original opinions" and her resistance to "conventional wisdom" that mark her as a genius. Making her heroine a genius allowed Wollstonecraft to criticize marriage as well: geniuses were "enchained" rather than enriched by marriage. Mary rewrites the traditional romance plot through its reimagination of gender relations and female sexuality. Wollstonecraft later repudiated Mary, writing that it was laughable. However, scholars have argued that, despite its faults, the novel's representation of an energetic, unconventional, opinionated, rational, female genius (the first of its kind in English literature) is an important development in the history of the novel because it helped shape an emerging feminist discourse. (Full article...
) 
Norman Conquest. Consequently, and in spite of its lack of literary merit, it is invaluable to philologists in tracing the development of the language. Orm was concerned with priests' ability to speak the vernacular, and developed an idiosyncratic spelling system to guide his readers to pronounce each vowel. He composed using a strict poetic meter which ensured that readers would know which syllables were stressed. Modern scholars use these two features to reconstruct Middle English as Orm spoke it. (Full article...
) .jpg)
Ceres's point of view, Shelley emphasises the separation of mother and daughter and the strength offered by a community of women. Ceres represents life and love, and Pluto represents death and violence. The genres of the text also reflect gender debates of the time. Proserpine is part of a female literary tradition which, as feminist literary critic Susan Gubar describes it, has used the story of Ceres and Proserpine to "re-define, to re-affirm and to celebrate female consciousness itself". However, the play has been both neglected and marginalised by critics. (Full article...
) 
rake is brought to repentance and reform by the ruses of his wife, while in The Relapse, the rake succumbs again to temptation and has a new love affair. His virtuous wife is also subjected to a determined seduction attempt, and resists with difficulty. Vanbrugh planned The Relapse around particular actors at Drury Lane, writing their stage habits, public reputations, and personal relationships into the text. One such actor was Colley Cibber himself, who played the luxuriant fop Lord Foppington in both Love's Last Shift and The Relapse. However, Vanbrugh's artistic plans were threatened by a cut-throat struggle between London's two theatre companies, each of which was "seducing" actors from the other. The Relapse came close to not being produced at all, but the successful performance that was eventually achieved in November 1696 vindicated Vanbrugh's intentions, as well as saving the company from bankruptcy. (Full article...
) 
Restoration drama; however, they drew Londoners in unprecedented numbers and left them dazzled and delighted. Basically home-grown and with roots in the early 17th-century court masque, though never ashamed of borrowing ideas and stage technology from French opera, the spectaculars are sometimes called "English opera". The expense of mounting ever more elaborate scenic productions drove the two competing theatre companies into a dangerous spiral of huge expenditure and correspondingly huge losses or profits. (Full article...
) 
quarto version in 1597. The play ascribes different poetic forms to different characters, sometimes changing the form as the character develops. John Gielgud's 1935 version kept very close to Shakespeare's text, and used Elizabethan costumes and staging to enhance the drama. In the 20th century the play has been adapted in versions as diverse as MGM's comparatively faithful 1936 film, the 1950s stage musical West Side Story, and 1996's MTV-inspired Romeo + Juliet. (Full article...
) 
Fleetway from 1976 until 1995, in which it was the main feature. The weekly strip ran until 1993, following Roy's playing career until its conclusion after he lost his left foot in a helicopter crash. When the monthly comic was launched later that year, the focus switched to Roy's son, Rocky, who also played for Melchester. This publication folded after only 19 issues. The adventures of the Race family were subsequently featured from 1997 until May 2001 in the monthly Match of the Day football magazine, in which father and son were reunited as manager and player respectively. Football-themed stories were a staple of British comics from the 1950s onwards, and Roy of the Rovers was one of the most popular. To keep the strip exciting, Melchester was almost every year either competing for major honours or struggling against relegation to a lower division. The strip followed the structure of the football season, thus there were several months each year when there was no football. (Full article...
) 
Anonymous, starring Rhys Ifans and Vanessa Redgrave, portrays Oxford as the real author. (Full article...
) 
narrative poems are written in a North West Midland dialect of Middle English. Everything from the Green Knight, to the beheading game, to the girdle given to Gawain as protection from the axe, is richly symbolic and steeped in Celtic, Germanic, and other folklore and cultural traditions. (Full article...
) 
Grade I listed building. (Full article...
) 
lyric poems. (Full article...
) 
Inferno (c. 1320). For most of the poem's history, readers viewed Ulysses as resolute and heroic, admiring him for his determination "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield". The view that Tennyson intended a heroic character is supported by his statements about the poem, and by the events in his life—the death of his closest friend—that prompted him to write it. In the twentieth century, scholars began to offer interpretations of "Ulysses" that highlight potential ironies in the poem. (Full article...
) 
Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, commenced broadcast in 2005. (Full article...
) The
27 serials that do not exist in complete form in the BBC's archives, because 108 of 253 episodes produced during the first six years of the programme are missing. Many more were thought to have been so in the past before episodes were recovered from a variety of sources, most notably overseas broadcasters. Doctor Who is not unique in this respect, as thousands of hours of programming from across all genres were destroyed up until 1978, when the BBC's archiving policies were changed. Unlike other series, Doctor Who is unique in having all of its missing episodes surviving in audio form, recorded off-air by fans at home. Additionally, every 1970s episode exists in some form, which is not the case for several other series. Efforts to locate missing episodes continue, both by the BBC and by fans of the series. Extensive restoration has been carried out on many surviving and recovered 1960s and 1970s episodes for release on VHS and more recently on DVD. (Full article...
) 
International Emmy in the children and young people category at the 2009 ceremony. Helen Blakeman won a Children's BAFTA for the screenplay, while the film itself was shortlisted for a Children's BAFTA in the drama category and shortlisted for the Kids' Vote award. The film was also awarded the 2010 KidScreen Award for best one-off, special, or TV movie aimed at a family audience and the KidScreen Award for best acting. (Full article...
) 
Paul-Mark Elliott also appeared as Trevor, Becky's lover. Scheduling problems meant that the show attracted low viewing figures. However, it scored highly on the Appreciation Index and accrued a loyal fanbase. One fan acquired the home video rights from the BBC and released both series on his own DVD label. (Full article...
) 
family-friendly humour. (Full article...
) 
market leader within the region. This was attributed in no small part to the positive reception garnered by noitulovE. (Full article...
) Our Friends in the North is a British television drama. A serial produced by the BBC and originally screened in nine episodes on BBC2 in early 1996, Our Friends tells the story of four friends from the city of Newcastle in North East England over 31 years from 1964 to 1995. The storyline includes real political and social events both specific to the north-east and from Britain as a whole during the era portrayed. The show is commonly regarded as having been one of the most successful BBC television dramas of the 1990s. It was also a controversial production in some respects, as the issues and occurrences upon which its fiction were based involved real politicians and political events. It took several years before the production–adapted from a play originally performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company–finally made it to the screen, due in part to the BBC's fear that it might become involved in legal action. (Full article...)
Dot Branning, and scriptwriters included many feuds in her narrative, most notably with her daughter-in-law, Sonia, and Den Watts, a family friend who got her daughter Michelle pregnant at 16. The character was killed off in a "whodunit" murder storyline, with Richard making her final appearance in 2006. (Full article...
) 
utopian ideologies. The Power of Nightmares has been praised by film critics in both Britain and the United States. Its message and content have also been the subject of various critiques and criticisms from conservatives and progressives. (Full article...
) 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien. (Full article...
) not portraying the actual events of the time, but rather the legend. Many critics now consider Olivier's Richard III his best screen version of Shakespeare. As well, the British Film Institute has called Olivier's rendition of the play "definitive" and that it has done more to popularise Shakespeare than any other single piece of work. (Full article...
) .jpg)
Second World War and, although the Echo building was undamaged, it was forced to print its competitor's paper under wartime rules. It was during this time that the paper's format changed, from a broadsheet to its current tabloid layout, because of national newsprint shortages. (Full article...
) Principal Private Secretary Bernard Woolley, played by Derek Fowlds, is usually caught between the two. Almost every programme ends with the line "Yes, Minister" (or "Yes, Prime Minister"), uttered (usually) by Sir Humphrey as he relishes his victory over his "political master" (or, sometimes, acknowledges defeat). A huge critical and popular success, the series received a number of awards, including several BAFTAs and in 2004 came sixth in the Britain's Best Sitcom poll. (Full article...
) 
Engineer Alan Parsons was directly responsible for some of the most notable sonic aspects of the album, including the non-lexical performance of Clare Torry. (Full article...
) "Hey Jude" is a song attributed to Paul McCartney and John Lennon (though largely the work of McCartney), originally recorded by The Beatles for the self-titled The Beatles album, but released instead as a single. The song, despite its unusually long length (seven minutes, 12 seconds), became the Beatles' best-selling single, although they did produce a trimmed down version for American radio due to most stations' refusal to air a song of such length. The song–originally titled "Hey Jules"–was written for John Lennon's son Julian by McCartney, at a trying time for the Lennon family when John and his first wife, Cynthia, were getting divorced. The senior Lennon related to the song extremely well too, as he had just begun his relationship with his future second wife, Yoko Ono. McCartney had also just broken up with Jane Asher and was about to start seeing Linda Eastman. (Full article...)
First Lord of the Admiralty. Drawing on several of his earlier "Bab Ballad" poems, Gilbert imbued this plot with mirth and silliness. The opera's humour focuses on love between members of different social classes and lampoons the British class system in general. Pinafore also pokes good-natured fun at patriotism, party politics, the rise of unqualified people to positions of authority and the Royal Navy. Pinafore's extraordinary popularity in Britain, America and elsewhere was followed by the similar success of a series of Gilbert and Sullivan works. Their works, later known as the Savoy operas, dominated the musical stage on both sides of the Atlantic for more than a decade and continue to be performed today. (Full article...
) "The Long and Winding Road" is a pop ballad written by Paul McCartney that originally appeared on the Beatles' album Let It Be. It became The Beatles' last Number 1 song in the United States on 13 June 1970. While the released version of the song was very successful, the post-production modifications to the song by producer Phil Spector angered McCartney to the point that when he made his case in court for breaking up the Beatles as a legal entity, he cited the treatment of "The Long and Winding Road" as one of six reasons for doing so. (Full article...)
studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd, released in September 1987. In 1985 guitarist David Gilmour (pictured) began to assemble a group of musicians to work on his third solo album. At the end of 1986 however, he changed his mind, and decided that the new material would instead be included in a new Pink Floyd album. Subsequently Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Richard Wright (who had left the group in 1979) were brought on board the project. Although for legal reasons Wright could not be re-admitted to the band, he and Mason helped Gilmour craft what would become the first Pink Floyd album since the departure of lyricist and bass guitarist Roger Waters in December 1985. The album was recorded primarily on Gilmour's converted houseboat, Astoria. Its production was marked by an ongoing legal dispute between Waters and the band as to who owned the rights to Pink Floyd's name, which was not resolved until several months after the album was released. Unlike most of Pink Floyd's other studio albums, A Momentary Lapse of Reason has no central theme, and is instead a collection of rock songs written mostly by Gilmour and musician Anthony Moore. Although the album received mixed reviews and was derided by Waters, with the help of an enormously successful world tour it easily out-sold their previous album The Final Cut. (Full article...
) "
heavy rotation on MTV, although the network censored portions containing nudity. Since its release, the track has been covered by numerous artists working in a variety of musical genres. (Full article...
) 
Pioneers" were released as singles. Silent Alarm went on to achieve worldwide sales of over one million copies. Bloc Party aimed to create an album that appealed to followers of different musical genres. Building on the arrangements in their demo songs recorded in 2004, the band members moulded tracks largely through live takes during the Silent Alarm studio sessions. The compositional focus was on rhythm and the drum and bass parts, while lyricist Kele Okereke's writing examined the feelings and hopes of young adults, including views on global politics. Following the album's completion, Bloc Party embarked on promotional tours before its release. Silent Alarm garnered widespread critical acclaim and has received accolades throughout the music industry since its release. (Full article...
) 
Yesterday." (more...
) 
burlesque style, considerably different from Gilbert and Sullivan's later works. It was a modest success—for a Christmas entertainment of the time—and closed on 8 March 1872, after a run of 63 performances. It was advertised as "An entirely original Grotesque Opera in Two Acts". The story follows an acting troupe headed by Thespis, the legendary Greek father of the drama, who temporarily trade places with the gods on Mount Olympus, who have grown elderly and ignored. The actors turn out to be comically inept rulers. Having seen the ensuing mayhem down below, the angry gods return, sending the actors back to Earth as "eminent tragedians, whom no one ever goes to see." (Full article...
) "
UNCUT pegged it as #10 on their "100 singles that changed your life" feature. (Full article...
) 
Cleveland, Hereford and Worcester and Humberside. Combined with a second wave of reviews in 1995, under the chairmanship of David Cooksey, the Commission's proposals led to the creation of unitary authorities covering many urban areas of England. It was replaced by the Boundary Committee for England in 2002, which finished this review cycle in 2004. (Full article...
) 
Full article...
) .jpg)
reserved" to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. All matters that are not explicitly reserved are automatically the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament. The UK Parliament retains the ability to amend the terms of reference of the Scottish Parliament, and can extend or reduce the areas in which it can make laws. The first meeting of the new Parliament took place on 12 May 1999. (Full article...
) 
feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, which attacks aristocracy and advocates republicanism. Wollstonecraft's was the first response in a pamphlet war sparked by the publication of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, a defence of constitutional monarchy, aristocracy, and the Church of England. Wollstonecraft not only attacked hereditary privilege but also the rhetoric that Burke used to defend it. Most of Burke's detractors deplored what they viewed as his theatrical pity for Marie Antoinette but Wollstonecraft was unique in her attack on Burke's gendered language. By redefining the sublime and the beautiful, terms first established by Burke himself in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), she undermined his rhetoric as well as his argument. (Full article...
) 
deistic: it promotes natural religion and argues for a creator-God. Most of Paine's arguments had long been available to the educated elite, but by presenting them in an engaging and irreverent style, he made deism appealing and accessible to a mass audience. The book was also inexpensive, putting it within the reach of a large number of buyers. Fearing the spread of what they viewed as potentially revolutionary ideas, the British government prosecuted printers and booksellers who tried to publish and distribute it. (Full article...
) 
eighteenth century. (Full article...
) 
Elizabeth II was crowned on June 2, 1953, having ascended to the throne on February 6, 1952. The ceremony is officiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior cleric of the Church of England. Many other government officials and guests attend. (Full article...
) 
Charles, Prince of Wales and Duke of Rothesay. They and the Queen's husband and consort, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, undertake various public duties in accordance with their positions. Elizabeth II is Head of the Commonwealth and also reigns as head of state of 15 other Commonwealth countries. This developed from the former colonial relationship of these countries to Britain, but they are now independent and the monarchy of each is legally distinct. (Full article...
) 
peers of the realm instead of juries of commoners, freedom from arrest in civil (but not criminal) cases, and access to the Sovereign to advise him or her on matters of state. The right to be tried by other peers was abolished in 1948. Legal opinion considers the right of freedom from arrest as obsolete. The remaining privilege was recommended for formal abolition in 1999, and may be retained, arguably, by peers whether members of the House of Lords or not. Peers have other rights that do not formally comprise the privilege of peerage. For example, they are entitled to use coronets and supporters on their achievements of arms. (Full article...
) 
Queen Elizabeth II (pictured at the 2005 service) almost always attends, and the service is held in a different church (usually a cathedral) every year. Maundy money is struck in denominations of one penny, two pence, three pence, and four pence. In most years there are fewer than 2,000 complete sets; they are highly sought after by collectors. (Full article...
) .jpg){kind=small}
Full article...
) 
FA Premier League and is one of the most successful clubs in England. Arsenal has won thirteen First Division and Premier League titles, and ten FA Cups, as well as being the first London club to reach the UEFA Champions League final. Arsenal was founded in south-east London in 1886, but moved across the city to the Arsenal Stadium, Highbury, in 1913. In 2006, the club moved again to the new 60,000-seater Emirates Stadium in nearby Ashburton Grove. Arsenal enjoys a fierce rivalry with Tottenham Hotspur, from nearby Tottenham, whom they play in the North London derby. (Full article...
) 
batsmen. This caused several injuries to Australian players and led to ill-feeling between the countries that rose to diplomatic levels. Following the 1932–33 series, several authors, including many of the players involved in it, released books expressing various points of view about Bodyline. Many argued that it was a scourge on cricket and must be stamped out, while some claimed not to understand what all the fuss was about. (Full article...
) 
2010 Formula One season using the Brabham name. (Full article...
) 
2008. Chelsea's home is the 42,500-person-capacity Stamford Bridge football stadium in Fulham, West London, where they have played since their establishment. Despite their name, the club are based just outside the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Chelsea's traditional kit colours are royal blue shirts and shorts with white socks. (Full article...
) 
UEFA Cup Final. (Full article...
) 
ranked fifth in the world. The history of the team extends back to 1871 when the English rugby team played their first official Test match. England dominated the early Home Nations Championship (now the Six Nations) which started in 1883. England players traditionally wear white shorts, navy socks with white tops, and a white shirt with a red rose embroidered on it. Their home ground is Twickenham Stadium where they first played in 1910. The team is administered by the Rugby Football Union. Four former players have been inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame. (Full article...
) 
final before a crowd of 97,852. (Full article...
) 
Boat Race and the Women's Boat Race. Barney Williams, a Canadian rower who studied at the college, won a silver medal in rowing at the 2004 Summer Olympics, and participated in the Boat Race in 2005 and 2006. Other students who rowed while at the college have achieved success in other fields, including John Sankey, who became Lord Chancellor, and Alwyn Williams, who became Bishop of Durham. The college boathouse, which is shared with Keble College's boat club, dates from 1964 and replaced a moored barge used by spectators and crew-members. (Full article...
) 
League Cup and European Cup Winners' Cup under the management team of Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison.
Manchester United to the title on goal difference and ending their 44-year wait for the English football championship. (Full article...
) 
On The Ball, City" is regarded as being the oldest football song in the world. (Full article...
) 
2003 UEFA Champions League Final. Outside football, Old Trafford has hosted rugby league's Super League Grand Final since 1998. (Full article...
) 
The the Football League. The Premier League is a corporation in which the 20 member clubs act as shareholders. Seasons run from August to May, with teams playing 38 matches each, totalling 380 matches in the season.
The competition formed as the FA Premier League on 20 February 1992 following the decision of clubs in the Football League First Division to break away from The Football League and take advantage of a lucrative television rights deal. The Premier League is the most-watched football league in the world, broadcast in 212 territories to an audience of 643 million viewers. The Premier League ranked first in the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) coefficients of leagues based on performances in European competitions over the last five years, ahead of the Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga and Italian Serie A.
Of the 45 clubs to have competed since the inception of the Premier League in 1992, five have won the title: Manchester United (12 titles), Arsenal (3), Chelsea (3), Blackburn Rovers (1) and Manchester City (1). The current champions are Manchester City, who won the title in the 2011–12 season. (Full article...)
all-seater stands, all constructed since 1997, although one is only of a temporary nature. There are also conference and banqueting facilities and a nightspot named the Blues Rock Café. Despite having invested heavily in its current stadium, Gillingham F.C. has plans to relocate to a new stadium. (Full article...
) 
Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, which had staged numerous FA Cup semi-finals prior to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster which claimed the lives of 96 Liverpool fans. (Full article...
) 
Leeds United. The team has won the second tier title five times in that period and the third tier title once. Sunderland play their home games at the 49,000 capacity all-seater Stadium of Light having moved from Roker Park in 1997. The original ground capacity was 42,000 which was increased to 49,000 following redevelopment in 2000. Sunderland have a long-standing rivalry with their neighbouring club Newcastle United, with whom they have contested the Tyne–Wear derby since 1898. (Full article...
) _(cropped).jpg)
West Indian tour has become known in cricketing circles as the "summer of four captains" as the England cricket team used four different captains in the five-match Test series. (Full article...
) 
2012 Conference National play-off Final.
Old Trafford; Manchester United went on to win the FA Cup and Premiership double that season. York play their home games at Bootham Crescent. The stadium was known as KitKat Crescent as part of a sponsorship deal with Nestlé from 2005 to 2010. (Full article...
) 
James McNeill Whistler, including Whistler's controversial and influential Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge. In 1879 the bridge was taken into public ownership, and in 1885 demolished and replaced with the existing bridge, designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette and built by John Mowlem & Co. The narrowest surviving road bridge over the Thames in London, it is one of London's least busy Thames bridges. The location on a bend in the river makes the bridge a hazard to shipping, and it has been closed many times due to collisions. (Full article...
) 
Metropolitan Line of London Transport, and thus the Brill Tramway became part of the London Underground, despite being 40 miles (65 km) from London and not underground. In 1935 the London Transport management closed the Brill Tramway and the infrastructure was dismantled and sold. Little trace remains other than the former junction station at Quainton Road, now the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre. (Full article...
) 
public ownership and, today, the railway's tunnels and stations form the central section of the London Underground's Central line. (Full article...
) 
Northern Line. (Full article...
) 
European Aviation Safety Agency. The main focus is on standards of airworthiness and pilot licensing, and the objective is to promote high standards of safety. (Full article...
) 
footpath, and many of the buildings formerly served by the line are now abandoned. (Full article...
) The London congestion charge is a fee charged on most motor vehicles operating within the Congestion Charge Zone (CCZ) in central London between 07:00 and 18:00 (Monday-Friday only). The charge, which was introduced on 17 February 2003, remains one of the largest congestion zones in the world despite the cancellation of the Western Extension which operated between February 2007 and January 2011. The charge aims to reduce congestion, and to raise investment funds for London's transport system.
The standard charge is £10 each day for each non-exempt vehicle that travels within the zone, with a penalty of between £60 and £187 levied for non-payment. Enforcement is primarily based onautomatic number plate recognition. Transport for London is responsible for the charge which has been operated by IBM since 1 November 2009. (Full article...
) The
National Collection and can be seen on mainline railtours. (Full article...
) 
28 February 2001. (Full article...
) 
£127,700. Originally designed for narrow gauge boats, the canal was altered during its construction into a broad gauge canal to allow an ultimately unrealised connection with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The majority of the freight carried was coal from local collieries but, as the mines reached the end of their working lives, sections of the canal fell into disuse and disrepair and it was officially abandoned in 1961. In 1987, a society was formed with the aim of restoring the canal for leisure use and, in 2006, restoration began in the area around the junction with the River Irwell in Salford. The canal is currently navigable as far as East Ordsall Lane, in Salford. (Full article...
) 
stone arch bridge which crosses the River Thames at Richmond, in southwest London, England, connecting the two halves of the present-day London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Because the river meanders from its general west to east direction to flow from southeast to northwest in this part of London, what would otherwise be known as the north and south banks are often referred to as the "Middlesex" (Twickenham) and "Surrey" (Richmond) banks respectively, after the historic counties to which each side once belonged. The bridge was built between 1774 and 1777 to the designs of James Paine and Kenton Couse, as a replacement for a ferry crossing which connected Richmond town centre on the east bank with its neighbouring district of East Twickenham (St. Margarets) to the west. Its construction was privately funded by a tontine scheme, to pay for which tolls were charged until 1859. The bridge was widened and slightly flattened in 1937–40, but otherwise still conforms to its original design. The eighth Thames bridge to be built in what is now Greater London, it is today the oldest surviving Thames bridge in London. (Full article...
) The
bogies, and cabs at either end of the locomotive, resulting in its unique appearance. Several of its innovations proved to be unsuccessful however, partly accounting for the project's cancellation in the early 1950s. Five Leader locomotives were begun, although only one was completed. Problems with the design, indifferent reports on performance, and political pressure surrounding spiralling development costs, led to all locomotives of the class being scrapped by 1951. (Full article...
) 
Full article...
) 
Ealing Comedy film The Titfield Thunderbolt. (Full article...
) 
balustrade, the design and appearance of the current bridge has remained almost unchanged since 1907. The bridge today is an important part of London's road system and carries the A202 road across the Thames. (Full article...
) 
Malta Convoys. She was torpedoed on 13 November 1941 and sank the following day. Her sinking was the subject of several inquiries; investigators were keen to know how the carrier was lost, given there were efforts to save the ship and tow her to the naval base at Gibraltar. Several design flaws were discovered during the investigation and were rectified in new British carriers. (Full article...
) _1.jpg)
decommissioned in July 2005, having earned two battle honours for service in the Falklands and Gulf wars. She is currently moored in Portsmouth Harbour, next to sister ship HMS Newcastle. Former servicemen have petitioned for her preservation as a museum ship and local tourist attraction at Cardiff, but her fate remains undecided. (Full article...
) .jpg)
Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty's Battlecruiser Fleet, she was hit several times in the first minutes of the "Run to the South", the opening phase of the battlecruiser action. Shells from the German battlecruiser Von der Tann caused an explosion ripping a hole in her hull, and a second explosion hurled large pieces of the ship 200 feet (60 m) in the air. Only three of the crew of 1,017 survived. (Full article...
) 
Expédition d'Irlande, a disastrous attempt by a French expeditionary force to invade Ireland. During the operation, the French fleet was beset by poor co-ordination and extremely violent weather, eventually being compelled to return to France without landing a single soldier ashore. Two British frigates, HMS Indefatigable and HMS Amazon, had been ordered to patrol the seas off Ushant in an attempt to intercept the returning French force and sighted Droits de l'Homme on the afternoon of 13 January. The damage the more nimble British vessels inflicted on the French ship was so severe that as the winds increased, the French crew lost control and Droits de l'Homme was swept onto a sandbar and destroyed. (Full article...
) 
Brigadier-General Lloyd Mathews of the Zanzibar army. A bombardment was opened at 9:02 am which set the palace on fire and disabled the defending artillery. The flag at the palace was shot down and fire ceased at 9:40 am. The Sultan's forces sustained roughly 500 casualties, while only one British sailor was injured. (Full article...
) 
Vimy Ridge. Only in the south, where British and Australian forces were frustrated by the elastic defence, were the attackers held to minimal gains. Although these battles were generally successful in achieving limited aims, many of them resulted in relatively large numbers of casualties. (Full article...
) 
Habsburg capital, and gain a favourable peace settlement. Realising the danger, the Duke of Marlborough resolved to alleviate the peril to Vienna by marching his forces south from Bedburg and help maintain Emperor Leopold within the Grand Alliance. When Marshall Tallard arrived to bolster the Elector of Bavaria's army, and Prince Eugene arrived with reinforcements for the Allies, the two armies finally met on the banks of the Danube in and around the small village of Blindheim. Blenheim has gone down in history as one of the turning points of the War of the Spanish Succession. The overwhelming Allied victory ensured the safety of Vienna from the Franco-Bavarian army, thus preventing the collapse of the Grand Alliance. Bavaria and Cologne were knocked out of the war, and King Louis' hopes for a quick victory came to an end. France suffered over 30,000 casualties including the commander-in-chief, Marshal Tallard, who was taken captive to England. Before the 1704 campaign ended, the Allies had taken Landau, and the towns of Trier (Trèves) and Trarbach on the Moselle in preparation for the following year's campaign into France itself. (Full article...
) 
Horatio Nelson. Hoste had raised the message "Remember Nelson" as the French bore down and had then manoeuvred to drive Dubourdieu's flagship ashore and scatter his squadron in what has been described as "one of the most brilliant naval achievements of the war". (Full article...
) 
Turin in northern Italy, the Allies had imposed the greatest loss of territory and resources Louis XIV would suffer during the war. Town after town – including Brussels, Bruges and Antwerp – fell to Marlborough's forces; by the end of the campaign, the Franco-Spanish army had been driven from most of the Spanish Netherlands. (Full article...
) 
Marquis de Vaudreuil, withdrew his forces, and attempted to blow the fort up. The fort's powder magazine was destroyed, but its walls were not severely damaged. The British then occupied the fort, which was afterwards known by the name Fort Ticonderoga, and embarked on a series of improvements to the area and the construction of a fleet to conduct military operations on Lake Champlain. (Full article...
) 
Theobald Wolfe Tone, precipitated an uprising against British rule in Ireland. At the urging of the rebels a small French force under General Humbert was landed at Killala, but by early September both this expedition and the rebellion had been defeated. Unaware of the defeat, on 16 September the French despatched reinforcements. However, having missed one invasion force, the Royal Navy was on alert for another, and when the squadron carrying the reinforcements left Brest they were soon spotted. After a long chase, the French were brought to battle in a bay off Donegal close to Tory Island. During the action the outnumbered French attempted to escape, but were run down and defeated piecemeal, with the British capturing four ships and scattering the survivors. Over the next two weeks, British frigate patrols scoured the passage back to Brest, capturing three more ships. Of the ten ships in the original French squadron, only two frigates and a schooner reached safety. British losses in the campaign were minimal. The battle marked the last attempt by the French Navy to launch an invasion of any part of the British Isles. (Full article...
) .jpg)
Edward IV, who had declared himself king and was using this battle to affirm his claim. Their armies met on a plateau near Towton amidst a snowstorm. The Lancastrians, superior in numbers, were lured out of their defensive positions by the Yorkist archers, who took advantage of the strong wind to outrange their counterparts and inflict casualties without suffering any in return. The ensuing melee raged for hours, and the Yorkists finally gained victory after the arrival of their reinforcements. Many Lancastrians were killed in their panicked flight from the battlefield, and the heralds reported a count of 28,000 dead. Henry fled to Scotland, leaving Edward free to start the Yorkist dynasty. (Full article...
) 
Førde Fjord, Norway, forcing the Allied aircraft to attack through heavy anti-aircraft fire. The Beaufighters and their escort of North American P-51 Mustang fighters were also surprised by twelve German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters. In the resulting attack the Allies damaged at least two of the German ships for the loss of seven Beaufighters shot down by flak guns. Another two Beaufighters and one Mustang were destroyed by the Fw 190s. Either four or five German fighters were shot down by the Allied aircraft, including one flown by an ace. Due to the losses suffered in this raid the Allied anti-shipping force adopted new tactics which placed a lower priority on attacking warships. (Full article...
) 
Full article...
) 
invasion of Quebec later in 1775. It also involved two larger-than-life personalities in Allen and Arnold, each of whom sought to gain as much credit and honor as possible for these events. (Full article...
) 
ships of the line, Villaret bought enough time for his grain convoy to reach safety. However, he was also forced to withdraw his battle-fleet to port, leaving the British free to conduct a campaign of blockade for the remainder of the war. The Glorious First of June demonstrated some of the major problems inherent in the French and British navies at the start of the Revolutionary Wars. The result of the battle was seized upon by the press of both nations as a shining example of the prowess and bravery of their respective navies. (Full article...
) 
River Odon, and efforts were made to expand this by capturing strategic points around the salient and moving up the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division. However, in response to powerful German counterattacks, by 30 June some of the British positions across the river were withdrawn, bringing the operation to a close. Although the Germans had managed to contain the offensive, to do so they had been obliged to commit all their available strength, including two panzer divisions newly arrived in Normandy and earmarked for a planned offensive against British and American positions around Bayeux. (Full article...
) 
US XVIII Airborne Corps: the British 6th Airborne Division and the US 17th Airborne Division. Despite some errors by the airborne forces, the operation was an overall success, with both divisions landing and capturing a number of bridges across the Rhine and securing several towns which could have been used by the enemy to delay the advance of the British ground forces. The two divisions incurred more than 2,000 casualties, but captured approximately 3,000 German soldiers in the process. The operation was the last large-scale Allied airborne operation of World War II, and was the largest single airborne drop in history. (Full article...
) 
Full article...
) 
The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War. (Full article...
) 
poison gas and tanks. But it was only after the adoption of improved tactics that some degree of mobility was restored. In spite of the generally stagnant nature of this front, this theater would prove decisive. The inexorable advance of the Allied armies in 1918 persuaded the German commanders that defeat was unavoidable, and the government was forced to sue for conditions of surrender. (Full article...
)