title: Socotra

text: The airport for Socotra was built in 1999. Before this modest airport, the island could only be reached by a cargo ship. The ideal time to visit Socotra is from October to April; the remaining months usually have heavy monsoon rainfall, making it difficult to survive the weather for tourists; flights also usually get cancelled. The island lacks any well-established hotels, although there are a few guesthouses for the travelers to stay during their short visits. Due to the Yemeni Civil War that started in 2015, tourism to Socotra Island has been affected. The island received over 1,000 tourists each year until 2014.


title: Socotra

text: Tourism to the island has increased over the years as many operators have started offering trips to the island, which "Gulf Today" claimed “will become a dream destination despite the country’s conflict”. In May 2021, an advisor to the Ministry of Information Mukhar Al-Rahbi stated that the UAE is violating the island and has been planning to control it for years. It is running illegal trips for foreign tourists without taking any permission from the Yemeni government.


title: Socotra

text: UAE operated a weekly direct flight (nonstop) from Abu Dhabi to Socotra Island every Tuesday via Air Arabia.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Originally a 1978 a BBC radio comedy, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" developed into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime. It was further developed into a television series, several stage plays, comics, a video game, and a 2005 feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams also wrote "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" (1987) and "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" (1988), and co-wrote "The Meaning of Liff" (1983), "The Deeper Meaning of Liff" (1990), and "Last Chance to See" (1990). He wrote two stories for the television series "Doctor Who", co-wrote "City of Death" (1979), and served as script editor for its seventeenth season. He co-wrote the sketch "Patient Abuse" for the final episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus". A posthumous collection of his selected works, including the first publication of his final (unfinished) novel, was published as "The Salmon of Doubt" in 2002.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams was a self-proclaimed "radical atheist", an advocate for environmentalism and conservation, and a lover of fast cars, technological innovation and the Apple Macintosh.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams was born in Cambridge on 11 March 1952 to Christopher Douglas Adams (1927–1985), a management consultant and computer salesman, former probation officer and lecturer on probationary group therapy techniques, and nurse Janet (1927–2016), née Donovan. The family moved a few months after his birth to the East End of London, where his sister, Susan, was born three years later. His parents divorced in 1957; Douglas, Susan and their mother moved then to an RSPCA animal shelter in Brentwood, Essex, run by his maternal grandparents. Each remarried, giving Adams four half-siblings. A great-grandfather was the playwright Benjamin Franklin Wedekind.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams attended Primrose Hill Primary School in Brentwood. At the age of nine, he passed the entrance exam for Brentwood School. He attended the prep school from 1959 to 1964, then the main school until December 1970. Adams was tall by age 12, and stopped growing at . His form master, Frank Halford, said that Adams's height had made him stand out and that he had been self-conscious about it. His ability to write stories made him well known in the school. He became the only student ever to be awarded a ten out of ten by Halford for creative writing – something he remembered for the rest of his life, particularly when facing writer's block.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Some of his earliest writing was published at the school, such as a report on its photography club in "The Brentwoodian" in 1962, or spoof reviews in the school magazine "Broadsheet", edited by Paul Neil Milne Johnstone, who later became a character in "The Hitchhiker's Guide". He also designed the cover of one issue of the "Broadsheet", and had a letter and short story published in "The Eagle", the boys' comic, in 1965. A poem entitled "A Dissertation on the task of writing a poem on a candle and an account of some of the difficulties thereto pertaining" written by Adams in January 1970 at the age of 17, was discovered in a cupboard at the school in early 2014.


title: Douglas Adams

text: On the strength of an essay on religious poetry that discussed the Beatles and William Blake, he was awarded an Exhibition in English at St John's College, Cambridge (where his father had also been a student), going up in 1971. He wanted to join the Footlights, an invitation-only student comedy club that has acted as a hothouse for comic talent. He was not elected immediately as he had hoped, and started to write and perform in revues with Will Adams (no relation) and Martin Smith; they formed a group called "Adams-Smith-Adams". He became a member of the Footlights by 1973. Despite doing very little work – he recalled having completed three essays in three years – he graduated in 1974 with a 2:2 in English literature.


title: Douglas Adams

text: After leaving university Adams moved back to London, determined to break into TV and radio as a writer. An edited version of the "Footlights Revue" appeared on BBC2 television in 1974. A version of the Revue performed live in London's West End led to Adams being discovered by Monty Python's Graham Chapman. The two formed a brief writing partnership, earning Adams a writing credit in episode 45 of "Monty Python" for a sketch called "Patient Abuse". The pair also co-wrote the "Marilyn Monroe" sketch which appeared on the soundtrack album of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". Adams is one of only two people other than the original Python members to get a writing credit (the other being Neil Innes).


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams had two brief appearances in the fourth series of "Monty Python's Flying Circus". At the beginning of episode 42, "The Light Entertainment War", Adams is in a surgeon's mask (as Dr. Emile Koning, according to on-screen captions), pulling on gloves, while Michael Palin narrates a sketch that introduces one person after another but never gets started. At the beginning of episode 44, "Mr. Neutron", Adams is dressed in a pepper-pot outfit and loads a missile onto a cart driven by Terry Jones, who is calling for scrap metal ("Any old iron..."). The two episodes were broadcast in November 1974. Adams and Chapman also attempted non-Python projects, including "Out of the Trees".


title: Douglas Adams

text: At this point Adams's career stalled; his writing style was unsuited to the then-current style of radio and TV comedy. To make ends meet he took a series of odd jobs, including as a hospital porter, barn builder, and chicken shed cleaner. He was employed as a bodyguard by a Qatari family, who had made their fortune in oil.


title: Douglas Adams

text: During this time Adams continued to write and submit sketches, though few were accepted. In 1976 his career had a brief improvement when he wrote and performed "Unpleasantness at Brodie's Close" at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. By Christmas, work had dried up again, and a depressed Adams moved to live with his mother. The lack of writing work hit him hard and low confidence became a feature of Adams's life; "I have terrible periods of lack of confidence [...] I briefly did therapy, but after a while I realised it was like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can't fix the weather – you just have to get on with it".


title: Douglas Adams

text: Some of Adams's early radio work included sketches for "The Burkiss Way" in 1977 and "The News Huddlines". He also wrote, again with Chapman, the 20 February 1977 episode of "Doctor on the Go", a sequel to the "Doctor in the House" television comedy series. After the first radio series of "The Hitchhiker's Guide" became successful, Adams was made a BBC radio producer, working on "Week Ending" and a pantomime called "Black Cinderella Two Goes East". He left after six months to become the script editor for "Doctor Who".


title: Douglas Adams

text: In 1979, Adams and John Lloyd wrote scripts for two half-hour episodes of "Doctor Snuggles": "The Remarkable Fidgety River" and "The Great Disappearing Mystery" (episodes eight and twelve). John Lloyd was also co-author of two episodes from the original "Hitchhiker" radio series ("Fit the Fifth" and "Fit the Sixth", also known as "Episode Five" and "Episode Six"), as well as "The Meaning of Liff" and "The Deeper Meaning of Liff".


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams sent the script for the "HHGG" pilot radio programme to the "Doctor Who" production office in 1978, and was commissioned to write "The Pirate Planet". He had also previously attempted to submit a potential film script, called "Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen", which later became his novel "Life, the Universe and Everything" (which in turn became the third "Hitchhiker's Guide" radio series). Adams then went on to serve as script editor on the show for its seventeenth season in 1979. Altogether, he wrote three "Doctor Who" serials starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor:


title: Douglas Adams

text: The episodes authored by Adams are some of the few that were not originally novelised, as Adams would not allow anyone else to write them and asked for a higher price than the publishers were willing to pay. "Shada" was later adapted as a novel by Gareth Roberts in 2012 and "City of Death" and "The Pirate Planet" by James Goss in 2015 and 2017 respectively.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Elements of "Shada" and "City of Death" were reused in Adams's later novel "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency", in particular, the character of Professor Chronotis. Big Finish Productions eventually remade "Shada" as an audio play starring Paul McGann as the Doctor. Accompanied by partially animated illustrations, it was webcast on the BBC website in 2003, and subsequently released as a two-CD set later that year. An omnibus edition of this version was broadcast on the digital radio station BBC7 on 10 December 2005.


title: Douglas Adams

text: In the "Doctor Who" 2012 Christmas episode "The Snowmen", writer Steven Moffat was inspired by a storyline that Adams pitched called "The Doctor Retires".


title: Douglas Adams

text: "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was a concept for a science-fiction comedy radio series pitched by Adams and radio producer Simon Brett to BBC Radio 4 in 1977. Adams came up with an outline for a pilot episode, as well as a few other stories (reprinted in Neil Gaiman's book "") that could be used in the series.


title: Douglas Adams

text: According to Adams, the idea for the title occurred to him while he lay drunk in a field in Innsbruck, Austria, gazing at the stars. He was carrying a copy of the "Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe", and it occurred to him that "somebody ought to write a "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"".


title: Douglas Adams

text: Despite the original outline, Adams was said to make up the stories as he wrote. He turned to John Lloyd for help with the final two episodes of the first series. Lloyd contributed bits from an unpublished science fiction book of his own, called "GiGax". Very little of Lloyd's material survived in later adaptations of "Hitchhiker's", such as the novels and the TV series. The TV series was based on the first six radio episodes, and sections contributed by Lloyd were largely re-written.


title: Douglas Adams

text: BBC Radio 4 broadcast the first radio series weekly in the UK starting 8 March 1978, lasting until April. The series was distributed in the United States by National Public Radio. Following the success of the first series, another episode was recorded and broadcast, which was commonly known as the Christmas Episode. A second series of five episodes was broadcast one per night, during the week of 21–25 January 1980.


title: Douglas Adams

text: While working on the radio series (and with simultaneous projects such as "The Pirate Planet") Adams developed problems keeping to writing deadlines that got worse as he published novels. Adams was never a prolific writer and usually had to be forced by others to do any writing. This included being locked in a hotel suite with his editor for three weeks to ensure that "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" was completed. He was quoted as saying, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." Despite the difficulty with deadlines, Adams wrote five novels in the series, published in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984, and 1992.


title: Douglas Adams

text: The books formed the basis for other adaptations, such as three-part comic book adaptations for each of the first three books, an interactive text-adventure computer game, and a photo-illustrated edition, published in 1994. This latter edition featured a 42 Puzzle designed by Adams, which was later incorporated into paperback covers of the first four "Hitchhiker's" novels (the paperback for the fifth re-used the artwork from the hardback edition).


title: Douglas Adams

text: In 1980, Adams began attempts to turn the first "Hitchhiker's" novel into a film, making several trips to Los Angeles, and working with Hollywood studios and potential producers. The next year, the radio series became the basis for a BBC television mini-series broadcast in six parts. When he died in 2001 in California, he had been trying again to get the film project started with Disney, which had bought the rights in 1998. The screenplay got a posthumous re-write by Karey Kirkpatrick, and the resulting film was released in 2005.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Radio producer Dirk Maggs had consulted with Adams, first in 1993, and later in 1997 and 2000 about creating a third radio series, based on the third novel in the "Hitchhiker's" series. They also discussed the possibilities of radio adaptations of the final two novels in the five-book "trilogy". As with the film, this project was realised only after Adams's death. The third series, "The Tertiary Phase", was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2004 and was subsequently released on audio CD. With the aid of a recording of his reading of "Life, the Universe and Everything" and editing, Adams can be heard playing the part of Agrajag posthumously. "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" and "Mostly Harmless" made up the fourth and fifth radio series, respectively (on radio they were titled "The Quandary Phase" and "The Quintessential Phase") and these were broadcast in May and June 2005, and also subsequently released on Audio CD. The last episode in the last series (with a new, "more upbeat" ending) concluded with, "The very final episode of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams is affectionately dedicated to its author."


title: Douglas Adams

text: Between Adams's first trip to Madagascar with Mark Carwardine in 1985, and their series of travels that formed the basis for the radio series and non-fiction book "Last Chance to See", Adams wrote two other novels with a new cast of characters. "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" was published in 1987, and was described by its author as "a kind of ghost-horror-detective-time-travel-romantic-comedy-epic, mainly concerned with mud, music and quantum mechanics".


title: Douglas Adams

text: A sequel, "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul", was published a year later. This was an entirely original work, Adams's first since "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish." After the book tour, Adams set off on his round-the-world excursion which supplied him with the material for "Last Chance to See".


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams played the guitar left-handed and had a collection of twenty-four left-handed guitars when he died (having received his first guitar in 1964). He also studied piano in the 1960s. Pink Floyd and Procol Harum had important influence on Adams's work.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams's official biography shares its name with the song "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd. The opening section of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" was featured in a section of the third episode of the original 1978 "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" radio series (broadcast only, cut from commercial releases). Adams was friends with Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and, on Adams's 42nd birthday, he was invited to make a guest appearance at Pink Floyd's concert of 28 October 1994 at Earls Court in London, playing guitar on the songs "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse". Adams chose the name for Pink Floyd's 1994 album, "The Division Bell", by picking the words from the lyrics to one of its tracks, "High Hopes". Pink Floyd and the song "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" in particular, inspired Adams to create the rock band Disaster Area who appear in "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", who planned to crash a space ship into a nearby star as a stunt during a concert. Gilmour also performed at Adams's memorial service in 2001, and what would have been Adams's 60th birthday party in 2012.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Douglas Adams created an interactive fiction version of "HHGG" with Steve Meretzky from Infocom in 1984. In 1986 he participated in a week-long brainstorming session with the Lucasfilm Games team for the game "". Later he was also involved in creating "Bureaucracy" as a parody of events in his own life.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams was a founder-director and Chief Fantasist of The Digital Village, a digital media and Internet company with which he created "Starship Titanic", a Codie award-winning and BAFTA-nominated adventure game, which was published in 1998 by Simon & Schuster. Terry Jones wrote the accompanying book, entitled "Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic", since Adams was too busy with the computer game to do both. In April 1999, Adams initiated the h2g2 collaborative writing project, an experimental attempt at making "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" a reality, and at harnessing the collective brainpower of the internet community. It was hosted by BBC Online from 2001 to 2011.


title: Douglas Adams

text: In 1990, Adams wrote and presented a television documentary programme "Hyperland" which featured Tom Baker as a "software agent" (similar to the assistant pictured in Apple's Knowledge Navigator video of future concepts from 1987), and interviews with Ted Nelson, the co-inventor of hypertext and the person who coined the term. Adams was an early adopter and advocate of hypertext.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams described himself as a "radical atheist", adding "radical" for emphasis so he would not be asked if he meant agnostic. He told American Atheists that this conveyed the fact that he really meant it. He imagined a sentient puddle who wakes up one morning and thinks, "This is an interesting world I find myself in – an interesting hole I find myself in – fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" to demonstrate his view that the fine-tuned universe argument for God was a fallacy.


title: Douglas Adams

text: He remained fascinated by religion because of its effect on human affairs. "I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I've thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing."


title: Douglas Adams

text: The evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins invited Adams to participate in his 1991 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, where Dawkins calls Adams from the audience to read a passage from "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" which satirizes the absurdity of the thought that any one species would exist on Earth merely to serve as a meal to another species, such as humans. Dawkins also uses Adams's influence to exemplify arguments for non-belief in his 2006 book "The God Delusion". Dawkins dedicated the book to Adams, whom he jokingly called "possibly [my] only convert" to atheism and wrote on his death that "Science has lost a friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender."


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams was also an environmental activist who campaigned on behalf of endangered species. This activism included the production of the non-fiction radio series "Last Chance to See", in which he and naturalist Mark Carwardine visited rare species such as the kakapo and baiji, and the publication of a tie-in book of the same name. In 1992, this was made into a CD-ROM combination of audiobook, e-book and picture slide show.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams and Mark Carwardine contributed the 'Meeting a Gorilla' passage from "Last Chance to See" to the book "The Great Ape Project". This book, edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer, launched a wider-scale project in 1993, which calls for the extension of moral equality to include all great apes, human and non-human.


title: Douglas Adams

text: In 1994, he participated in a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro while wearing a rhino suit for the British charity organisation Save the Rhino International. Puppeteer William Todd-Jones, who had originally worn the suit in the London Marathon to raise money and bring awareness to the group, also participated in the climb wearing a rhino suit; Adams wore the suit while travelling to the mountain before the climb began. About £100,000 was raised through that event, benefiting schools in Kenya and a black rhinoceros preservation programme in Tanzania. Adams was also an active supporter of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Since 2003, Save the Rhino has held an annual Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture around the time of his birthday to raise money for environmental campaigns.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams bought his first word processor in 1982, having considered one as early as 1979. His first purchase was a Nexu. In 1983, when he and Jane Belson went to Los Angeles, he bought a DEC Rainbow. Upon their return to England, Adams bought an Apricot, then a BBC Micro and a Tandy 1000. In "Last Chance to See", Adams mentions his Cambridge Z88, which he had taken to Zaire on a quest to find the northern white rhinoceros.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams's posthumously published work, "The Salmon of Doubt", features several articles by him on the subject of technology, including reprints of articles that originally ran in "MacUser" magazine, and in "The Independent on Sunday" newspaper. In these Adams claims that one of the first computers he ever saw was a Commodore PET, and that he had "adored" his Apple Macintosh ("or rather my family of however many Macintoshes it is that I've recklessly accumulated over the years") since he first saw one at Infocom's offices in Boston in 1984.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams was a Macintosh user from the time they first came out in 1984 until his death in 2001. He was the first person to buy a Mac in Europe, the second being Stephen Fry. Adams was also an "Apple Master", celebrities whom Apple made into spokespeople for its products (others included John Cleese and Gregory Hines). Adams's contributions included a rock video that he created using the first version of iMovie with footage featuring his daughter Polly. The video was available on Adams's .Mac homepage. Adams installed and started using the first release of Mac OS X in the weeks leading up to his death. His last post to his own forum was in praise of Mac OS X and the possibilities of its Cocoa programming framework. He said it was "awesome...", which was also the last word he wrote on his site.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams used email to correspond with Steve Meretzky in the early 1980s, during their collaboration on Infocom's version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". While living in New Mexico in 1993 he set up another e-mail address and began posting to his own USENET newsgroup, alt.fan.douglas-adams, and occasionally, when his computer was acting up, to the comp.sys.mac hierarchy. Challenges to the authenticity of his messages later led Adams to set up a message forum on his own website to avoid the issue. In 1996, Adams was a keynote speaker at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) where he described the personal computer as being a modelling device. The video of his keynote speech is archived on Channel 9.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams was also a keynote speaker for the April 2001 Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco, one of the major technical conferences on embedded system engineering.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams moved to Upper Street, Islington, in 1981 and to Duncan Terrace, a few minutes' walk away, in the late 1980s.


title: Douglas Adams

text: In the early 1980s Adams had an affair with novelist Sally Emerson, who was separated from her husband at that time. Adams later dedicated his book "Life, the Universe and Everything" to Emerson. In 1981 Emerson returned to her husband, Peter Stothard, a contemporary of Adams at Brentwood School, and later editor of "The Times". Adams was soon introduced by friends to Jane Belson, with whom he later became romantically involved. Belson was the "lady barrister" mentioned in the jacket-flap biography printed in his books during the mid-1980s ("He [Adams] lives in Islington with a lady barrister and an Apple Macintosh"). The two lived in Los Angeles together during 1983 while Adams worked on an early screenplay adaptation of "Hitchhiker's". When the deal fell through, they moved back to London, and after several separations ("He is currently not certain where he lives, or with whom") and a broken engagement, they married on 25 November 1991.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams and Belson had one daughter together, Polly Jane Rocket Adams, born on 22 June 1994, shortly after Adams turned 42. In 1999 the family moved from London to Santa Barbara, California, where they lived until his death. Following the funeral, Jane Belson and Polly Adams returned to London. Belson died on 7 September 2011 of cancer, aged 59.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Adams died of a heart attack due to undiagnosed coronary artery disease on 11 May 2001, aged 49, after resting from his regular workout at a private gym in Montecito, California. His funeral was held on 16 May in Santa Barbara. His ashes were placed in Highgate Cemetery in north London in June 2002. A memorial service was held on 17 September 2001 at St Martin-in-the-Fields church, Trafalgar Square, London. This became the first church service broadcast live on the web by the BBC.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Two days before Adams died, the Minor Planet Center announced the naming of asteroid 18610 Arthurdent. In 2005, the asteroid 25924 Douglasadams was named in his memory.


title: Douglas Adams

text: In May 2002, "The Salmon of Doubt" was published, containing many short stories, essays, and letters, as well as eulogies from Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry (in the UK edition), Christopher Cerf (in the US edition), and Terry Jones (in the US paperback edition). It also includes eleven chapters of his unfinished novel, "The Salmon of Doubt", which was originally intended to become a new Dirk Gently novel, but might have later become the sixth "Hitchhiker" novel.


title: Douglas Adams

text: Other events after Adams's death included a webcast production of "Shada", allowing the complete story to be told, radio dramatisations of the final three books in the "Hitchhiker's" series, and the completion of the film adaptation of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". The film, released in 2005, posthumously credits Adams as a producer, and several design elements – including a head-shaped planet seen near the end of the film – incorporated Adams's features.


title: Douglas Adams

text: BBC Radio 4 also commissioned a third Dirk Gently radio series based on the incomplete chapters of "The Salmon of Doubt", and written by Kim Fuller; but this was dropped in favour of a BBC TV series based on the two completed novels. A sixth "Hitchhiker" novel, "And Another Thing...", by "Artemis Fowl" author Eoin Colfer, was released on 12 October 2009 (the 30th anniversary of the first book), published with the support of Adams's estate. A BBC Radio 4 "Book at Bedtime" adaptation and an audio book soon followed.


title: Douglas Adams

text: On 25 May 2001, two weeks after Adams's death, his fans organised a tribute known as Towel Day, which has been observed every year since then.


title: Douglas Adams

text: An Apple Macintosh SE/30 once owned by Adams can be seen on display at The Centre for Computing History in Cambridge.


title: Douglas Adams

text: In 2018, John Lloyd presented an hour-long episode of the BBC Radio Four documentary "Archive on 4", discussing Adams' private papers, which are held at St John's College, Cambridge. The episode is available online.


title: Douglas Adams

text: In March 2021 Unbound announced a crowdfunder for "42: the wildly improbable ideas of Douglas Adams", on the 20th anniversary of his death, a book based on Adams's papers, edited by Kevin Jon Davies.


title: Tatyana Ali

text: Tatyana Marisol Ali is an American actress and singer best known for her role as Ashley Banks on the NBC sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" from 1990 to 1996. She starred as Tyana Jones on the TV One original series "Love That Girl!", and played a recurring role as Roxanne on the CBS soap opera "The Young and the Restless" from 2007 to 2013.


title: Tatyana Ali

text: Ali was born in North Bellmore, New York. She is of mixed African and Indian descent or Dougla, born to an Indo-Trinidadian father and an Afro-Panamanian mother.


title: Tatyana Ali

text: In 1985, 6-year-old Ali began her acting career as a regular performer on the PBS children's educational program "Sesame Street". Her tenure included an appearance with jazz great Herbie Hancock, who demonstrated his Fairlight CMI synthesizer using a sample of Ali's voice. She also appeared in two episodes of "Star Search," one of which featured her performance of a cover of Marvin Gaye's and Tammi Terrell's hit "Ain't No Mountain High Enough".


title: Tatyana Ali

text: She made her breakthrough in 1990 when she was cast as Ashley Banks on the NBC television sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", a role she played throughout the series' entire run, from 1990 to 1996.


title: Tatyana Ali

text: Ali's vocal talent was featured on several episodes of "Fresh Prince" in later seasons, prompting the show's star Will Smith to ask her if she would seriously consider pursuing a musical career. She ultimately decided, for the time being, to continue to concentrate on her acting career. In the series' final season, however, Ali performed several songs, and she began to be cleaned for her musical debut, the culmination of which was her debut album "Kiss The Sky" in 1998. It was certified gold in early 1999, only months after its release, and spawned the Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins-produced hit single "Daydreamin'", released July 21, 1998, which peaked at No. 6 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and also appeared on the UK Singles Chart. The album spawned two further UK hits, "Boy You Knock Me Out" featuring Will Smith—which peaked at No. 3 and is her biggest hit to date—and "Everytime", which was her third top-20 hit in the UK, peaking at No. 20. She made an appearance on Smith's album "Willennium" on the track "Who Am I" with MC Lyte. She performed the title song "Sunny Valentine" along with Terrence Quaites for the indie film "Rockin' Meera" in 2005. In early 2008, she performed on the song "Yes We Can", a will.i.am project supporting Barack Obama's presidential campaign. She also appeared in the subsequent music video which garnered coverage on the "What the Buzz" segment of ABC's "World News Now". In January 2014, Ali released an EP titled "Hello", whose first single was "Wait For It", which she performed on "The Arsenio Hall Show" on February 4, 2014.


title: Tatyana Ali

text: Apart from her musical career, Ali continued to land roles in films such as "The Brothers", "Glory Road", and "Nora's Hair Salon" (and its sequel), among others. From 2009 to 2010 she produced and starred in the BET web series "Buppies". She was on recurring status on the CBS soap opera "The Young and the Restless" as Roxanne from 2007 to 2013. Ali starred in the TV One original series "Love That Girl!" as Tyana (whose name was derived from Ali's given name). In 2013, she co-starred as Maya in the BET comedy "Second Generation Wayans", alongside Craig Wayans and Damien Dante Wayans.


title: Tatyana Ali

text: In 2011, Ali received the Living Legacy Award from the Caribbean Heritage Organization in Los Angeles.


title: Tatyana Ali

text: In July 2016, Ali sued Warner Bros. claiming that the company stole her idea for the show "The Real" after she pitched the concept in December 2012. The case was dismissed in February 2017.


title: Tatyana Ali

text: Ali attended Harvard University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in African-American Studies and Government in 2002. On a celebrity edition of the game show "The Chase", which aired February 3, 2015, Ali stated that her major was political science.


title: Tatyana Ali

text: She traveled the United States as a spokesperson for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, and headed voter registration drives at college campuses.


title: Tatyana Ali

text: In March 2016, Ali revealed that she was engaged to Dr. Vaughn Rasberry, assistant professor of English at Stanford University, whom she had met on eHarmony, and they announced that they were expecting their first child. She and Rasberry married on July 17, 2016, in Beverly Hills, California. The couple has two sons.


title: Bob Einstein

text: Stewart Robert Einstein (November 20, 1942 – January 2, 2019) was an American actor, comedy writer, and producer. He created and performed the satirical stuntman character Super Dave Osborne, and was also known for his roles as Marty Funkhouser in "Curb Your Enthusiasm", and Larry Middleman on "Arrested Development".


title: Bob Einstein

text: Einstein got his start on several television variety shows; including "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" and "The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour". Einstein won two Emmy Awards as a writer and was nominated four other times. He also won a CableACE Award for acting as Super Dave, along with five other nominations.


title: Bob Einstein

text: Einstein was the son of radio comedian Harry Einstein, and the older brother of fellow actor and comedian Albert Brooks.


title: Bob Einstein

text: Einstein was born in 1942 in Los Angeles. His parents were the comic Harry Einstein, best known for playing the character Parkyakarkus on radio and in the movies, and the actress-singer Thelma Leeds. On October 24, 1949, at the age of six, it was reported in the "LA Times" that he had contracted polio. His younger brother is comedian and writer Albert Brooks (born Albert Lawrence Einstein). He was a 1965 graduate of Chapman College.


title: Bob Einstein

text: Einstein got his start writing for "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour", for which he won an Emmy Award. The writing team also included Steve Martin and Murray Roman. He also appeared on the show as Officer Judy. In 1977 he won an Emmy for outstanding comedy-variety series for his work on "Van Dyke and Company".


title: Bob Einstein

text: Einstein created the goofy stuntman Super Dave Osborne character for a variety show hosted by John Byner. The character later became a regular on the 1980 television series "Bizarre", also hosted by Byner, and was a frequent guest on "Late Night with David Letterman" where he would show clips of his ill-fated stunts and tell long semi-crude jokes. In 1987, Einstein got his own variety show titled "Super Dave", which ran from 1987 to 1991 on the Global Television Network in Canada (where the show was produced at the network's Toronto studio) and Showtime in the United States. In 1992, an animated series "" aired on Fox. Einstein later extended the "Super Dave" franchise by starring in the 2000 movie "The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave".


title: Bob Einstein

text: On November 12, 2009, the airing of "TNA Impact!", he was the booker and host of the night. He made "Super Dave's Spike Tacular", a four-episode sketch series on Spike TV reprising his "Super Dave" character, once again engaging in outrageous stunts.


title: Bob Einstein

text: Einstein had recurring roles as Marty Funkhouser in "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and Larry Middleman in the third season of "Arrested Development". He was also featured on the Comedy Central show "Crank Yankers" as obnoxious district selectman Tony Deloge. Einstein was also on "The Man Show" where he did "Century Club" with Adam and Jimmy. In "Ocean's Thirteen" he played Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon)'s father, Robert "Bobby" Caldwell, a master robber and con artist whose day job is an FBI agent.


title: Bob Einstein

text: Einstein appeared on the second season of "Anger Management" as Charlie Goodson's very angry neighbor, and his character in the show instantly got an unflattering nickname based on a feminine hygiene product.


title: Bob Einstein

text: Einstein voiced two characters from "The Life & Times of Tim", playing the Elephant Trainer in "Tim & the Elephant" in the second season, and the bookie in "Pray for the Jets" in the third.


title: Bob Einstein

text: Einstein was the first comedian to appear twice on Jerry Seinfeld's Web series "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee."


title: Bob Einstein

text: In the 2010s, Einstein was a frequent guest on the sports talk radio program "The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz". Einstein called in as a "Celebrity Prognosticator" to give his thoughts on sports and various other topics.


title: Bob Einstein

text: "Curb Your Enthusiasm" series creator and star Larry David said in a statement: “Never have I seen an actor enjoy a role the way Bob did playing ‘Marty Funkhouser’ on "Curb". It was an amazing, unforgettable experience knowing and working with him. There was no one like him, as he told us again and again. We’re all in a state of shock.”


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: The Peace of Westphalia (, ) is the collective name for two peace treaties signed in October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. They ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and brought peace to the Holy Roman Empire, closing a calamitous period of European history that killed approximately eight million people. Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, the kingdoms of France and Sweden, and their respective allies among the princes of the Holy Roman Empire participated in these treaties.


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: The negotiation process was lengthy and complex. Talks took place in two cities, because each side wanted to meet on territory under its own control. A total of 109 delegations arrived to represent the belligerent states, but not all delegations were present at the same time. Two treaties were signed to end the war in the Empire: the Treaty of Münster and the Treaty of Osnabrück. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire, with the Habsburgs (rulers of Austria and Spain) and their Catholic allies on one side, battling the Protestant powers (Sweden and certain Holy Roman principalities) allied with France (though Catholic, strongly anti-Habsburg under King Louis XIV).


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: Joachim Whaley, a leading English-language historian of the Holy Roman Empire, mentions that later commentators such as Leibniz, Rousseau, Kant, and Schiller eulogized the Peace of Westphalia as the first step towards a universal peace, but he points out that "their projections for the future should not be mistaken for descriptions of reality".


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: Several scholars of international relations have identified the Peace of Westphalia as the origin of principles crucial to modern international relations, collectively known as Westphalian sovereignty. However historians have argued against this, suggesting that such views emerged during the nineteenth and twentieth century in relation to the later concerns about sovereignty of this subsequent period.


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: Europe had been battered by both the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War, exacting a heavy toll in money and lives. The Eighty Years' War was a prolonged struggle for the independence of the Protestant-majority Dutch Republic (the modern Netherlands), supported by Protestant-majority England, against Catholic-dominated Spain and Portugal. The Thirty Years' War was the most deadly of the European wars of religion, centred on the Holy Roman Empire. The war, which developed into four phases, included a large number of domestic and foreign players, siding either with the Catholic League or the Protestant Union (later Heilbronn League). The Peace of Prague (1635) ended most religious aspects of the war, and the French–Habsburg rivalry took over prominence. With between 4.5 million and 8 million dead in the Thirty Years' War alone, and decades of constant warfare, the need for peace became increasingly clear.


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: Peace negotiations between France and the Habsburg Emperor began in Cologne in 1636. These negotiations were initially blocked by Cardinal Richelieu of France, who insisted on the inclusion of all his allies, whether fully sovereign countries or states within the Holy Roman Empire. In Hamburg, Sweden, France, and the Holy Roman Empire negotiated a preliminary peace in December 1641. They declared that the preparations of Cologne and the Treaty of Hamburg were preliminaries of an overall peace agreement.


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: The main peace negotiations took place in Westphalia, in the neighbouring cities of Münster and Osnabrück. Both cities were maintained as neutral and demilitarized zones for the negotiations.


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: In Münster, negotiations took place between the Holy Roman Empire and France, as well as between the Dutch Republic and Spain who on 30 January 1648 signed a peace treaty ending the Eighty Years' War that was not part of the Peace of Westphalia. Münster had been, since its re-Catholicisation in 1535, a strictly mono-denominational community. It housed the Chapter of the Prince-Bishopric of Münster. Only Roman Catholic worship was permitted, while Calvinism and Lutheranism were prohibited.


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: Sweden preferred to negotiate with the Holy Roman Empire in Osnabrück, which was controlled by Protestant forces. Osnabrück was a bidenominational Lutheran and Catholic city, with two Lutheran churches and two Catholic churches. The city council was exclusively Lutheran, and the burghers mostly so, but the city also housed the Catholic Chapter of the Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück and had many other Catholic inhabitants. Osnabrück had been subjugated by troops of the Catholic League from 1628 to 1633 and was then taken by Lutheran Sweden.


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: The peace negotiations had no exact beginning or end, because the 109 delegations never met in a plenary session. Instead, various delegations arrived between 1643 and 1646 and left between 1647 and 1649. The largest number of diplomats were present between January 1646 and July 1647.


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: Delegations had been sent by 16 European states, 66 Imperial States representing the interests of 140 Imperial States, and 27 interest groups representing 38 groups.


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: The power asserted by Ferdinand III was stripped from him and returned to the rulers of the Imperial States. The rulers of the Imperial States could again choose their own official religions. Catholics and Protestants were redefined as equal before the law, and Calvinism was given legal recognition as an official religion. The independence of the Dutch Republic, which practiced religious toleration, also provided a safe haven for European Jews.


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: The Holy See was very displeased at the settlement, with Pope Innocent X calling it "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time" in the bull "Zelo Domus Dei".


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: The treaties did not entirely end conflicts arising out of the Thirty Years' War. Fighting continued between France and Spain until the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. The Dutch-Portuguese War that had begun during the Iberian Union between Spain and Portugal, as part of the Eighty Years' War, went on until 1663. Nevertheless, the Peace of Westphalia did settle many outstanding European issues of the time.


title: Peace of Westphalia

text: Some scholars of international relations have identified the Peace of Westphalia as the origin of principles crucial to modern international relations, including the inviolability of borders and non-interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. This system became known in the literature as Westphalian sovereignty. Most modern historians have challenged the association of this system with the Peace of Westphalia, calling it the 'Westphalian Myth.' They have challenged the view that the modern European states system originated with the Westphalian treaties. The treaties do not contain anything in their text about religious freedom, sovereignty, or balance of power that can be construed as international law principles. Constitutional arrangements of the Holy Roman Empire are the only context in which sovereignty and religious equality are mentioned in the text, but they are not new ideas in this context. While the treaties do not contain the basis for the modern laws of nations themselves, they do symbolize the end of a long period of religious conflict in Europe.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: Nancy Laura Spungen (; February 27, 1958 – October 12, 1978) was the American girlfriend of English musician Sid Vicious, and a figure of the 1970s punk rock scene.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: Raised Jewish in Philadelphia, Spungen was an emotionally disturbed child who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 15. After being expelled from college, she flew to London in December 1976 at the height of the punk rock movement and became involved with Vicious, the bass player of the Sex Pistols. Their relationship was punctuated by bouts of domestic violence and drug abuse. The press soon labelled Spungen "Nauseating Nancy" for her outrageous and frequently antisocial behavior. After John Lydon left the band and Vicious was made the new front man, the couple moved to New York City and checked into the Hotel Chelsea, where they spent much of their time using drugs, especially heroin.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: In October 1978, Spungen was found dead in the bathroom of the couple's room, with a single stab wound to the abdomen. Vicious was charged with her murder, but died of a heroin overdose while on bail in February 1979 before the case went to trial. Various authors and filmmakers have speculated about Vicious' role in Spungen's death and the possibility that Spungen was killed by a drug dealer who frequently visited their room.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: Nancy Laura Spungen was born on February 27, 1958, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, to Franklin "Frank" (1934–2010) and Deborah Spungen (born 1937). She was born with severe cyanosis and nearly died of oxygen deprivation after being choked by her umbilical cord during delivery. Spungen appeared to have had no brain damage and was released from the hospital eight days after birth. The Spungens were a middle-class Jewish family that resided in Lower Moreland Township, a suburb of Philadelphia. Spungen's father was a traveling salesman and her mother later owned an organic food store called The Earth Shop in nearby Jenkintown.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: Young Nancy was a difficult baby, throwing crying fits and temper tantrums late into childhood. At three months old, she was prescribed a liquid barbiturate by a pediatrician, but her violent behavior persisted. In an interview, Spungen's mother stated, "I know it's normal for babies to cry, but Nancy did nothing "but" scream." Though she excelled academically, she had few friends during her elementary school years.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: Spungen was a temperamental child who exhibited violent behavior toward her younger sister Susan, but was very caring toward her younger brother David. She allegedly threatened to kill a babysitter with scissors and attempted to batter her psychiatrist, who accused her of "acting out" for attention. At age 11, Spungen was expelled from public school when she went absent from class for more than two weeks. Weary of her erratic behavior, Spungen's parents enrolled her at Devereux Glenholme School in Connecticut and at Devereux Manor High School in Pennsylvania. In January 1972, Spungen ran away from Devereux Manor and attempted suicide by slitting her wrists with scissors. When she was aged 15, her psychiatrist diagnosed her with schizophrenia.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: Spungen graduated from Lakeside High School in 1974, two weeks after her application to attend the University of Colorado Boulder was accepted. She began attending the university at age 16, but five months into her freshman year she was arrested for purchasing marijuana from an undercover police officer. When she was later arrested for storing stolen property in her dorm room, the University of Colorado decided to expel her. Spungen's father traveled to Boulder and accepted a plea bargain for her, which resulted in her being banished from the state of Colorado.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: Spungen left home at age 17 and moved to New York City, where she supported herself for a time with sex work, amateur music journalism, and odd jobs at clothing stores. In her free time, she became a groupie and followed rock bands such as Aerosmith, Bad Company, the New York Dolls, and the Ramones. In December of 1976, Spungen flew to London with the Heartbreakers and met the Sex Pistols, who later included bassist Sid Vicious; Spungen and Vicious soon moved in together.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: During their tumultuous nineteen-month relationship, Spungen and Vicious (who was already abusing multiple drugs before meeting Spungen) became addicted to heroin. The tabloids dubbed Spungen "Nauseating Nancy" for her frequent public outbursts. After the Sex Pistols broke up in January 1978, Spungen and Vicious eventually moved to Hotel Chelsea in New York City. They stayed in Room 100, registered as "Mr. and Mrs. John Simon Ritchie", Vicious' real name.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: Over the next two months, Vicious and Spungen spiraled into deeper drug abuse. On October 12, 1978, Spungen's body was found under the sink in the bathroom of their room at the Hotel Chelsea. She had suffered a single fatal stab wound to the abdomen. It was long rumored that Vicious owned the knife that inflicted the injury, a "007" hunting knife that he had obtained after seeing Dee Dee Ramone give one to the Dead Boys' Stiv Bators, but the police report noted that the knife was a Jaguar Wilderness K-11 with a blade.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: Vicious was immediately arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty and was released on bail, though he shared conflicting stories of the night Spungen died. Four months after her death, Vicious died of a heroin overdose before the trial could take place and the New York City Police Department closed the case.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: There are several theories that implicate someone other than Vicious in Spungen's murder, such as one of the two drug dealers who had visited the hotel room that night, and that suggest that a robbery was involved, as certain items (including a substantial bankroll) were claimed to be missing from the room. In his book "Pretty Vacant: A History of Punk", Phil Strongman accuses actor and stand-up comic Rockets Redglare of killing Spungen; Redglare had delivered drugs to the couple's room on the night of Spungen's death.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: Throughout his life, Redglare, who died in 2001, steadfastly denied any involvement in Spungen's murder to the press, but often "confessed" to the murder within his circle of friends, to mixed reaction. Friends such as Zoe Hansen took Redglare at his word, but others, including Howie Pyro, have cast doubt on his claims, insisting that he enjoyed telling exaggerated stories for attention. Redglare also told the press that he believed that a drug dealer whom he had seen in the lobby of the Hotel Chelsea on the morning of Spungen's murder committed the crime.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: "Horror Business", a 1979 song by the American punk rock band Misfits was inspired by Spungen's murder with song's lyrics, which include lines such as, "You don't go in the bathroom with me" and, "I'll put a knife right in you". Prior to Vicious's death, the Misfits were rumored to back Vicious on his proposed debut solo album. Additionally, Misfits bassist Jerry Only attended a dinner gathering at the apartment of Vicious' girlfriend Michelle Robinson the night that Vicious died.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: Spungen's mother Deborah wrote the 1983 memoir "And I Don't Want to Live This Life". Its title is taken from a poem Vicious wrote.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: The 1986 British biopic "Sid and Nancy", directed by Alex Cox, portrays the life of Vicious (played by Gary Oldman) and his relationship with Spungen (played by Chloe Webb). Critics praised Webb's performance as Spungen. In the film, Cox also put forth the theory that Spungen and Vicious had a suicide pact, but they got into an argument when Vicious reneged. The argument escalated when Spungen assaulted Vicious, who was trying to leave the apartment, and as portrayed in the film she was stabbed accidentally when she charged him while his knife was out.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: Veronica Schanoes' story "Rats" appeared in the 2007 Interstitial Arts Foundation anthology "Interfictions". The story is a punk rock fairytale inspired by Spungen's life. About her work, the author said: "I wrote 'Rats' because I was angry with the way the recent coffee-table histories of punk seem to have no problem demonizing a dead, mentally ill, teenage girl."


title: Nancy Spungen

text: Alan G. Parker directed the 2010 documentary film "Who Killed Nancy?", which includes interviews with Vicious and Spungen's associates, including John Holmstrom, Don Letts, Glen Matlock, and Howie Pyro.


title: Nancy Spungen

text: In the 2022 miniseries "Pistol" Sid, portrayed by Louis Partridge, is shown waking up in a confused state the morning after Spungen's death with apparently vague recollections of an altercation the previous night. He is then horrified to find Nancy (Emma Appleton) dead in the bathroom. This version appears to accept Sid's account that he had no memory of how Nancy had been injured.


title: Devon

text: Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is a coastal county with cliffs and sandy beaches. Home to the largest open space in southern England, Dartmoor (), the county is predominately rural and has a relatively low population density for an English county.


title: Devon

text: The county is split into the non-metropolitan districts of East Devon, Mid Devon, North Devon, South Hams, Teignbridge, Torridge, West Devon, Exeter, and the unitary authority areas of Plymouth, and Torbay. Combined as a ceremonial county, Devon's area is and its population is about 1.2 million.


title: Devon

text: Devon derives its name from Dumnonia (the shift from "m" to "v" is a typical Celtic consonant shift). During the British Iron Age, Roman Britain and the early Middle Ages, this was the homeland of the Dumnonii Brittonic Celts. The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain resulted in the partial assimilation of Dumnonia into the Kingdom of Wessex during the eighth and ninth centuries. The western boundary with Cornwall was set at the River Tamar by King Æthelstan in 936. Devon was later constituted as a shire of the Kingdom of England.


title: Devon

text: The name "Devon" derives from the name of the Brythons who inhabited the southwestern peninsula of Britain at the time of the Roman conquest of Britain known as the Dumnonii, thought to mean 'deep valley dwellers' from proto Celtic 'deep'. In the Brittonic, Devon is known as , and , each meaning 'deep valleys'. (For an account of Celtic "Dumnonia", see the separate article.) Among the most common Devon placenames is "-combe" which derives from Brittonic meaning 'valley' usually prefixed by the name of the possessor.


title: Devon

text: William Camden, in his 1607 edition of "Britannia", described Devon as being one part of an older, wider country that once included Cornwall:


title: Devon

text: The term "Devon" is normally used for everyday purposes, e.g. "Devon County Council" but "Devonshire" continues to be used in the names of the "Devonshire and Dorset Regiment" (until 2007) and "The Devonshire Association". One erroneous theory is that the "shire" suffix is due to a mistake in the making of the original letters patent for the Duke of Devonshire, resident in Derbyshire. However, there are references to in Anglo-Saxon texts from before 1000 AD (this would mean 'Shire of the Devonians'), which translates to modern English as "Devonshire". The term Devonshire may have originated around the eighth century, when it changed from (Latin) to .


title: Devon

text: Kents Cavern in Torquay had produced human remains from 30 to 40,000 years ago. Dartmoor is thought to have been occupied by Mesolithic hunter-gatherer peoples from about 6000 BC. The Romans held the area under military occupation for around 350 years. Later, the area began to experience Saxon incursions from the east around 600 AD, firstly as small bands of settlers along the coasts of Lyme Bay and southern estuaries and later as more organised bands pushing in from the east. Devon became a frontier between Brittonic and Anglo-Saxon Wessex, and it was largely absorbed into Wessex by the mid ninth century.


title: Devon

text: A genetic study carried out by the University of Oxford & University College London discovered separate genetic groups in Cornwall and Devon. Not only were there differences on either side of the River Tamar—-with a division almost exactly following the modern county boundary and dating back to the sixth century CE—but also between Devon and the rest of Southern England. Devon's population also exhibited similarities with modern northern France, including Brittany. This suggests the Anglo-Saxon migration into Devon was limited, rather than a mass movement of people.


title: Devon

text: The border with Cornwall was set by King Æthelstan on the east bank of the River Tamar in 936 AD. Danish raids also occurred sporadically along many coastal parts of Devon between around 800AD and just before the time of the Norman conquest, including the silver mint at "Hlidaforda" Lydford in 997 and Taintona (a settlement on the Teign estuary) in 1001.


title: Devon

text: Devon was the home of a number of anticlerical movements in the Later Middle Ages. For example, the Order of Brothelyngham—a fake monastic order of 1348


title: Devon

text: — regularly rode through Exeter, kidnapping both religious men and laymen, and extorting money from them as ransom.


title: Devon

text: Devon has also featured in most of the civil conflicts in England since the Norman conquest, including the Wars of the Roses, Perkin Warbeck's rising in 1497, the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549, and the English Civil War. The arrival of William of Orange to launch the Glorious Revolution of 1688 took place at Brixham.


title: Devon

text: Devon has produced tin, copper and other metals from ancient times. Devon's tin miners enjoyed a substantial degree of independence through Devon's Stannary Convocation, which dates back to the 12th century. The last recorded sitting was in 1748.


title: Devon

text: Devon's total economic output in 2019 was over £26 billion, larger than either Manchester, or Edinburgh.


title: Devon

text: Like neighbouring Cornwall to the west, historically Devon has been disadvantaged economically compared to other parts of Southern England, owing to the decline of a number of core industries, notably fishing, mining, and farming, but it is now significantly more diverse. Agriculture has been an important industry in Devon since the 19th century. The 2001 UK foot and mouth crisis harmed the farming community severely. Since then some parts of the agricultural industry have begun to diversify and recover, with a strong local food sector and many artisan producers. Nonetheless, in 2015 the dairy industry was still suffering from the low prices offered for wholesale milk by major dairies and especially large supermarket chains.


title: Devon

text: The attractive lifestyle of the area is drawing in new industries which are not heavily dependent upon geographical location; Dartmoor, for instance, has recently seen a significant rise in the percentage of its inhabitants involved in the digital and financial services sectors. The Met Office, the UK's national and international weather service, moved to Exeter in 2003. Plymouth hosts the head office and first ever store of The Range, the only major national retail chain headquartered in Devon.


title: Devon

text: Since the rise of seaside resorts with the arrival of the railways in the 19th century, Devon's economy has been heavily reliant on tourism. The county's economy followed the declining trend of British seaside resorts since the mid-20th century, but with some recent revival and regeneration of its resorts, particularly focused around camping; sports such as surfing, cycling, sailing and heritage. This revival has been aided by the designation of much of Devon's countryside and coastline as the Dartmoor and Exmoor national parks, and the Jurassic Coast and Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Sites. In 2019 the county's visitor spend was almost £2.5 billion. More successful visitor attractions are particularly concentrated on food and drink, including sea-view restaurants in North-West Devon (such as one example belonging to Damien Hurst), walking the South West Coast Path, cycling on the Devon Coast to Coast Cycle Route and other cycle routes such as the Tarka Trail and the Stover Trail; watersports; surfing; indoor and outdoor folk music festivals across the county and sailing in the hill-surrounded inlet (ria) at Salcombe.


title: Devon

text: Incomes vary significantly and the average is bolstered by a high proportion of affluent retired people. Incomes in much of the South Hams and in villages surrounding Exeter and Plymouth are close to, or above the national average, but there are also areas of severe deprivation, with earnings in some places among the lowest in the UK.


title: Devon

text: The table also shows the population change in the ten years to the 2011 census by subdivision. It also shows the proportion of residents in each district reliant upon lowest income and/or joblessness benefits, the national average proportion of which was 4.5% as at August 2012, the year for which latest datasets have been published. It can be seen that the most populous district of Devon is East Devon but only if excluding Torbay which has marginally more residents and Plymouth which has approximately double the number of residents of either of these. West Devon has the fewest residents, having 63,839 at the time of the census.


title: Devon

text: Bus operators include: Stagecoach (much of Devon), AVMT Buses (East Devon/Jurassic Coast), County Bus (Teignbridge) and Plymouth Citybus.


title: Devon

text: The key train operator for Devon is Great Western Railway, which operates numerous regional, local and suburban services, as well as inter-city services north to London Paddington and south to Plymouth and Penzance. Other inter-city services are operated by CrossCountry north to Manchester Piccadilly, Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Central, Dundee, Aberdeen and south to Plymouth and Penzance; and by South Western Railway, operating hourly services between London Waterloo and Exeter St Davids, via the West of England Main Line. All Devon services are diesel-hauled, since there are no electrified lines in the county.


title: Devon

text: Okehampton station in Devon was closed in 1972 to passenger traffic as a result of the Beeching cuts, but regained regular passenger services run by GWR to Exeter in November 2021, funded by the UK Government's Restoring your Railway programme.


title: Devon

text: There are proposals to reopen the line from Tavistock to Bere Alston for a through service to Plymouth. The possibility of reopening the line between Tavistock and Okehampton, to provide an alternative route between Exeter and Plymouth, has also been suggested following damage to the railway's sea wall at Dawlish in 2014, which caused widespread disruption to trains between Exeter and Penzance. However, a study by Network Rail determined that maintaining the existing railway line would offer the best value for money and work to strengthen the line at Dawlish began in 2019.


title: Devon

text: Devon County Council has proposed a 'Devon Metro' scheme to improve rail services in the county and offer a realistic alternative to car travel. This includes the delivery of Cranbrook station, plus four new stations (including Torquay Gateway) as a priority. Several elements of the scheme have, or are in the process of being delivered including the building of Marsh Barton station on the edge of Exeter and a regular half hourly local rail service now extended from the Exmouth to Exeter Branch onto Paignton.


title: Devon

text: Exeter Airport is the only passenger airport in Devon and in 2019 was used by over 1 million people. Until 2020, Flybe had its headquarters at the airport. Destinations include various locations within the UK (London City, Manchester, Belfast, Edinburgh, etc.), as well as locations in Cyprus, Italy, Netherlands, Lapland, Portugal, Spain, France, Malta, Switzerland and Turkey.


title: Devon

text: Devon straddles a peninsula and so, uniquely among English counties, has two separate coastlines: on the Bristol Channel and Celtic Sea in the north, and on the English Channel in the south. The South West Coast Path runs along the entire length of both, around 65% of which is named as Heritage Coast. Before the changes to English counties in 1974, Devon was the third largest county by area and the largest of the counties not divided into county-like divisions (only Yorkshire and Lincolnshire were larger and both were sub-divided into ridings or parts, respectively). Since 1974 the county is ranked fourth by area (due to the creation of Cumbria) amongst ceremonial counties and is the third largest non-metropolitan county. The island of Lundy and the reef of Eddystone are also in Devon. The county has more mileage of road than any other county in England.


title: Devon

text: Inland, the Dartmoor National park lies wholly in Devon, and the Exmoor National Park lies in both Devon and Somerset. Apart from these areas of high moorland the county has attractive rolling rural scenery and villages with thatched cob cottages. All these features make Devon a popular holiday destination.


title: Devon

text: In South Devon the landscape consists of rolling hills dotted with small towns, such as Dartmouth, Ivybridge, Kingsbridge, Salcombe, and Totnes. The towns of Torquay and Paignton are the principal seaside resorts on the south coast. East Devon has the first seaside resort to be developed in the county, Exmouth and the more upmarket Georgian town of Sidmouth, headquarters of the East Devon District Council. Exmouth marks the western end of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. Another notable feature is the coastal railway line between Newton Abbot and the Exe Estuary: the red sandstone cliffs and sea views are very dramatic and in the resorts railway line and beaches are very near.


title: Devon

text: North Devon is very rural with few major towns except Barnstaple, Great Torrington, Bideford and Ilfracombe. Devon's Exmoor coast has the highest cliffs in southern Britain, culminating in the Great Hangman, a "hog's-back" hill with a cliff-face, located near Combe Martin Bay. Its sister cliff is the Little Hangman, which marks the western edge of coastal Exmoor. One of the features of the North Devon coast is that Bideford Bay and the Hartland Point peninsula are both west-facing, Atlantic facing coastlines; so that a combination of an off-shore (east) wind and an Atlantic swell produce excellent surfing conditions. The beaches of Bideford Bay (Woolacombe, Saunton, Westward Ho! and Croyde), along with parts of North Cornwall and South Wales, are the main centres of surfing in Britain.


title: Devon

text: A geological dividing line cuts across Devon roughly along the line of the Bristol to Exeter line and the M5 motorway east of Tiverton and Exeter. It is a part of the Tees–Exe line broadly dividing Britain into a southeastern lowland zone typified by gently dipping sedimentary rocks and a northwestern upland zone typified by igneous rocks and folded sedimentary and metamorphic rocks.


title: Devon

text: The principal geological components of Devon are the Devonian (in north Devon, south west Devon and extending into Cornwall); the Culm Measures (north western Devon also extending into north Cornwall); and the granite intrusion of Dartmoor in central Devon, part of the Cornubian batholith forming the 'spine' of the southwestern peninsula. There are small remains of pre-Devonian rocks on the south Devon coast.


title: Devon

text: The oldest rocks which can be dated are those of the Devonian period which are approximately 395–345 million years old. Sandstones and shales were deposited in North and South Devon beneath tropical seas. In shallower waters, limestone beds were laid down in the area now near Torquay and Plymouth.


title: Devon

text: This geological period was named after Devon by Roderick Murchison and Adam Sedgwick in the 1840s and is the only British county whose name is used worldwide as a geological time period.


title: Devon

text: Devon's second major rock system is the Culm Measures, a geological formation of the Carboniferous period that occurs principally in Devon and Cornwall. The measures are so called either from the occasional presence of a soft, sooty coal, which is known in Devon as "culm", or from the contortions commonly found in the beds. This formation stretches from Bideford to Bude in Cornwall, and contributes to a gentler, greener, more rounded landscape. It is also found on the western, north and eastern borders of Dartmoor.


title: Devon

text: The sedimentary rocks in more eastern parts of the county include Permian and Triassic sandstones (giving rise to east Devon's well known fertile red soils); Bunter pebble beds around Budleigh Salterton and Woodbury Common and Jurassic rocks in the easternmost parts of Devon. Smaller outcrops of younger rocks also exist, such as Cretaceous chalk cliffs at Beer Head and gravels on Haldon, plus Eocene and Oligocene ball clay and lignite deposits in the Bovey Basin, formed around 50 million years ago under tropical forest conditions.


title: Devon

text: Devon generally has a cool oceanic climate, heavily influenced by the North Atlantic Drift. In winter, snow is relatively uncommon away from high land, although there are few exceptions. The county has mild summers with occasional warm spells and cool rainy periods. Winters are generally cool and the county often experiences some of the mildest winters in the world for its high latitude, with average daily maximum temperatures in January at . Rainfall varies significantly across the county, ranging from over on parts of Dartmoor, to around in the rain shadow along the coast in southeastern Devon and around Exeter. Sunshine amounts also vary widely: the moors are generally cloudy, but the SE coast from Salcombe to Exmouth is one of the sunniest parts of the UK (a generally cloudy region). With westerly or south-westerly winds and high pressure the area around Torbay and Teignmouth will often be warm, with long sunny spells due to shelter by high ground (Foehn wind).


title: Devon

text: The variety of habitats means that there is a wide range of wildlife (see Dartmoor wildlife, for example). A popular challenge among birders is to find over 100 species in the county in a day. The county's wildlife is protected by several wildlife charities such as the Devon Wildlife Trust, which looks after 40 nature reserves. The Devon Bird Watching and Preservation Society (founded in 1928 and known since 2005 as "Devon Birds") is a county bird society dedicated to the study and conservation of wild birds. The RSPB has reserves in the county, and Natural England is responsible for over 200 Devon Sites of Special Scientific Interest and National Nature Reserves, such as Slapton Ley. The Devon Bat Group was founded in 1984 to help conserve bats. Wildlife found in this area extend to a plethora of different kinds of insects, butterflies and moths; an interesting butterfly to take look at is the chequered skipper.


title: Devon

text: Devon is a national hotspot for several species that are uncommon in Britain, including the cirl bunting; greater horseshoe bat; Bechstein's bat and Jersey tiger moth. It is also the only place in mainland Britain where the sand crocus ("Romulea columnae") can be found – at Dawlish Warren, and is home to all six British native land reptile species, partly as a result of some reintroductions. Another recent reintroduction is the Eurasian beaver, primarily on the river Otter. Other rare species recorded in Devon include seahorses and the sea daffodil.


title: Devon

text: The botany of the county is very diverse and includes some rare species not found elsewhere in the British Isles other than Cornwall. Devon is divided into two Watsonian vice-counties: north and south, the boundary being an irregular line approximately across the higher part of Dartmoor and then along the canal eastwards. Botanical reports begin in the 17th century and there is a "Flora Devoniensis" by Jones and Kingston in 1829. A general account appeared in "The Victoria History of the County of Devon" (1906), and a "Flora of Devon" was published in 1939 by Keble Martin and Fraser. An "Atlas of the Devon Flora" by Ivimey-Cook appeared in 1984, and "A New Flora of Devon", based on field work undertaken between 2005 and 2014, was published in 2016.


title: Devon

text: Rising temperatures have led to Devon becoming the first place in modern Britain to cultivate olives commercially.


title: Devon

text: The administrative centre and capital of Devon is the city of Exeter. The largest city in Devon, Plymouth, and the conurbation of Torbay (which includes the largest town in Devon and capital of Torbay, Torquay, as well as Paignton and Brixham) have been unitary authorities since 1998, separate from the remainder of Devon which is administered by Devon County Council for the purposes of local government.


title: Devon

text: Devon County Council is controlled by the Conservatives, and the political representation of its 62 councillors are: 38 Conservatives, 9 Liberal Democrats, seven Labour, four UKIP, three Independents and one Green.


title: Devon

text: At the 2019 general election, Devon returned 10 Conservatives and two Labour MPs to the House of Commons.


title: Devon

text: Historically Devon was divided into 32 hundreds: Axminster, Bampton, Black Torrington, Braunton, Cliston, Coleridge, Colyton, Crediton, East Budleigh, Ermington, Exminster, Fremington, Halberton, Hartland, Hayridge, Haytor, Hemyock, Lifton, North Tawton and Winkleigh, Ottery, Plympton, Roborough, Shebbear, Shirwell, South Molton, Stanborough, Tavistock, Teignbridge, Tiverton, West Budleigh, Witheridge, and Wonford.


title: Devon

text: The main settlements in Devon are the cities of Plymouth, a historic port now administratively independent, Exeter, the county town, and Torbay, the county's tourist centre. Devon's coast is lined with tourist resorts, many of which grew rapidly with the arrival of the railways in the 19th century. Examples include Dawlish, Exmouth and Sidmouth on the south coast, and Ilfracombe and Lynmouth on the north. The Torbay conurbation of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham on the south coast is now administratively independent of the county. Rural market towns in the county include Barnstaple, Bideford, Honiton, Newton Abbot, Okehampton, Tavistock, Totnes and Tiverton.


title: Devon

text: The boundary with Cornwall has not always been on the River Tamar as at present: until the late 19th century a few parishes in the Torpoint area were in Devon and five parishes now in north-east Cornwall were in Devon until 1974. (However, for ecclesiastical purposes these were nevertheless in the Archdeaconry of Cornwall and in 1876 became part of the Diocese of Truro.)


title: Devon

text: The region of Devon was the dominion of the pre-Roman Dumnonii Celtic tribe, known as the "Deep Valley Dwellers". The region to the west of Exeter was less Romanised than the rest of Roman Britain since it was considered a remote part of the province. After the formal Roman withdrawal from Britain in AD 410, one of the leading Dumnonii families attempted to create a dynasty and rule over Devon as the new Kings of Dumnonii.


title: Devon

text: Celtic paganism and Roman practices were the first known religions in Devon, although in the mid-fourth century AD, Christianity was introduced to Devon. In the Sub-Roman period the church in the British Isles was characterised by some differences in practice from the Latin Christianity of the continent of Europe and is known as Celtic Christianity; however it was always in communion with the wider Roman Catholic Church. Many Cornish saints are commemorated also in Devon in legends, churches and place-names. Western Christianity came to Devon when it was over a long period incorporated into the kingdom of Wessex and the jurisdiction of the bishop of Wessex. Saint Petroc is said to have passed through Devon, where ancient dedications to him are even more numerous than in Cornwall: a probable seventeen (plus Timberscombe just over the border in Somerset), compared to Cornwall's five. The position of churches bearing his name, including one within the old Roman walls of Exeter, are nearly always near the coast, as in those days travelling was done mainly by sea. The Devonian villages of Petrockstowe and Newton St Petroc are also named after Saint Petroc and the flag of Devon is dedicated to him.


title: Devon

text: The history of Christianity in the South West of England remains to some degree obscure. Parts of the historic county of Devon formed part of the diocese of Wessex, while nothing is known of the church organisation of the Celtic areas. About 703 Devon and Cornwall were included in the separate diocese of Sherborne and in 900 this was again divided into two, the Devon bishop having from 905 his seat at Tawton (now Bishop's Tawton) and from 912 at Crediton, birthplace of St Boniface. Lyfing became Bishop of Crediton in 1027 and shortly afterwards became Bishop of Cornwall.


title: Devon

text: The two dioceses of Crediton and Cornwall, covering Devon and Cornwall, were united under Edward the Confessor by Lyfing's successor Bishop Leofric, hitherto Bishop of Crediton, who became first Bishop of Exeter under Edward the Confessor, which was established as his cathedral city in 1050. At first, the abbey church of St Mary and St Peter, founded by Athelstan in 932 and rebuilt in 1019, served as the cathedral.


title: Devon

text: Devon came under the political influence of several different nobles during the Middle Ages, especially the Courtenays Earl of Devon. During the Wars of the Roses, important magnates included the Earl of Devon, William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville, and Humphrey Stafford, earl of Devon whose wider influence stretched from Cornwall to Wiltshire. After 1485, one of the county's influential figures included Henry VII's courtier Robert Willoughby, 1st Baron Willoughby de Broke.


title: Devon

text: In 1549, the Prayer Book Rebellion caused the deaths of thousands of people from Devon and Cornwall. During the English Reformation, churches in Devon officially became affiliated with the Church of England. From the late sixteenth century onwards, zealous Protestantism – or 'puritanism' – became increasingly well-entrenched in some parts of Devon, while other districts of the county remained much more conservative. These divisions would become starkly apparent during the English Civil War of 1642–46, when the county split apart along religious and cultural lines. The Methodism of John Wesley proved to be very popular with the working classes in Devon in the 19th century. Methodist chapels became important social centres, with male voice choirs and other church-affiliated groups playing a central role in the social lives of working class Devonians. Methodism still plays a large part in the religious life of Devon today, although the county has shared in the post-World War II decline in British religious feeling.


title: Devon

text: The Diocese of Exeter remains the Anglican diocese including the whole of Devon. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Plymouth was established in the mid 19th century.


title: Devon

text: There was no established coat of arms for the county until 1926: the arms of the City of Exeter were often used to represent Devon, for instance in the badge of the Devonshire Regiment. During the forming of a county council by the Local Government Act 1888 adoption of a common seal was required. The seal contained three shields depicting the arms of Exeter along with those of the first chairman and vice-chairman of the council (Lord Clinton and the Earl of Morley).


title: Devon

text: On 11 October 1926, the county council received a grant of arms from the College of Arms. The main part of the shield displays a red crowned lion on a silver field, the arms of Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cornwall. The "chief" or upper portion of the shield depicts an ancient ship on wavers, for Devon's seafaring traditions. The Latin motto adopted was "Auxilio Divino" (by Divine aid), that of Sir Francis Drake. The 1926 grant was of arms alone. On 6 March 1962 a further grant of crest and supporters was obtained. The crest is the head of a Dartmoor Pony rising from a "Naval Crown". This distinctive form of crown is formed from the sails and sterns of ships, and is associated with the Royal Navy. The supporters are a Devon bull and a sea lion.


title: Devon

text: Devon County Council adopted a "ship silhouette" logo after the 1974 reorganisation, adapted from the ship emblem on the coat of arms, but following the loss in 1998 of Plymouth and Torbay re-adopted the coat of arms. In April 2006 the council unveiled a new logo which was to be used in most everyday applications, though the coat of arms will continue to be used for "various civic purposes".


title: Devon

text: Devon also has its own flag which has been dedicated to Saint Petroc, a local saint with dedications throughout Devon and neighbouring counties. The flag was adopted in 2003 after a competition run by BBC Radio Devon. The winning design was created by website contributor Ryan Sealey, and won 49% of the votes cast. The colours of the flag are those popularly identified with Devon, for example, the colours of Exeter University, the rugby union team, and the Green and White flag flown by the first Viscount Exmouth at the Bombardment of Algiers (now on view at the Teign Valley Museum), as well as one of the county's football teams, Plymouth Argyle. On 17 October 2006, the flag was hoisted for the first time outside County Hall in Exeter to mark Local Democracy Week, receiving official recognition from the county council. In 2019 Devon County Council with the support of both the Anglican and Catholic churches in Exeter and Plymouth, officially recognised Saint Boniface as the Patron Saint of Devon.


title: Devon

text: Devon's toponyms include many with the endings "coombe/combe" and "tor". Both 'coombe' (valley or hollow, cf. Welsh "cwm", Cornish "komm") and 'tor' (Old Welsh and Scots Gaelic "tòrr" from Latin "turris"; 'tower' used for granite formations) are rare Celtic loanwords in English and their frequency is greatest in Devon which shares a boundary with Brittonic speaking Cornwall. Ruined medieval settlements of Dartmoor longhouses indicate that dispersed rural settlement (OE "tun", now often -ton) was very similar to that found in Cornish 'tre-' settlements, however these are generally described with the local placename , from the Old English for homestead, cf. cottage. Saxon endings in -worthy (from Anglo-Saxon ) indicate larger settlements. Several 'Bere's indicate Anglo-Saxon wood groves, as 'leighs' indicate clearings.


title: Devon

text: Devon has a variety of festivals and traditional practices, including the traditional orchard-visiting Wassail in Whimple every 17 January, and the carrying of flaming tar barrels in Ottery St. Mary, where people who have lived in Ottery for long enough are called upon to celebrate Bonfire Night by running through the village (and the gathered crowds) with flaming barrels on their backs. Berry Pomeroy still celebrates Queene's Day for Elizabeth I.


title: Devon

text: Devon has a mostly comprehensive education system. There are 37 state and 23 independent secondary schools. There are three tertiary (FE) colleges and an agricultural college (Bicton College, near Budleigh Salterton). Torbay has 8 state (with 3 grammar schools) and 3 independent secondary schools, and Plymouth has 17 state (with 3 grammar schools – two female and one male) and one independent school, Plymouth College. East Devon and Teignbridge have the largest school populations, with West Devon the smallest (with only two schools). Only one school in Exeter, Mid Devon, Torridge and North Devon have a sixth form – the schools in other districts mostly have sixth forms, with all schools in West Devon and East Devon having a sixth form.


title: Devon

text: Two universities are located in Devon, the University of Exeter (split between the Streatham Campus and St Luke's Campus, both in Exeter, and a campus in Cornwall); in Plymouth the University of Plymouth in Britain is present, along with the University of St Mark & St John to the city's north. The universities of Exeter and Plymouth have together formed the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry which has bases in Exeter and Plymouth. There is also Schumacher College.


title: Devon

text: The county has given its name to a number of culinary specialities. The Devonshire cream tea, involving scones, jam and clotted cream, is thought to have originated in Devon (though claims have also been made for neighbouring counties); in other countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, it is known as a "Devonshire tea". It has also been claimed that the pasty originated in Devon rather than Cornwall, with the first record of the pasty coming from Plymouth in 1509.


title: Devon

text: Devon has been home to a number of customs, such as its own form of Devon wrestling, similar in some ways to Cornish wrestling. As recently as the 19th century, a crowd of 17,000 at Devonport, near Plymouth, attended a match between the champions of Devon and Cornwall. Another Devon sport was outhurling which was played in some regions until the 20th century (e.g. 1922, at Great Torrington). Other ancient customs which survive include Dartmoor step dancing, and "Crying The Neck".


title: Devon

text: Devon has three professional football teams, based in each of its most populous towns and cities. As of the 2018–2019 football season, both Plymouth Argyle F.C. and Exeter City F.C. compete in English Football League Two (the fourth tier), whilst Torquay United F.C. compete in the National League (the fifth tier). Plymouth's highest Football League finish was fourth in the Second Division, which was achieved twice, in 1932 and 1953. Torquay and Exeter have never progressed beyond the third tier of the league; Torquay finished second on goal average in the Third Division (S) behind Sir Alf Ramsey's Ipswich Town in 1957. Exeter's highest position has been eighth in the Third Division (S). The county's biggest non-league clubs are Bideford F.C. which competes in the Southern Football League Premier Division, and Tiverton Town F.C. which is in the Southern Football League Division One South and West.


title: Devon

text: Rugby Union is popular in Devon with over forty clubs under the banner of the Devon Rugby Football Union, many with various teams at senior, youth and junior levels. One club – Exeter Chiefs – play in the Aviva Premiership, winning the title in 2017 for the first time in their history after beating Wasps RFC in the final 23–20. Plymouth Albion who are, , in the National League 1 (The third tier of English Professional Rugby Union).


title: Devon

text: There are five rugby league teams in Devon. Plymouth Titans, Exeter Centurions, Devon Sharks from Torquay, North Devon Raiders from Barnstaple and East Devon Eagles from Exmouth. They all play in the Rugby League Conference.


title: Devon

text: Plymouth City Patriots represent Devon in the British Basketball League. Formed in 2021, they replaced the former professional club, Plymouth Raiders, after the latter team were withdrawn from competition due to venue issues. Motorcycle speedway is also supported in the county, with both the Exeter Falcons and Plymouth Gladiators succeeding in the National Leagues in recent years.


title: Devon

text: The University of Exeter Hockey Club enter teams in both the Men's and Women's England Hockey Leagues.


title: Devon

text: Horse Racing is also popular in the county, with two National Hunt racecourses (Exeter and Newton Abbot), and numerous point to point courses. There are also many successful professional racehorse trainers based in Devon.


title: Devon

text: The county is represented in cricket by Devon County Cricket Club, who play at a Minor counties level.


title: Devon

text: Devon is known for its mariners, such as Sir Francis Drake, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Richard Grenville, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Francis Chichester. Henry Every, described as the most notorious pirate of the late 17th century, was probably born in the village of Newton Ferrers. John Oxenham (1536–1580) was a lieutenant of Drake but considered a pirate by the Spanish. Thomas Morton (1576–1647) was an avid Elizabethan outdoorsman probably born in Devon who became an attorney for The Council For New England, and built the New England fur-trading-plantation called Ma-Re Mount or Merrymount around a West Country-style Maypole, much to the displeasure of Pilgrim and Puritan colonists. Morton wrote a 1637 book "New English Canaan" about his experiences, partly in verse, and may have thereby become America's first poet to write in English. Another famous mariner and Devonian was Robert Falcon Scott, the leader of the unfortunate Terra Nova Expedition to reach the geographical South Pole. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the crime writer Agatha Christie, the Irish writer William Trevor, and the poet Ted Hughes lived in Devon. The painter and founder of the Royal Academy, Sir Joshua Reynolds, was born in Devon. Chris Dawson, the billionaire owner of retailer The Range was born in Devon, where his business retains its head office in Plymouth.


title: Devon

text: The actor Matthew Goode was raised in Devon, and Bradley James, also an actor, was born there. The singer Joss Stone was brought up in Devon and frontman Chris Martin from the British rock group Coldplay was born there. Matt Bellamy, Dominic Howard and Chris Wolstenholme from the English group Muse all grew up in Devon and formed the band there. Dave Hill of rock band Slade was born in Flete House which is in the South Hams district of Devon. Singer-songwriter Ben Howard grew up in Totnes, a small town in Devon. Another famous Devonian is the model and actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who was born in Plymouth and raised in Tavistock. The singer and songwriter Rebecca Newman was born and raised in Exmouth. Roger Deakins, called "the pre-eminent cinematographer of our time", was born and lives in Devon.


title: Devon

text: Trevor Francis, former Nottingham Forest and Birmingham City professional footballer, and the first English footballer to cost £1 million, was born and brought up in Plymouth.


title: Devon

text: Swimmer Sharron Davies and diver Tom Daley were born in Plymouth. The Olympic runner Jo Pavey was born in Honiton. Peter Cook the satirist, writer and comedian was born in Torquay, Devon. Leicester Tigers and British and Irish Lions Rugby player Julian White was born and raised in Devon and now farms a herd of pedigree South Devon beef cattle. The dog breeder John "Jack" Russell was also from Devon. Jane McGrath, who married Australian cricketer Glenn McGrath was born in Paignton, her long battle with and subsequent death from breast cancer inspired the formation of the McGrath Foundation, which is one of Australia's leading charities.


title: Devon

text: Devon has also been represented in the House of Commons by notable Members of Parliament (MPs) such as Nancy Astor, Gwyneth Dunwoody, Michael Foot and David Owen and the Prime Ministers Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston.


title: Resident Evil (1996 video game)

text: Resident Evil is a 1996 survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom originally for the PlayStation. It is the first title in Capcom's "Resident Evil" franchise. Players control Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, members of the elite task force S.T.A.R.S., who must escape a mansion infested with zombies and other monsters.


title: Resident Evil (1996 video game)

text: Conceived by producer Tokuro Fujiwara as a remake of his earlier horror game "Sweet Home" (1989), the development of "Resident Evil" was led by Shinji Mikami. It went through several redesigns, first as Super NES game in 1993, then a fully 3D first-person PlayStation game in 1994 and finally a third-person game. Gameplay consists of action, exploration, puzzle solving and inventory management. "Resident Evil" establishes many conventions seen later in the series, including the control scheme, inventory system, save system, and use of 3D models superimposed over pre-rendered backgrounds.


title: Resident Evil (1996 video game)

text: "Resident Evil" was praised for its graphics, gameplay, sound, and atmosphere, although it received criticism for its voice acting. It was an international best-seller, and became the best-selling PlayStation game ever at the time. By December 1997, it had sold about 4 million copies worldwide and had grossed more than .


title: Resident Evil (1996 video game)

text: "Resident Evil" is often cited as one of the most influential and greatest video games. It is credited with defining the survival horror genre and with returning zombies to popular culture, leading to a renewed interest in zombie films by the 2000s. It created a franchise including video games, films, comics, novels, and other merchandise. It has been ported to Sega Saturn, Windows and Nintendo DS. In 2002, a "Resident Evil" remake was released for the GameCube and ported to other platforms in 2015. A sequel, "Resident Evil 2," was released in 1998, and a prequel, "Resident Evil Zero", in 2002.


title: Resident Evil (1996 video game)

text: The player's character is a member of a special law enforcement task force who is trapped in a mansion populated by dangerous mutated creatures. The objective of the game is to uncover the mystery of the mansion and ultimately escape alive. The game's graphics consist of real-time 3D polygonal characters and objects, superimposed over pre-rendered backdrops with fixed camera angles. The player controls the character by pushing the D-pad or analog stick left or right to rotate the character and then move the character forward or backwards by pushing the d-pad up or down (tank controls).


title: Resident Evil (1996 video game)

text: To fulfill the game's objective, the player uncovers various documents that provide exposition about the game's narrative, as well as clues that help them solve various puzzles within the mansion. Key items are also available that give the player access to other items or new areas. The player can arm their character with weapons to defend themselves from enemies, although the ammunition available for each firearm is limited and the player must learn to conserve the ammunition they have for situations where they will really need it. To restore the character's health, the player uses first-aid sprays or three types of healing herbs that can be mixed together in different combinations for different healing effects. The carrying capacity of the player is limited depending on the character and items that the player does not wish to carry at the moment can be stored into an item box to be retrieved for later use. To save their progress, the player must pick up an ink ribbon and use it on any of the typewriters scattered through key locations in the game. However, the supply of ink ribbons the player can acquire is limited, much like the player's ammunition and healing supplies. Players will encounter and fight various infected creatures such as flesh-eating zombies and zombie dogs, giant spiders, sharks, and other monsters. The player character is assisted by another character (Rebecca Chambers or Barry Burton) throughout the game.