title: Grantham

text: The town lies in the valley of the River Witham, its core at the Witham's confluence with the Mowbeck (or Mow Beck). The Witham flows south–north through Grantham. The Mowbeck, which rises from springs at Harlaxton about 3 miles (5 km) to the south-west of the town, is culverted behind Westgate and Brook Street until it joins the Witham at White Bridge.


title: Grantham

text: The floor of the Witham valley – 50–60 m above sea level in the town centre – is underlain by mudstone of the Charmouth formation of the Lower Jurassic period (199–183 million years ago). This formation is overlain by Belton sand and gravel laid down in estuaries and rivers in the Quaternary period up to 3 million years ago. The river courses are overlain by Quaternary alluvium and to the north by river terrace deposits. The soil around the route of the Witham is wet, acidic, sandy and loamy; its fertility is poor.


title: Grantham

text: As the ground rises on the town's eastern and southern fringes, it is underlain by Jurassic Marlstone rocks of ferruginous sandstone and ironstone formed 190–174 million years ago, and then by Whitby Mudstone of 174–183 million years ago. The land rises sharply to form the Lincoln Cliff that marks the edge of the urban area and start of the Lincoln Heath and Kesteven Uplands, which are capped by Jurassic Oolitic Limestone, mostly overlain by shallow, free-draining, lime-rich soils.


title: Grantham

text: To the west, the town is near the edge of the low-lying Vale of Belvoir but fringed by an escarpment rising in places to over 100 m to form the hills on which sit Barrowby, Great Gonerby, the Green Hill and Earlesfield suburban areas and the business parks off Trent Road. These hills are of siltstone and mudstone of the Jurassic Dyrham Formation, which line the edges of the Witham and Mowbeck valleys and the shallow valley of Barrowby Stream. At its highest the scarp is capped by Jurassic ferruginous sandstone and ironstone rocks of the Marlstone formation. There are some head deposits and pleistocene glaciofluvial deposits of sand and gravel east of Barrowby. The soil in the lower areas is slowly permeable, seasonally wet and slightly acidic, though base-rich. On higher ground it tends to be slightly acidic and base-rich, but freely draining and highly fertile.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham Canal, which opened in 1797, closely follows the route of the Mowbeck from Echo Farm into the town. West of there it cuts through a valley north of Harlaxton into the Vale of Belvoir, eventually reaching West Bridgford near Nottingham.


title: Grantham

text: The historical core of Grantham is bounded by Westgate, Brook Street and Castlegate, and includes the High Street down to St Peter's Hill. This is the town's main retail and commercial area. It includes many historic buildings. Between Westgate and the A52 to the west are postwar retail buildings and blocks of flats. North of it is 18th, 19th and 20th-century suburban housing focused on North Parade, which include villas and terraced housing. Further north, off Gonerby Road and Manthorpe Road (A607), these give way to large, low-density, suburban, privately owned housing on estates mostly built in the 1970s and 1980s. Those at the base of Gonerby Hill are known as Gonerby Hill Foot and lie west of the railway line, to the east of which developments are contiguous with the historical core of Manthorpe village.


title: Grantham

text: South of the town centre, suburban housing takes the form of late-Victorian and Edwardian brick, terraced and villa houses in grid-plan layouts, initially built for industrial workers and now largely owned or let privately. Alongside some housing in Harlaxton Road (A607), most of these streets cluster round the railway station and nearby retail and industrial units in an area known as Spittlegate (also spelled Spitalgate or Spittalgate), the town cemetery – an area called New Somerby in older maps – and the Wharf Road, London Road and Bridge End Road stretches of the A52. Further south-east, low-density, mostly privately owned, suburban housing estates of the 1970s and 1980s cluster round the A52, marking the edge of the town's urban area. Further east, off the A52, are the Prince William of Gloucester Barracks.


title: Grantham

text: The north-east fringe of the urban area is marked by 20th-century development. An exception is a piece of land east of the Witham and north of Stonebridge Road that includes schools and colleges and portions of a 19th-century barracks complex south of greenspace, including Wyndham Park. Otherwise the area between the Witham, Belton Lane, Londonthorpe Lane and the Lincoln Cliff has suburban housing, mostly privately owned with some let by housing associations. It includes part of the Harrowby Estate, begun in 1928 as council housing). The part round Belton Lane and Harrowby Lane is a low-density mix of pre-First World War, interwar and postwar houses; the remainder of the large estate and the Cherry Orchard Estate appeared in the immediate postwar period in medium density, on a layout inspired by the Garden City movement. South of Londonthorpe Lane and north-east of the other estates are medium and high-density housing areas dating largely from the 1970s to the early 21st century; The northernmost, known as The Spinney or Sunningdale, adjoins the post-war Alma Park industrial estate off Londonthorpe Lane.


title: Grantham

text: The town's western fringe sits between the railway line, the A1 bypass and the Kesteven Uplands. North of the canal are large, varied developments mostly from the 20th century, including the Earlesfield estate, begun as a council estate in the 1920s and expanded in the postwar period, industrial estates, and a leisure centre complex, all south of Barrowby Stream, by the expansive 1980s estate on Green Hill, the Edwardian and Victorian villas lining Barrowby Road, and the large 1980s and 1990s estate to its north. Most of this is privately owned, but some is let by housing associations. The canal basin is lined with industrial, warehouse, retail and office buildings that continue up to Dysart Road. South of them are Harlaxton Road (A607) and Springfield Road, round which separate residential developments have been built, including inter-war homes in Huntingtower Road, a 21st-century estate centred on Hudson Way, post-war social housing at Walton Gardens, post-war housing Denton Avenue, and late-20th-century developments at Harris Way.


title: Grantham

text: The British Isles experience a temperate, maritime climate with warm summers and cool winters. Data from the weather station nearest to Grantham, at Cranwell, away, shows an average daily mean temperature of 9.8 °C (49.6 °F) fluctuates from a peak of 16.9 °C (62.4 °F) in July to 3.9 °C (39.0 °F) in January. The average high temperature is 13.7 °C (56.7 °F), though monthly averages vary from 6.7 °C (44.1 °F) in January and December to 21.8 °C (71.2 °F) in July; the average low is 5.9 °C (42.6 °F), reaching lowest in February at 0.8 °C (33.4 °F) and highest in July and August at 12.0 °C (53.6 °F).


title: Grantham

text: Much of Grantham's early archaeology lies buried beneath the modern town, making it "difficult to unravel". Early prehistoric hunter-gatherers visited the area. Scattered Stone Age tools have been found, the earliest being a Palaeolithic axe on the Cherry Orchard Estate, dating between 40,000 and 150,000 years ago. The next earliest material consist of Mesolithic flints crafted 4,000 to 8,000 years ago and found round Gonerby Hill and the riverside in the south of the town. Neolithic people probably settled in the Grantham area for its proximity to the rivers and its fertile soils; material suggesting settlement in this period has been found at Great Ponton. Other scattered finds have been unearthed around the town. Remains of a Neolithic ritual site on the parish boundary between Harlaxton and Grantham are known from aerial photography. Bronze Age artefacts include pottery vessels, with human remains found in Little Gonerby, a Beaker pot, Beaker pottery sherds, cinerary urns and a food vessel, and a later cemetery at Belton Lane, but there is little direct evidence of Bronze Age settlement in the area of the modern town. Little is known about it in the Iron Age, though ditched enclosures and a field system of this date are known to lie off Gorse Lane.


title: Grantham

text: Various Romano-British coins and pottery finds have emerged in Grantham; a burial and pottery from the 2nd century AD were uncovered off Trent Road in 1981. Small settlements or farmsteads from the period have been discerned on the hills overlooking Grantham from the east, and another has been found in Barrowby. There were probably Romano-British farmsteads on the site of the modern town, but the wet soils round the Mowbeck and flooding by the Witham probably made it hard for a larger settlement to grow there. Three kilometres to the south of the modern town, an important Roman site has been found at Saltersford, a crossing of the River Witham near Little Ponton. Extensive finds and evidence of a significant Romano-British occupation have emerged in the vicinity since the 19th century; it has been tentatively identified by some scholars as "Causennae", mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary, and sat at the place where River Witham was crossed by the Salter's Way, a trade route connecting the salt-producing coastal and marshland regions with the Midlands. Salter's Way may also have crossed Ermine Street (now B6403) at Cold Harbour, 4 km south-east of Grantham. Saltersford may have been a small town with a market for local farmsteads and smaller settlements.


title: Grantham

text: The local historian Michael Honeybone has "no doubt that the town of Grantham was established during [Anglo-]Saxon times"; its name suggests it emerged in the earliest phase of Anglo-Saxon settlement, probably by the 7th century.


title: Grantham

text: Yet the archaeological evidence for this is limited to finds indicating cemeteries at the sites of the Central School in Manthorpe and the junction of Bridge End Road and London Road in the town, and to small quantities of pottery sherds found on London Road, Belton Lane, Saltersford, New Somerby and Barrowby.


title: Grantham

text: By the time of the Domesday Book (1086, the earliest documentary evidence for Grantham), it was a town and royal manor; under its jurisdiction fell a large outlying soke including lands in 16 villages. Its church, St Wulfram's, served this extended parish area. However, the town's Saxon-period history is obscure. The medievalist Sir Frank Stenton argued that Grantham probably emerged as an "important estate centre" before the Viking invasions in the 9th century and then functioned as a "minor local capital" in the Danelaw.


title: Grantham

text: By contrast, historian David Roffe has argued that the town and its soke were established in the 1040s or 1050s by Queen Edith and Leofric, Earl of Mercia, to strengthen their hands in the county at the expense of Siward, Earl of Northumbria. They may have also created St Wulfram's either as a new church or as one revived from a possible earlier cell of Crowland Abbey. Roffe also argues that Siward's death in 1055 made Grantham's new role less important, while the full extent of its Domesday soke was probably not gained until after the Norman Conquest of England, when the king merged it with that of Great Ponton.


title: Grantham

text: Whatever its origins, Grantham's Domesday entries show it as an estate centre, where Queen Edith had a hall before 1066. Twenty years later, the king had the manor; there were four mills and eight acres of meadow, but no arable land. (The demesne appears to have been land now known as Earlesfield in Great Gonerby.) There were 111 burgesses and 72 bordars, possibly labourers or craftsmen, indicating that Grantham was both a manor and a borough where the lord retained exclusive rights. It was a valuable asset, used by the king to reward loyal followers. By 1129, the manor and soke had been granted to Rabel de Tancarville, the king's chamberlain in Normandy. He sided against King Stephen during The Anarchy (1135–1154) and his lands were probably forfeited on his death in 1140, although restored to his son William and confirmed in the early 1180s. The king retook the manor after William's heir Ralph de Tancarville failed to support him in Normandy.


title: Grantham

text: In 1205, the king granted it to his ally William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey. It was held as a life interest and reverted to the Crown on his widow's death in 1249, but regranted to his son the 6th earl in 1266. On his death in 1304 it reverted to the crown and was soon granted to Aymer de Valence, but had been regranted to Warenne's grandson, the 7th earl, by 1312. Four years later it was resettled on the 7th earl for life with reversion to the crown. William de Bohun, 1st Earl of Northampton was granted the reversion in 1337 and took seisin ten years later. After his death, it reverted again to the Crown and in 1363 Edward II granted it to his son Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, through whose heirs it passed to Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, a major figure in the Wars of the Roses and rival of Henry VI. After Richard's death in 1460, Henry's Queen Margaret of Anjou attacked Grantham in 1461, but later that year was defeated by Richard's son Edward, who took the throne as Edward IV. Two years later, Grantham was rewarded for loyalty to the Yorkist cause when the king granted the borough a charter of incorporation, as a self-governing council – the Corporation of Grantham headed by an Alderman – with various freedoms.


title: Grantham

text: Its lords encouraged Grantham to expand as a commercial centre. By the late 11th century it was an "important market town". The wool trade prospered, benefiting from its proximity to grazing lands on the Lincoln Heath. This wealth contributed towards the building of St Wulfram's Church. Wool shops were in Grantham in 1218 and Walkergate (now Watergate) was recorded in 1257, indicating the presence of fullers (walkers), who played a role in processing wool. Cloth manufacture declined around this time, but wool continued to be produced for trading, primarily for export from Boston. Wool merchants are recorded from the town in the late 13th century (foremost being was Roger de Belvoir, who contributed over £296 to the Wool Prize of 1297). By this time merchants from Italy, Saint-Omer and Amiens were active in the town.


title: Grantham

text: In 1269, the earl granted the town free tronage – the right to weigh wool without paying a toll). Less than 30 years later, its merchants were asked to send a representative to counsel the king. The wool trade boomed in the early 14th century; the town's merchants traded at least 980 sacks of wool at Boston during Edward II's reign, half from the de Chesterton family. In 1312, the earl granted the burgesses various freedoms and the right to elect a leader (the Alderman), codifying a longstanding informal arrangement. Later in the century the king sought to raise revenues by taxing the wool trade; some Grantham merchants, including the wealthy Roger de Wollesthorpe, acted as creditors to the king.


title: Grantham

text: England's falling population, continued taxation of wool exports and the growth of cloth exports and monopolisation led to the wool trade declining by the mid-15th century. Cloth exports became more important nationally. Grantham had a small cloth industry, but it could not compete with new fulling mills, which required fast-flowing water. Its merchants continued to trade in wool and it remained a dominant aspect of the town's economy. Other industries also existed during the Middle Ages; there is evidence of wine trading, brewing, parchment making, weaving and other trades and crafts.


title: Grantham

text: The bridging of the River Trent at Newark by the late 12th century realigned the Great North Road so that it passed through Grantham, bringing traffic to the town as an important stopping place and leading to the development of inns such as "The George" and "The Angel". By the 16th century, the economy was diverse. The largest sector was the leather trade, employing a quarter of the known workforce; distribution, food, drink and agricultural trades were also important. By that time, clothing and textiles each accounted for less than 10 per cent of the town's workers.


title: Grantham

text: The town developed when the railway came. The Nottingham Line (LNER) arrived first in 1850, then the London line (GNR) – the Towns Line from Peterborough to Retford – arrived in 1852. The Boston, Sleaford and Midland Counties Railway arrived in 1857.


title: Grantham

text: Gas lighting appeared in 1833. The corporation became a borough council in 1835. Little Gonerby and Spittlegate were added to the borough in 1879. The town had been in the wapentake of Loveden and included three townships of Manthorpe with Little Gonerby, Harrowby and Spittlegate with Houghton and Walton.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham Golf Club, now defunct, was founded in 1894 and continued until the onset of the Second World War.


title: Grantham

text: Until the 1970s, the housing estates west of the town centre were green fields. Green Hill, on the A52, was literally a green hill. In July 1975 the National Association of Ratepayers' Action Groups (NARAG) was formed in Grantham by John Wilks, its chairman, as a forerunner of the TaxPayers' Alliance.


title: Grantham

text: During the Dambuster Raids Royal Air Force missions in May 1943, the RAF Bomber Command's No. 5 Group and operation HQ were in St Vincents, a building later owned by Aveling-Barford and housing a district council planning department. It was built by Richard Hornsby in 1865 and lived in by his son. It is now a private house. In 1944 (including D-Day), it was the headquarters for the USAAF's Ninth Air Force's IX Troop Carrier Command, known as Grantham Lodge.


title: Grantham

text: RAF Spitalgate trained pilots during both world wars, initially as a Royal Flying Corps establishment. It was the first military airfield in Lincolnshire. It has never been an operational fighter or bomber base; although it did see operational service during the 1943 invasion of Europe as a base for American and Polish gliders and parachutists. It officially closed in 1974. The Women's Royal Air Force had been there from 1960 until closure. (as RAF Wilmslow was closing due to the imminent ending of National Service), and moved to RAF Hereford (now the home of SAS).


title: Grantham

text: After closure, RAF Spitalgate became the Royal Corps of Transport, later Royal Logistic Corps barracks: Prince William of Gloucester Barracks, named after Prince William of Gloucester. Grantham College used the site's two football pitches for their South Lincolnshire Football Development Centre (from September 2004). After closure in 1975 a vehicle test centre was built on the outfield; this closed in 2011. The large mast on the base was part of the BT microwave network.


title: Grantham

text: The RAF Regiment was formed north-east of the town in parts of Londonthorpe and Harrowby Without during December 1941 with its headquarters at RAF Belton Park, which is recognised as its birthplace. The Belton Park estate had been a training centre for the Machine Gun Corps from November 1915.


title: Grantham

text: The RAF Regiment reached in excess of 66,000 personnel and during training was housed at RAF Belton Park, the Regiment's first depot, RAF Folkingham and RAF North Witham.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham was first after London to recruit and train women police officers. It was the first provincial force to ask the newly formed Corps of Women's Police Volunteers to supply them with occasional policewomen, recognising them as useful for dealing with women and juveniles. In December 1914 Miss Damer Dawson, the Chief of the Corps, came to Grantham to supervise the preliminary work of the women police. Officers stationed there were Miss Allen and Miss Harburn. In 1915, Grantham magistrates swore in Edith Smith, making her the first policewoman in Britain with full powers of arrest.


title: Grantham

text: Richard Hornsby and Richard Seaman founded Seaman & Hornsby, Iron Founders and Millwrights, at Spittlegate in Grantham in 1810. The company was renamed Richard Hornsby & Sons when Seaman retired in 1828. Products included ploughs and seed drills.


title: Grantham

text: From 1840 until 1906 the company built steam engines. Thereafter production shifted to oil, petrol and gas engines. It employed 378 men in 1878 and 3,500 in 1914.


title: Grantham

text: In 1905 Richard Hornsby & Sons invented a caterpillar track for a machine using Hornsby's oil engines; these engines were developed by Yorkshireman Herbert Akroyd Stuart, from which compression-ignition principle the diesel engine evolved, being manufactured in Grantham from 8 July 1892. Although such engines were not wholly compression-ignition derived, in 1892 a prototype high-pressure version was built at Hornsby's, developed by Thomas Henry Barton OBE – later to found Nottingham's Barton Transport – whereby ignition was achieved solely through compression; it ran continuously for six hours as the first known diesel engine. In the town, Hornsby's built Elsham House, whose grounds became Grantham College) and the Shirley Croft. Its site in Houghton Road was bought from Lord Dysart.


title: Grantham

text: In 1910 Hornsby presented its chain-track vehicle to the British Army, which then bought four caterpillar tractors to tow artillery. At the demonstration, a British transport officer suggested putting armour plating and a gun on a Hornsby tractor, so creating some sort of self-propelled gun. David Roberts, Managing Director of Hornsby, did not pursue the idea, but later expressed regret at not having done so. Four years later, Hornsby sold the patent for its caterpillar track to the Holt Manufacturing Company of California, USA, for $8,000, having itself sold only one caterpillar tractor commercially. The Holt system was superior to Hornsby's, but the Hornsby transmission was what Holt really wanted. Thanks in part to this acquisition, Holt eventually became the successful Caterpillar Inc. Tractor Company. In 1918, Hornsby's amalgamated with Rustons as Ruston & Hornsby. In the 1920s the company had its own orchestra in the town; the site was a diesel engine plant. During the Second World War, the company made tanks such as the Matilda at the Grantham factory. Ruston and Hornsby left in 1963 and most of the factory was taken over by a subsidiary, Alfred Wiseman Gears, which itself left in 1968.


title: Grantham

text: The agricultural engine and steamroller manufacturer Aveling and Porter of Rochester, Kent, merged with Barford & Perkins of Peterborough as Aveling-Barford Ltd in 1934, largely with financial help from Ruston & Hornsby, as both firms had entered into administration. The new company took a former site of Hornsbys, naming it the Invicta works, from the motto on the coat of arms of Kent, which translates as "unconquered"; all Aveling & Porter machinery was brought from Kent by rail.


title: Grantham

text: During the 1970s Barford's was the town's largest employer, with around 2,000 employees. It initially prospered, but declined with the sinking market for large dumper trucks and road rollers. In 1947, its agricultural division, Barfords of Belton, developed the world's smallest tractor, the Barford Atom, weighing .


title: Grantham

text: Now Barford Construction Equipment, it makes dumpers for construction sites, being owned by Wordsworth Holdings PLC, owned in turn by the entrepreneur Duncan Wordsworth until it went into administration in March 2010. A restructuring package resulted in ownership transferring to Bowdon Investment Group in May 2010. It is now known as Invictas Engineering.


title: Grantham

text: A trailer company, Crane-Fruehauf, moved into part of the factory from its former home at Dereham, when it went into receivership in early 2005.


title: Grantham

text: British Manufacture and Research Company (British Marc Ltd or BMARC), in Springfield Road, made munitions, notably the Hispano cannon for the Spitfire and Hurricane from 1937 onwards. It was owned by the Swiss Oerlikon from 1971 until 1988, becoming part of Astra Holdings plc. The firm was bought by British Aerospace in 1992, which then closed the site. It has now been developed as a housing estate. The site's former offices are now business units for the Springfield Business Centre. Grantham's register office moved there in 2007.


title: Grantham

text: In 1968 Reads of Liverpool built a canning factory in Springfield Road to serve Melton Mowbray, becoming American Can, then Pechiney (French) in 1988, then Impress (Dutch). It closed in 2006 and was demolished in 2007 to make way for a housing estate. Ransome & Marles Bearing had a ball bearing factory in the town until 1957, when production was moved to Newark.


title: Grantham

text: Mowbray and Co Ltd, a brewery, was bought by J. W. Green of Luton. It was founded in September 1828 and became a public company in 1880. It closed in 1967.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham once lay within the ancient Winnibriggs and Threo wapentake in the Soke of Grantham in the Parts of Kesteven.


title: Grantham

text: Politically the town belongs to the Grantham and Stamford constituency, represented in Parliament by Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) Gareth Davies, elected at the 12 December 2019 general election.


title: Grantham

text: Two of Grantham's MPs in recent years, Joe Godber and Douglas Hogg, have been Secretary of State for Agriculture.


title: Grantham

text: Before 1974, the local area was represented by Grantham Borough Council, based at Grantham Guildhall on St Peters Hill, and West Kesteven Rural District, based in Sandon Close. The local authority is now South Kesteven District Council.


title: Grantham

text: The Grantham Charter Trustees have responsibility for ceremonial functions remaining from the former Grantham Borough Council. They include civic ceremonies, annual commemorative events, hosting official visits and maintaining the town's regalia. The Charter Trustees consist of the Grantham District Councillors on South Kesteven District Council. Two members of these are elected annually as Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Grantham.


title: Grantham

text: The 2016 population, put at 44,580, divides by electoral ward into Belmont 4,900; Grantham Arnoldfield 4,666, Grantham Barrowby Gate 5,195, Grantham Earlsfield 6,557, Grantham Harrowby 4,770, Grantham St Vincent's 7,637, Grantham St Wulfram's 5,461, and Grantham Springfield 5,394.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham has places of worship of various denominations. The main local landmark is the parish church of St Wulfram's, which has the sixth highest spire among English churches, at . It is the second tallest church in Lincolnshire after St James' Church in Louth. It also holds England's first public library, dating from 1598, when Francis Trigge, rector of Welbourn, gave £100 for a small chained library of books for the clergy and "literate laity" of Grantham; 250 of the original volumes remain in a small room above the South Porch. From October 1974 the church was permanently floodlit at night.


title: Grantham

text: The Anglican church in the New Somerby district, dedicated to St Anne and seating about 350, was erected as a mission church in 1884 and built of iron. A mission church, dedicated to St Saviour and seating about 150, was built of brick in the Little Gonerby district in 1884. The church of St John the Evangelist was built of stone in the Spittlegate district in 1840–1841. It seated about 1,100. Today the Deanery of Grantham still includes the churches of St Anne and St John the Evangelist amongst its 18 churches. The current suffragan Bishop of Grantham is Nicholas Chamberlain; his official residence is in Long Bennington.


title: Grantham

text: The Catholic Church of St Mary the Immaculate stands in North Parade. Grantham Baptist Church is located in Wharf Road. Grantham Christchurch (LEP) Church (United Reformed Church) is located in Finkin Street. Harrowby Lane Methodist Church dates from the late 1920s. Finkin Street Methodist Church was a Wesleyan Methodist chapel built in the 1840s and attended by Margaret Thatcher.


title: Grantham

text: Plans in 2014 to construct an Islamic cultural centre in the town created controversy, including protests from right-wing groups.


title: Grantham

text: The food industry, together with Grantham Hospital, is currently the largest Grantham employer. Poultry production company Moy Park (formerly Padleys) is at Gonerby Hill Foot; GW Padley bought the site in 1977 from Wolsey, a former garment manufacturer. It acts as a poultry hatchery. Moy Park are owned by Marfrig of São Paulo, with Marfrig's European headquarters at Preston Deanery in Hackleton, Northamptonshire. Aviagen Turkeys also has a poultry hatchery further along the B1174 at Gonerby Moor. Brake Bros Ltd has a depot near the Gonerby Moor service station, off B1174.


title: Grantham

text: Fenland Foods (part of Northern Foods) on the Earlesfield Industrial Estate, closed in September 2008 after losing business with Marks and Spencer, its sole customer. On Ellesmere Business park is Väderstad-Verken UK, its parent company based in Väderstad in Sweden and Tecknit Europe (makers of electromagnetic shielding equipment), owned from 2006 by Parker Hannifin based in Cranford, New Jersey.


title: Grantham

text: At Easton, south of Grantham, are two large facilities. One is Norbert Dentressangle, which bought Christian Salvesen plc in November 2007 and maintains the frozen storage and distribution operation which has been at the site since the late 1960s. The other is McCain Foods, which purchased Potato and Allied Services (PAS) in 1991, which had run a potato processing factory on the site since the early 1970s; it has since been extended. There was a third large frozen vegetable processing factory owned and operated by Christian Salvesen; it was sold to Pinguin Foods in August 2007, which closed the facility in December 2008.


title: Grantham

text: GBS has been based in Grantham since May 1975, when known as Chatto, Bodley Head & Cape Services. Chatto & Windus had merged with Jonathan Cape in 1969. The former site was officially opened on 23 September 1975 by Michael Foot MP. Random House was formed in 1987 from a combination of book companies, and in 1990 the site became known as Grantham Book Services. The company won an award in 1992 from the British Book Awards. Next door to GBS and a Gala Bingo is Cathodic Protection, which with BGB Innovation won in 2009.


title: Grantham

text: According to Super Output Area data from the ONS, the least socially deprived area in Lincolnshire is the ward of Stamford St John's; Grantham's least deprived ward (SKDC) is in the north-east of the town near the former Central School.


title: Grantham

text: Conference and hospitality facilities in the Grantham area include the Olde Barn Hotel in Marston, the Q-Hotel group Belton Woods Hotel, the Urban Leisure Hotel and various golf clubs. Stoke Rochford Hall won the Les Routiers Wedding Venue of the Year in 2011. The "Griffin Inn" at Irnham won the 2012 Les Routiers B&B of the Year Award. The Eden House Hotel is a historic building built as a mansion in about 1850.


title: Grantham

text: The "Angel and Royal" in the High Street is widely regarded as the oldest surviving English inn. The façade of the main building as it appears today was built about 600 years ago, but the site had already held an inn for 200 years. It was originally a hostel for the Knights Templar. King John is reputed to have visited with his Royal Court in 1213. The inn was extended in the mid-14th century and again in the 15th century.


title: Grantham

text: A visit by Richard III was the origin of the gold emblem angel holding the King's crown over the original archway. In 1483 Richard held court and it was from the "Chambre de' Roi", that he dispatched a letter bidding for the Great Seal to proclaim the treachery of his cousin, the Duke of Buckingham, leading to the signature of Buckingham's death warrant. Copies of the letter, the original of which is kept by the British Museum, are displayed adjacent to the Richard III lounge and the King's Room Restaurant.


title: Grantham

text: King Charles I made use of the King's Room during his visit in 1633 and Oliver Cromwell also stayed at the "Angel" after his successful battle near Grantham in 1643. The cellars and foundations of the inn are reputed to date from the 9th century, and are rumoured to be linked by tunnels to both St Wulfram's Church and the town's Market Square. In 1707 the then landlord Michael Solomon died, but left a legacy of 40 shillings a year to pay for the preaching of a sermon, against the evils of drunkenness, for every Mayor.


title: Grantham

text: The prime position of the inn on the Great North Road led to its long history as a coaching inn, which accounts for its characteristic layout, with long courtyard, old stables and entrances to front and rear. In 1800 six inns were listed in Grantham, together with 21 alehouses. The "Angel"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s prosperity declined markedly with the coming of the railways.


title: Grantham

text: By the middle of the 19th century, the "Angel" had also enjoyed the patronage of King George IV. In 1866 the then Prince of Wales visited Grantham, directly leading to the second part of the inn's name. In the early 1920s the word Inn was dropped and the building became a hotel.


title: Grantham

text: After the Second World War, the hotel was purchased by Trust House Hotels, later to become Trust House Forte. It remained with Trust House until a few years ago. Since then there has been a succession of owners, including several brewery companies. In May 2002, the "Angel and Royal" was purchased by a consortium of local business professionals.


title: Grantham

text: Brook Street and Hill Avenue sub-post offices were closed in Grantham in 2008 as part of the Post Office Network Change programme. In August 2010 it was confirmed that the Grantham branch of Marks and Spencer would close, with two other Lincolnshire branches in Skegness and Scunthorpe, due to low sales, although a Marks and Spencer Food Hall re-opened in 2014. The closure met with local protests. Discount department store chain Boyes took over the property in 2012. Haldanes, a chain of about 20 supermarkets based in Ruston Road, went into administration. The former HMRC office at Crown House in Castlegate closed in early 2010, moving to two sites in Lincoln.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham and its surrounding area host peregrine falcons, which have in recent years roosted in the bell tower of St Wulfram's Church.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham is surrounded by rolling countryside and woodland, such as nearby Ponton Park Wood, which has walks and views of woods and farmland. To the north-east there are the attractive gardens and the magnificent deer park of the National Trust's Belton House. Adjacent are Londonthorpe and Alma Park Woods, both owned by the Woodland Trust. The former comprises young woodland and open areas of wild flowers, while Alma Park has mature woodland on its steep limestone scarp and offers views over the town and the surrounding area.


title: Grantham

text: To the south of the town, between Little Ponton and Saltersford, the River Witham flows through marshes and water meadows that support a variety of plant species, including vetches, cowslip, "Primula veris", Lady's bedstraw "Galium verum", and orchids, including the southern marsh orchid, and wildlife, including grey herons, mallards, greylag geese, water vole, and the now critically endangered white clawed crayfish. The area has notable populations of dragonflies, especially "Aeshna grandis", "Anax imperator", "Libellula quadrimaculata" and "Calopteryx splendens", which are also found on Grantham Canal as it runs through The Vale of Belvoir to the west of the town. Wildlife can also be found in the town's Wyndham and Dysart Parks.


title: Grantham

text: The Woodland Trust is based in Dysart Road and has been in Grantham since 1978; its new £6 million building, on the opposite side of the road, opened in November 2010. The building, designed by Atelier One and Max Fordham, has won several architectural awards.


title: Grantham

text: Wyndham Park has two children's play areas. There is an open-air paddling pool, football pitch and cafe. Dysart Park has a paddling pool and safe play area for children under six, a green for football and a bandstand. Indoor amenities for children include a swimming pool at the Meres Leisure Centre.


title: Grantham

text: The public library is located in the Sir Isaac Newton Centre. On St Peter's Hill in the centre of town stands Grantham Museum and the Guildhall Arts Centre, which includes a 210-seat theatre.


title: Grantham

text: Belton House is a popular National Trust site with events for children, a play area, train rides, picnic area and woodland walk.


title: Grantham

text: There is a small FM radio transmitter near the town's bypass in Gorse Lane, from which BBC Lincolnshire and Lincs FM broadcast. Most television programmes are broadcast from Waltham, between Grantham and Melton, due to the line of sight to Belmont being blocked by hills to the east of the town.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham also has a full-time community radio station, Gravity FM, which broadcasts from its own transmitter at The Maltings in Springfield Road and also online. Since redevelopment, the station has its own studios in Riverside Walk, on the western side of Grantham College. It is operated by local volunteers.


title: Grantham

text: The town is known for gingerbread biscuits, first made in 1740 by a baker, William Eggleston. He produced a biscuit called Grantham Whetstones. Whetstones were a rusk-like dry biscuit enjoyed locally and by coach drivers who would stop in Grantham to change horses while travelling along the Great North Road. According to folk belief, Egglestone was baking whetstones in his dimly lit kitchen one morning when he mistook one ingredient for another, resulting in a ginger-like biscuit to emerge from the oven. The mistake was a huge success and the biscuit became established as Grantham Gingerbread, known as a white gingerbread, as it is not made with molasses or black treacle. This has a delicate ginger flavour, rich in butter, with a domed top and a crackled surface. The centre is hollow like a honeycomb.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham's local newspaper, the "Grantham Journal", first went on sale in 1854 as "The Grantham Journal of Useful, Instructive and Entertaining Knowledge and Monthly Advertiser". This was shortened to its current name a few years later. It was founded by Henry Escritt, a Yorkshireman by birth, who moved to the area in 1861. The 'Journal' is owned by Iliffe Media (formerly by Johnston Press), and has a sister newspaper in Melton Mowbray, the "Melton Times". In the 1960s and earlier it produced the "Melton Journal" and "Rutland Journal", both versions of the main paper. It also produces a Bingham edition.


title: Grantham

text: David Wood CBE (1914–1990), former political editor of "The Times" (working under Sir William Haley), started out at the "Grantham Journal".


title: Grantham

text: Grantham railway station is served by the London–Edinburgh East Coast Main Line, between Peterborough and Newark Northgate). It is joined by the Nottingham to Skegness Line (Poacher Line). Liverpool–Norwich trains also call at Grantham. Electric trains began running in October 1988. Transport links to Nottingham and Peterborough attract some commuters. The town's grammar schools also attract pupils from Radcliffe on Trent, Bingham, Newark and even Retford via the train. Grantham is the best-served station in Lincolnshire, although after October 1970, most of Lincolnshire's branch lines were closed. Before October 1970 the connection from King's Cross to Lincoln Central was through Grantham and followed the A607 via Leadenham. After that date, London-Lincoln trains still passed through Grantham, but then continued up the main line to Newark Northgate, where the trains branched off to Lincoln St Marks Railway Station via a new curve just north of Newark.


title: Grantham

text: On 3 July 1938 "Mallard" broke the world speed record for steam locomotives, at , on the slight downward grade of Stoke Bank south of Grantham on the East Coast Main Line.


title: Grantham

text: The Great North Road was routed through the town in 1196. The turnpike to the north reached the town in 1725, that to Stamford in 1739, to Nottingham in 1758, and that to Melton in 1780.


title: Grantham

text: The A1 main road from London to Edinburgh runs past the town, which was bypassed in 1962. The A52 linking Nottingham and the East Coast was diverted from High Street onto the Inner Relief Road, Sankt Augustin Way, in 1998. Wharf Road and London Road junction is still a busy junction on the A607 for Lincoln. Motorway-style Grantham North Services, at the north end of Grantham bypass, is on a new junction which replaced a roundabout in May 2008.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham, with Stamford, had been earmarked for a bypass before the war in 1939. There were 60 serious accidents a year, with three to four deaths. After the war, on 21 November 1945, there was a meeting at the Guildhall about the proposed bypass of the London-Edinburgh-Thurso trunk road for Grantham and Great Gonerby. This was the first enquiry into a trunk road scheme in the country after the war. The proposed route followed the current line, from Little Ponton to College Farm, except it was to be a single carriageway road.


title: Grantham

text: On 8 February 1960, it was announced that a bypass would be built, including the route south to the B6403 at Colsterworth. Robert McGregor and Sons Ltd of Manchester would build the road for £1,856,009. (The company went on to build Newark bypass in 1964.) The bridges were built by Simon Carves of Cheadle Hulme. It was formally opened on 10 October 1962 by James Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 3rd Earl of Ancaster, then the Lord Lieutenant of Lincolnshire (from 1950 to 1975). He was married to the (only) daughter of Nancy Astor.


title: Grantham

text: Various attempts at one-way systems in Grantham have been introduced, but traffic delays are still commonplace. Low railway bridges also add to traffic difficulties, with lorries becoming stuck under them. Many promises have been made by the local council for a Grantham bypass road. The latest, the Grantham Southern Relief Road, has been in planning since 2007. Phase one of the project was completed in 2016 which provided access to some commercial facilitates and a new roundabout on the B1174. Phase Two, started in October 2019, involves a new grade separated junction on the A1 and is due to be opened on the 20th December 2022. Phase three for the main stretch of road started in 2021 and due to be completed by 2023. In July 2022 it was found that ground conditions at a new viaduct were for as expected, and the project would be delayed as the viaduct would need to be redesigned.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham was once linked to Nottingham by the Grantham Canal. It is possible to walk and cycle along the canal starting from Grantham near the A1/A607 intersection (opposite "The Farrier").


title: Grantham

text: The River Witham runs through Grantham. It has a riverside walk linking Dysart Park and Wyndham Park, on which is a view of Spittlegate Mill. The walk passes Inner Street allotment and the rear of Sainsbury's car park, access to which is by a pedestrian bridge at the end of College Street. There are other footbridges with views of the river and its weirs. Swans, ducks and trout are among the wildlife that can be seen along the river.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham College, a further education college for the district, opened in 1948, for those not attending school sixth forms. It has a satellite site at Sleaford, Sleaford College. Since September 2008 the Walton Academy in Kitty Briggs Lane near Harlaxton Road has run post-16 courses as Grantham's only sixth form college. In September 2019, the school had its first intake of male students in the lower school, making the former all-girls school co-educational.


title: Grantham

text: Two notable schools in the district are Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School and The King's Grammar School. Both have large sixth forms and eminent past students. Britain's first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, attended Kesteven and Grantham, and Isaac Newton famously attended The King's. Both have remained single-sex up to the age of 16.


title: Grantham

text: In 1970, Kesteven County Council (based in Sleaford) announced plans to turn the grammar schools into co-educational comprehensives for ages of 11–16 and leave Grantham College the only sixth form for the town. Later it was proposed to create two sixth-form colleges from one of the grammar schools. Other parts of Kesteven became comprehensive but responsibility for education passed to Lincolnshire under the local government reorganization of 1974, and both schools stayed as grammar schools. Ex-pupil Margaret Thatcher was education secretary at the time. The governors of the King's School delayed the process in July 1973, and in January 1975 a plan to make Grantham comprehensive was voted against by the county council, having been approved by the council's own education committee.


title: Grantham

text: On 1 August 2011 The King's School ended its long relationship with the local elected authorities and the town of Grantham, by converting to a selective academy. It remains a selective boys' school and has kept its name and logo.


title: Grantham

text: All four secondary modern schools are on the outskirts of Grantham. Only three of the six secondary schools are co-educational.


title: Grantham

text: The Priory Ruskin Academy (formerly Central Technology & Sports College) is a co-educational school sited near Manthorpe.


title: Grantham

text: In Gorse Lane is Grantham Preparatory School, an independent school preparing entrants for the 11-plus examination. Another private primary school is Dudley House School. Near St Wulfram's on Castlegate is the National Church of England Junior School, built in 1859, and a feeder school for the town's grammar schools.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham has the country's only "living" public house sign: a beehive of South African bees situated outside the "Beehive Inn" since 1830.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham Guildhall on St Peter's Hill is now the Guildhall Arts Centre. Edith Smith Way is a road next to the Arts Centre, named after England's first policewoman. Mary Allen and Ellen F. Harburn reported for duty on 27 November 1914. Mary Allen was a former suffragette and had been previously arrested outside the House of Commons and later went on to be the commandant of the UK's women's police force from the 1920s up to 1940. She helped to set up women's police forces in other countries, including Germany. Edith Smith became the first female with powers of arrest in August 1915.


title: Grantham

text: Sandon Road is named after Viscount Sandon, also the Earl of Harrowby. The first person with the title was Dudley Ryder, 1st Earl of Harrowby; a road is also named after him. He bought Harrowby Hall in 1754. The current owner is Dudley Ryder, 8th Earl of Harrowby.


title: Grantham

text: The "Blue Pig", one of many "Blue" pubs, stands in Vine Street, near the Church of St Wulfram. The building is one of probably only four remaining Tudor buildings in the town and a survivor of the disastrous fires of the 1660s. It was first mentioned as an inn in a trade directory of 1846, when the landlord was one Richard Summersby. The property was then owned by the (giving the derivation of Blue in the name).


title: Grantham

text: To the west of the town near the A607 is Baird's maltings, owned by Moray Firth until 1999 and before that by R & W Paul. Other maltings have been converted for residential use, such as Riverview Maltings near the river, formerly owned by Lee & Grinling's.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham JobCentre was opened on 24 June 1975 by local MP Joseph Godber. Grantham and District Hospital stands next to the Priory Ruskin Academy on the A607 in the north of the town. The maternity unit opened in August 1972 is now a midwife-staffed unit.


title: Grantham

text: Nearby are many historic houses including 17th-century Belton House (the Brownlows), early 19th-century Harlaxton Manor (the Gregorys), Stoke Rochford Hall (owned by the Turnors, and since 1978 a training centre of the NUT), and the 19th-century Belvoir Castle (the Manners), in Leicestershire. Much of the property and land to the south-west of the area is owned by the two estates of Belvoir and Buckminster. Further to the south of Stoke Rochford are the Cholmeleys of Easton Hall.


title: Grantham

text: On 15 May 2022 a high bronze statue of Margaret Thatcher, dressed in the full ceremonial robes of the House of Lords, by sculptor Douglas Jennings and costing £300,000, was installed. Located on St Peter's Hill Green, close to the Grantham Museum, it was placed on a tall plinth to discourage vandalism, but was attacked with eggs within two hours of its unveiling.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham Town Football Club, the local football team, currently plays in the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League. It was founded in 1874 and now uses the 7,500-capacity (covered 1,950, seats 750) South Kesteven Sports Stadium (although average attendances are well below that). The ground also doubles as the town's athletics stadium (one of only three in Lincolnshire), next to the Grantham Meres Leisure Centre on "Trent Road".


title: Grantham

text: Harrowby United F.C. in Dickens Road, near the Church of the Ascension, is in the UCL (United Countries League) Division One league.


title: Grantham

text: Kesteven Rugby Football Club was founded in 1947 and plays at Woodnook, off the B6403. It fields two men's teams, a ladies XV and many junior sides.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham Hockey Club, which fielded men's and women's team in league hockey, played at the Meres Leisure Centre, on an astro-turf pitch directly behind the football stadium. In 2011, the men ended a long spell in the Midlands League, moving to the East League, successfully earning promotion to Division 5 (North West). Their story is documented in "1,309 Days Later", the title a reference to a no-win spell between 2006 and 2009.


title: Grantham

text: Grantham bowls players have represented the indoor and outdoor clubs in county and national competitions. Indoor club players Martin Pulling, Dion Auckland, Ian Johnson, and former England U25 player Mathew Orrey, have played for the England squad.


title: Grantham

text: In 1993 and 1994 international team matches were held in Grantham, at the South Kesteven Table Tennis Centre, which was opened in January 1992 by Johnny Leach. Grantham College have a Table Tennis Academy.


title: Grantham

text: Additionally, privately published works of a historical nature include Ruth Crook and Barbara Jeffries's "The History of Little Gonerby and its School" (Grantham: privately published, 2008) and "The History of Gonerby Hill Foot and its School" (Grantham: privately published, 2008). Collections of photographs include the "Bygone Grantham" series (6 vols; Grantham: Bygone Grantham, 1977–1987) edited by Michael Pointer and Malcolm Knapp. Knapp also compiled "Grantham: The War Years, 1939–1945: A Pictorial Insight" (Newland: Lincolnshire Books, 1995). Various collections of newspaper cuttings and excerpts under the title "Grantham in the News" by John R. Pinchbeck were published in five volumes between 1999 and 2010.


title: Jimmy Carter rabbit incident

text: The Jimmy Carter rabbit incident, sensationalized as a "killer rabbit attack" by the press, involved a swamp rabbit ("Sylvilagus aquaticus") that swam toward then–U.S. President Jimmy Carter's fishing boat on April 20, 1979. The incident caught the imagination of the media after Carter's press secretary, Jody Powell, mentioned the event to a correspondent months later.


title: Jimmy Carter rabbit incident

text: President Carter was fishing in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, on April 20, 1979, alone in a flat-bottomed boat while staff were on land nearby. Carter said a rabbit being chased by hounds "jumped in the water and swam toward my boat. When he got almost there, I splashed some water with a paddle."


title: Jimmy Carter rabbit incident

text: When Carter returned to his office, his staff did not believe his story, saying rabbits could not swim or that one would never approach a person threateningly. However, a White House photographer had taken a picture of the incident, which was released by a later administration.


title: Jimmy Carter rabbit incident

text: Associated Press correspondent Brooks Jackson's story on the incident was published August 30, 1979, in various newspapers, including on the front page of "The Washington Post" with the title "Bunny Goes Bugs: Rabbit Attacks President." The White House did not publicly release a photograph of the event until much later, and the "Post" printed a cartoon parody of the "Jaws" poster labeled "PAWS" as its illustration. The White House declined to release the photo to the media until it turned up during the Reagan administration and the story saw a revival.


title: Jimmy Carter rabbit incident

text: The incident with the rabbit became fodder for political and ideological opponents who wanted to label Carter's presidency as hapless and enfeebled, although the event's proximity to the U.S. release of the comedy feature film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", which includes scenes of a killer rabbit slaying humans, led to some people describing Carter as having "fended off a killer rabbit" instead. This incident has also made its way into popular culture, as evidenced by its use as a minor theme in the webcomic xkcd.


title: Melanie Liburd

text: In 2016, Liburd appeared as the red priestess in "No One", an episode of the sixth season of the HBO series "Game of Thrones". She was cast in the Netflix psychological thriller television series "Gypsy" in late 2016.


title: Melanie Liburd

text: From 2018 to 2019, Liburd portrayed Zoe in "This Is Us". From 2020 to 2022, she portrayed Carrie Milgram in "".


title: Miriam Adelson

text: Miriam Adelson (born 10 October 1945) is an Israeli American physician and billionaire. After her marriage to American business magnate Sheldon Adelson in 1991, she became a donor to conservative political causes in the United States and Israel. The Adelsons donated to the Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign, his presidential inauguration, his defense fund against the Mueller investigation into Russian interference and the 2020 campaign.


title: Miriam Adelson

text: She is the current publisher of the newspaper "Israel Hayom". She is also a voting member on the board of trustees at the University of Southern California.


title: Miriam Adelson

text: Miriam and Sheldon Adelson were presented with the Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution in 2008. In 2013, she received honorary citizenship of Jerusalem. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Donald Trump in 2018.


title: Miriam Adelson

text: As of June 2021, Adelson is the 44th-richest person, fifth-richest woman, and richest Israeli in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$29.6 billion according to "Bloomberg Billionaires Index" through her majority ownership of Las Vegas Sands.


title: Miriam Adelson

text: Miriam Farbstein (later Adelson) was born in Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine in 1945, to parents who fled Poland before the Holocaust. Her father was a prominent member of the Mapam political party. In the 1950s, her family settled in Haifa, where Adelson's father owned and operated several movie theaters.


title: Miriam Adelson

text: She attended the Hebrew Reali School for 12 years. She served mandatory army service as a medical officer at Ness Ziona. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and Genetics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, she earned a medical degree from Tel Aviv University's Sackler Medical School.


title: Miriam Adelson

text: She married Ariel Ochshorn, also a physician, with whom she had two children. Adelson divorced Ochshorn in the 1980s, and while studying at Rockefeller University, she met Sheldon Adelson, whom she married in 1991. She is credited with influencing Sheldon's political views on Israel and served as one of the 'finance vice-chairs' for the inauguration of Donald Trump. After Sheldon Adelson died in 2021, she became the owner of casino company Las Vegas Sands and is now on Forbes' 36th position for the ranking of The Richest People in The World. Her net worth is $38.2B in 2022.


title: Miriam Adelson

text: She became a physician and eventually the chief internist in an emergency room at Tel Aviv's Rokach (Hadassah) Hospital.


title: Miriam Adelson

text: After divorcing her first husband, she went to Rockefeller University in 1986 as an associate physician specializing in drug addiction. She was mentored by and collaborated with Mary Jeanne Kreek.


title: Miriam Adelson

text: In 1993, she founded a substance abuse center and research clinic. In 2000, she and her second husband opened the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Research Clinic in Las Vegas. A strong supporter of Israel, she admitted her heart has always been in that country and that she got "stuck" in America after meeting her husband.


title: Miriam Adelson

text: Adelson is known for her support for Donald Trump. She and her husband were the largest donors of Trump throughout his presidency; they provided the largest donation to his 2016 campaign, his presidential inauguration, his defense fund against the Mueller investigation into Russian interference and the 2020 campaign.


title: Miriam Adelson

text: She has written that Trump "should enjoy sweeping support" among U.S. Jews and Israelis, and that Trump deserves a "Book of Trump" in the Bible due to his support for Israel. She pushed for the pardon of Aviem Sella who spied against America.


title: Miriam Adelson

text: Adelson wrote that Trump represents "kinship, friendship, courage, the triumph of truth" and that "Israelis and proud Jews owe Donald Trump our gratitude."


title: Garter

text: A garter is an article of clothing comprising a narrow band of fabric fastened about the leg to keep up stockings. In the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, they were tied just below the knee, where the leg is most slender, to keep the stocking from slipping. The advent of elastic has made them less necessary from this functional standpoint, although they are still often worn for fashion. Garters have been widely worn by men and women, depending on fashion trends.


title: Garter

text: In Elizabethan fashions, men wore garters with their hose, and colourful garters were an object of display. In Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", "cross braced" garters (a long garter tied above and below the knee and crossed between), as worn by the character Malvolio, are an object of some derision. In male fashion for much of the 20th century a type of garter for holding up socks was used as a part of male dress; it is considered somewhat archaic now.


title: Garter

text: There is a Western wedding tradition for a bride to wear a garter to her wedding, to be removed towards the end of the reception by the groom. This garter is not normally used to support stockings. This practice is often interpreted as symbolic of deflowering, though some sources attribute its origin to a superstition that taking an article of the bride's clothing will bring good luck. In the Middle Ages, the groomsmen would rush at the new bride to take her garters as a prize.


title: Garter

text: Today, the practice of removing the bride's garter is traditionally reserved for the groom, who will use either his hands or teeth, and then toss the garter to the unmarried male guests. This is performed after the tossing of the bouquet, in which the bride tosses her bouquet over her shoulder to be caught by the unwed female guests. According to superstition, the lady who catches the bouquet and the man who catches the garter will be the next man and woman among those in attendance to be married (though not necessarily to each other). The ceremony often continues with the man who catches the garter obliged to place it on the leg of the lady who caught the bouquet. Traditionally, the pair are obliged to share the next dance.


title: Garter

text: Prom garters were common in the 1960s and 1970s and often conferred on the date as a souvenir. If the date received the garter, it was typically hung from his rear-view mirror.


title: Garter

text: At least since the mid-2000s, it has become common in US culture for young women attending a high school prom to wear a garter, usually designed to match the style and color of the young woman's dress. The prom garter may be worn throughout the evening and is sometimes given to the young woman's date as a souvenir. A young woman may also choose to keep the garter rather than give it away, as a token of her prom night. In some cases, young people may participate in a "garter and tie" dance (often hosted by the high school as part of the prom), during or after which either the young woman herself or the young woman's date removes the garter and exchanges it for the date's tie. When the garter is given early in the evening, the young woman's date may wear it on their arm for the remainder of the evening. In areas where prom garters are common, it has become a tradition for young women to pose for a picture with other female friends before the prom in which they pull up the skirts of their dresses to display their prom garters, which are generally worn a few inches above the right knee. The giving or taking of the prom garter may or may not have the same sexual implications that are associated with wedding garters; however, the giving of the prom garter is often interpreted as publicly designating the pair as a romantic couple.


title: Garter

text: Suspenders or suspender belts, also known as "garter belts" in American English, are an undergarment consisting of an elasticated material strip usually at least in width; it can be wider. Two or three elastic suspender slings are attached on each side, where the material is shaped to the contours of the body. The suspenders are typically clipped to stockings with metal clips into which a rubber disc is inserted through the stocking material effectively 'locking' the stocking in place. These are normally attached to a length of elastic allowing for adjustment. These clips, also known as suspender slings, are best attached to stockings with a simple welt that do not have lace, or 'hold-ups' with a silicone rubber lining.


title: Garter

text: Suspender (garter) belts are usually worn at the waist or just slightly below to prevent the belt sliding down as it is pulled downward by the stockings. Some undergarments such as corselettes or girdles may come with suspender slings attached.


title: Garter

text: By the late 20th century and into the 21st, pantyhose or tights were more widely worn than stockings. And some stockings, referred to as hold-ups, have a band of latex rubber molded to the stocking top to keep them up without suspenders. But suspenders continue to be used by people who prefer stockings to tights, and doctors may advise patients with a history of thrush or cystitis to avoid tights; the trapped heat and moisture can exacerbate any infection present. People with a latex allergy must avoid hold-ups.


title: Garter

text: While most commonly used for regular stockings, suspender belts can also be used for medical support hosiery worn due to varicose veins or poor circulation.


title: Garter

text: Stockings are often considered to be sensual or erotic, both in person and in photographs, and some people enjoy dressing up for special occasions in attractive suspender belts or basques.


title: Garter

text: Ice hockey players use suspenders for holding up hockey socks. As these socks are essentially woollen tubes, they need to be kept from rolling onto ankles. The socks can be held up by either hockey tape or hockey suspenders, which function like stocking suspenders.


title: Garter

text: Garters in the 18th century could be elaborately decorated and were sometimes embroidered with names, dates, mottoes or humorous phrases. Prior to the invention of elastic, they were fastened by buckles, or threaded with spiral springs to grip the wearer's leg.


title: Garter

text: Some women wore stockings with a plain elastic garter or narrow material tied tightly, not suspenders, or by simply rolling the top of the stocking, because it seemed more practical or they could not afford classic corsetry, thus creating a kind of predecessor of the modern hold ups. This was particularly common among servants and housemaids, particularly until the mid 1920s when the more modern suspender became readily available.


title: Garter

text: During the world's first long distance journey by automobile in 1888 Bertha Benz, the wife of the inventor of the automobile Dr Carl Benz, used a garter to insulate a broken wire of the Benz Patent-Motorwagen Nr. 3. In remembrance of this historic road trip today's official German scenic byway Bertha Benz Memorial Route follows the tracks of Bertha Benz from Mannheim via Heidelberg to Pforzheim (Black Forest) and back. Stockings have also been used as an emergency replacement for a car's fanbelt.


title: Garter

text: From the 1940s to '60s, suspenders became a common, popular alternative to the girdle, especially among teens and young women. Amid concerns girdles might cause abdominal flabbiness, suspender belts offered a simpler, more practical, and more comfortable choice when used simply to hold up their stockings.


title: Garter

text: Since the early 1960s, many men's magazines featured images of women in underwear, with models in suspenders and stocking, often with slips, petticoats, corsets or a bra and knickers or panties in erotic pose.


title: Garter

text: These images may have an erotic element and are sometimes presented as fetish fashion and also in pornography.


title: Garter

text: Suspender belts continue to be worn for their original purpose of holding up stockings. Suspenders today are available in a variety of styles, most commonly in white, 'fleshtone' beige-pink, or black with a satin finish. These are often now made from a mixture of nylon and spandex / lycra, being more readily available in retail stores. Variations of the suspender or garter belt include knickers with suspender attachments reminiscent of images of the 1960s and corsets or girdles with small loops inside the bottom edge for attaching suspenders. Knickers are normally worn on top of the suspender belt as this makes it easier to remove them to use the lavatory / bathroom. If worn underneath the belt, undressing may be rather complicated if using a public facility.


title: Garter

text: The Order of the Garter, which is the oldest and highest British order of chivalry, was founded in 1348 by Edward III. The Order consists of His Majesty The King who is Sovereign of the Order, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales and 24 Knights Companions.


title: Garter

text: The origin of the symbol of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, a blue 'garter' with the motto "Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense", is not known, as the earliest records of the order were destroyed by fire; however, the story is that at a ball possibly held at Calais, Joan, Countess of Salisbury dropped her garter and King Edward, seeing her embarrassment, picked it up and bound it about his own leg saying in French, "Evil [or shamed] be he that thinks evil of it." This story is almost certainly a later fiction. This fable appears to have originated in France and may have been invented to discredit the Order.


title: Garter

text: It is thought more likely that as the garter was a small strap used as a device to attach pieces of armour, it was appropriate to use the garter as a symbol of binding together in common brotherhood, whilst the motto probably refers to the leading political topic of the 1340s, Edward's claim to the throne of France.


title: Garter

text: The patron saint of the Order is St George, the patron saint of soldiers and also of England, and the chapel of the order is St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle.


title: Eye in the Sky (album)

text: Eye in the Sky is the sixth studio album by British rock band the Alan Parsons Project, released in May 1982 by Arista Records. At the 25th Annual Grammy Awards in 1983, "Eye in the Sky" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album. In 2019, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Immersive Audio Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards.


title: Eye in the Sky (album)

text: "Eye in the Sky" is the first of three albums the Project recorded on analogue equipment and mixed directly to the digital master tape.


title: Eye in the Sky (album)

text: "Eye in the Sky" contains the title track, the Project's biggest hit, with lead vocals by Eric Woolfson. The album itself was a major success, reaching the top 10 (and sometimes the number one slot) in numerous countries.


title: Eye in the Sky (album)

text: The album features the instrumental piece "Sirius", which has become a staple of many college and professional sporting arenas throughout North America. It is best known for its use by the Chicago Bulls to introduce its starting line-up during its championship years of the 1990s and is still used today.


title: Eye in the Sky (album)

text: Another instrumental, "Mammagamma", was used separately by TVNZ in New Zealand and BBC Wales in the mid-1980s for their snooker coverage, and as a bed for the "My Favourite Five" feature on Tony Fenton's late-night 2FM show across 1989 and 1990.


title: Eye in the Sky (album)

text: On 1 December 2017, a 35th-anniversary-edition box set of the album was released, for which Alan Parsons, along with surround mastering engineers Dave Donnelly and PJ Olsson, won the Grammy Award for Best Immersive Audio Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards.


title: Eye in the Sky (album)

text: From contemporary reviews, Ken Tucker of "The Philadelphia Inquirer" gave the album a one star rating out of five rating, calling it a "hopelessly banal album" with "Paul McCartney-as-manic-depressive melodies and whining vocals would be merely pathetic were it not for Parsons' lyric pretensions".


title: Eye in the Sky (album)

text: From retrospective reviews, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave the album a four and a half star rating, stating that "this is a soft rock album through and through, one that's about melodic hooks and texture," noting that "with the exception of those instrumentals and the galloping suite "Silence and I," all the artiness was part of the idea of this album was pushed into the lyrics, so the album plays as soft pop album—and a very, very good one at that [...] it adds up to arguably the most consistent Alan Parsons Project album—perhaps not in terms of concept, but in terms of music they never were as satisfying as they were here."


title: Maya Lin

text: Maya Ying Lin (born October 5, 1959) is an American designer and sculptor. In 1981, while an undergraduate at Yale University, she achieved national recognition when she won a national design competition for the planned Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.


title: Maya Lin

text: Lin has designed numerous memorials, public and private buildings, landscapes, and sculptures. Although best known for historical memorials, she is also known for environmentally themed works, which often address environmental decline. According to Lin, she draws inspiration from the architecture of nature but believes that nothing she creates can match its beauty.


title: Maya Lin

text: Maya Lin was born in Athens, Ohio. Her parents emigrated from China to the United States, her father in 1948 and her mother in 1949, and settled in Ohio before Lin was born. Her father, Henry Huan Lin, born in Fuzhou, Fujian, was a ceramist and dean of the Ohio University College of Fine Arts. Her mother, Julia Chang Lin, born in Shanghai, is a poet and a former professor of literature at Ohio University. She is the "half" niece of Lin Huiyin, who was an American-educated artist and poet, and said to have been the first female architect in modern China. Lin Juemin and Lin Yin Ming, both of whom were among the 72 martyrs of the Second Guangzhou uprising, were cousins of her grandfather. Lin Chang-min, a Hanlin of Qing dynasty and the emperor's teacher, fathered Lin Huiyin with his wife, while Maya Lin's father Henry Huan Lin was Lin Chang-Min’s illegitimate son with his concubine.


title: Maya Lin

text: According to Lin, she "didn't even realize" she was ethnically Chinese until later in life, and that only in her 30s did she acquire an interest in her cultural background.


title: Maya Lin

text: Lin has said that she did not have many friends when growing up, stayed home a lot, loved to study, and loved school. While still in high school she took courses at Ohio University where she learned to cast bronze in the school's foundry. She graduated in 1977 from Athens High School in The Plains, Ohio, after which she attended Yale University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1981 and a Master of Architecture in 1986.


title: Maya Lin

text: According to Lin, she has been concerned with environmental issues since she was very young, and dedicated much of her time at Yale University to environmental activism. She attributes her interest in the environment to her upbringing in rural Ohio: the nearby Hopewell and Adena Indian burial mounds inspired her from an early age. Noting that much of her later work has focused on the relationship people have with their environment, as expressed in her earthworks, sculptures, and installations, Lin said, "I'm very much a product of the growing awareness about ecology and the environmental movement...I am very drawn to landscape, and my work is about finding a balance in the landscape, respecting nature not trying to dominate it. Even the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is an earthwork. All of my work is about slipping things in, inserting an order or a structuring, yet making an interface so that in the end, rather than a hierarchy, there is a balance and tension between the man-made and the natural."


title: Maya Lin

text: According to the scholar Susette Min, Lin's work uncovers "hidden histories" to bring attention to landscapes and environments that would otherwise be inaccessible to viewers and "deploys the concept to discuss the inextricable relationship between nature and the built environment". Lin's focus on this relationship highlights the impact humanity has on the environment, and draws attention to issues such as global warming, endangered bodies of water, and animal extinction/endangerment. She has explored these issues in her recent memorial, called "What Is Missing?"


title: Maya Lin

text: According to one commentator, Lin constructs her works to have a minimal effect on the environment by utilizing recycled and sustainable materials, by minimizing carbon emissions, and by attempting to avoid damaging the landscapes/ecosystems where she works.


title: Maya Lin

text: In addition to her other activities as an environmentalist, Lin has served on the Natural Resources Defense Council board of trustees.


title: Maya Lin

text: In 1981, at 21 and still an undergraduate student, Lin won a public design competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, to be built on the National Mall in Washington D.C. Her design, one of 1,422 submissions, specified a black granite wall with the names of 57,939 fallen soldiers carved into its face (hundreds more have been added since the dedication), to be v-shaped, with one side pointing toward the Lincoln Memorial and the other toward the Washington Monument. The memorial was completed in late October 1982 and dedicated in November 1982.


title: Maya Lin

text: According to Lin, her intention was to create an opening or a wound in the earth to symbolize the pain caused by the war and its many casualties. "I imagined taking a knife and cutting into the earth, opening it up, and with the passage of time, that initial violence and pain would heal," she recalled.


title: Maya Lin

text: Her winning design was initially controversial for several reasons: its minimalist design, her lack of professional experience, and her Asian ethnicity. According to one writer, "Some viewed her selection as an affront. They could not understand how a woman, a youth, and a Chinese American could design a memorial for men, for soldiers, and for Americans." Some objected to the exclusion of the surviving veterans' names, while others complained about the dark complexion of the granite, claiming that it expressed a negative attitude towards the Vietnam War. Lin defended her design before the US Congress, and a compromise was reached: "The Three Soldiers", a bronze depiction of a group of soldiers and an American flag were placed to the side of Lin's design.


title: Maya Lin

text: Notwithstanding the initial controversy, the memorial has become an important pilgrimage site for relatives and friends of the dead soldiers, many of whom leave personal tokens and mementos in memory of their loved ones. In 2007, an American Institute of Architects poll ranked the memorial No. 10 on a list of America's Favorite Architecture, and it is now one of the most visited sites on the National Mall. Furthermore, it now serves as a memorial for the veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. There is a collection with items left since 2001 from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which includes handwritten letters and notes of those who lost loved ones during these wars. There is also a pair of combat boots and a note with it dedicated to the veterans of the Vietnam War, that reads "If your generation of Marines had not come home to jeers, insults, and protests, my generation would not come home to thanks, handshakes and hugs."


title: Maya Lin

text: Lin once said that if the competition had not been held "blind" (with designs submitted by name instead of number), she "never would have won" on account of her ethnicity. Her assertion is supported by the fact that she was harassed after her ethnicity was revealed, as when prominent businessman and later third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot called her an "egg roll."


title: Maya Lin

text: Lin, who now owns and operates Maya Lin Studio in New York City, has designed numerous projects following the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, including the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama (1989) and the "Wave Field" outdoor installation at the University of Michigan (1995). Lin is represented by the Pace Gallery in New York City.


title: Maya Lin

text: Maya Lin calls herself a "designer," rather than an "architect". Her vision and her focus are always on how space needs to be in the future, the balance and relationship with the nature and what it means to people. She has tried to focus less on how politics influences design and more on what emotions the space would create and what it would symbolize to the user. Her belief in a space being connected and the transition from inside to outside being fluid, coupled with what a space means, has led her to create some very memorable designs. She has also worked on sculptures and landscape installations, such as “Input” artwork at Ohio University. In doing so, Lin focuses on memorializing concepts of time periods instead of direct representations of figures, creating an abstract sculptures and installations.


title: Maya Lin

text: Lin believes that art should be an act of any individual who is willing to say something that is new and not quite familiar. In her own words, Lin's work "originates from a simple desire to make people aware of their surroundings, not just the physical world but also the psychological world we live in." Lin describes her creative process as having a very important writing and verbal component. She first imagines an artwork verbally to understand its concepts and meanings. She believes that gathering ideas and information is especially vital in architecture, which focuses on humanity and life and requires a well-rounded mind. When a project comes her way, she tries to "understand the definition (of the site) in a verbal before finding the form to understand what a piece is conceptually and what its nature should be even before visiting the site". After she completely understands the definition of the site, Lin finalizes her designs by creating numerous renditions of her project in model form. In her historical memorials, such as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Women's Table, and the Civil Rights Memorial, Lin tries to focus on the chronological aspect of what she is memorializing. That theme is shown in her art memorializing the changing environment and in charting the depletion of bodies of water. Lin also explores themes of juxtaposing materials and a fusion of opposites: "I feel I exist on the boundaries. Somewhere between science and art, art and architecture, public and private, east and west... I am always trying to find a balance between these opposing forces, finding the place where opposites meet... existing not on either side but on the line that divides."


title: Maya Lin

text: Lin was married to Daniel Wolf (1955–2021), a photography dealer and collector. She has homes in New York and rural Colorado, and is the mother of two daughters, India and Rachel. She has an older brother, the poet Tan Lin.


title: Maya Lin

text: Lin has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from Yale University, Harvard University, Williams College, and Smith College. In 1987, she was among the youngest to be awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts by Yale University.


title: Maya Lin

text: In 1994, she was the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary "". Its title comes from an address she gave at Juniata College in which she spoke of the monument design process in the origin of her work; "My work originates from a simple desire to make people aware of their surroundings and this can include not just the physical but the psychological world that we live in."


title: Maya Lin

text: In 2002, Lin was elected Alumni Fellow of the Yale Corporation, the governing body of Yale University (upon whose campus sits another of Lin's designs, the Women's Table, designed to commemorate the role of women at Yale University), in an unusually public contest. Her opponent was W. David Lee, a local New Haven minister and graduate of the Yale Divinity School, who was running on a platform to build ties to the community with the support of Yale's unionized employees. Lin was supported by Yale President Richard Levin and other members of the Yale Corporation, and she was the officially endorsed candidate of the Association of Yale Alumni.


title: Maya Lin

text: In 2003, Lin was chosen to serve on the selection jury of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition. A trend toward minimalism and abstraction was noted among the entrants and the finalists as well as in the chosen design for the World Trade Center Memorial.


title: Maya Lin

text: In 2005, Lin was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.


title: Maya Lin

text: President Barack Obama awarded Lin the National Medal of Arts in 2009 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.


title: Maya Lin

text: In 2022, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. announced the first biographical exhibition, "One Life: Maya Lin," dedicated to Lin, noting her contributions as architect, sculptor, environmentalist, and designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.


title: Right ascension

text: Right ascension (abbreviated RA; symbol ) is the angular distance of a particular point measured eastward along the celestial equator from the Sun at the March equinox to the (hour circle of the) point in question above the earth.


title: Right ascension

text: When paired with declination, these astronomical coordinates specify the location of a point on the celestial sphere in the equatorial coordinate system.


title: Right ascension

text: An old term, "right ascension" () refers to the "ascension", or the point on the celestial equator that rises with any celestial object as seen from Earth's equator, where the celestial equator intersects the horizon at a right angle. It contrasts with "oblique ascension", the point on the celestial equator that rises with any celestial object as seen from most latitudes on Earth, where the celestial equator intersects the horizon at an oblique angle.


title: Right ascension

text: Right ascension is the celestial equivalent of terrestrial longitude. Both right ascension and longitude measure an angle from a primary direction (a zero point) on an equator. Right ascension is measured from the Sun at the March equinox i.e. the First Point of Aries, which is the place on the celestial sphere where the Sun crosses the celestial equator from south to north at the March equinox and is currently located in the constellation Pisces. Right ascension is measured continuously in a full circle from that alignment of Earth and Sun in space, that equinox, the measurement increasing towards the east.


title: Right ascension

text: As seen from Earth (except at the poles), objects noted to have 12 are longest visible (appear throughout the night) at the March equinox; those with 0 (apart from the sun) do so at the September equinox. On those dates at midnight, such objects will reach ("culminate" at) their highest point (their meridian). How high depends on their declination; if 0° declination (i.e. on the celestial equator) then at Earth's equator they are directly overhead (at zenith).


title: Right ascension

text: Any units of angular measure could have been chosen for right ascension, but it is customarily measured in hours (), minutes (), and seconds (), with 24 being equivalent to a full circle. Astronomers have chosen this unit to measure right ascension because they measure a star's location by timing its passage through the highest point in the sky as the Earth rotates. The line which passes through the highest point in the sky, called the meridian, is the projection of a longitude line onto the celestial sphere. Since a complete circle contains 24 of right ascension or 360° (degrees of arc), of a circle is measured as 1 of right ascension, or 15°; of a circle is measured as 1 of right ascension, or 15 minutes of arc (also written as 15′); and of a circle contains 1 of right ascension, or 15 seconds of arc (also written as 15″). A full circle, measured in right-ascension units, contains , or , or 24.


title: Right ascension

text: to time the positions of objects in the sky. For example, if a star with RA = is at its meridian, then a star with RA = will be on the/at its meridian (at its apparent highest point) 18.5 sidereal hours later.


title: Right ascension

text: Sidereal hour angle, used in celestial navigation, is similar to right ascension but increases westward rather than eastward. Usually measured in degrees (°), it is the complement of right ascension with respect to 24. It is important not to confuse sidereal hour angle with the astronomical concept of hour angle, which measures the angular distance of an object westward from the local meridian.


title: Right ascension

text: The Earth's axis traces a small circle (relative to its celestial equator) slowly westward about the celestial poles, completing one cycle in about 26,000 years. This movement, known as precession, causes the coordinates of stationary celestial objects to change continuously, if rather slowly. Therefore, equatorial coordinates (including right ascension) are inherently relative to the year of their observation, and astronomers specify them with reference to a particular year, known as an epoch. Coordinates from different epochs must be mathematically rotated to match each other, or to match a standard epoch. Right ascension for "fixed stars" on the equator increases by about 3.1 seconds per year or 5.1 minutes per century, but for fixed stars away from the equator the rate of change can be anything from negative infinity to positive infinity. (To this must be added the proper motion of a star.) Over a precession cycle of 26,000 years, "fixed stars" that are far from the ecliptic poles increase in right ascension by 24h, or about 5.6' per century, whereas stars within 23.5° of an ecliptic pole undergo a net change of0h. The right ascension of Polaris is increasing quicklyin AD 2000 it was 2.5h, but when it gets closest to the north celestial pole in 2100 its right ascension will be 6h. The North Ecliptic Pole in Draco and the South Ecliptic Pole in Dorado are always at right ascension 18 and 6 respectively.


title: Right ascension

text: The currently used standard epoch is J2000.0, which is January 1, 2000 at 12:00 TT. The prefix "J" indicates that it is a Julian epoch. Prior to J2000.0, astronomers used the successive Besselian epochs B1875.0, B1900.0, and B1950.0.


title: Right ascension

text: The concept of right ascension has been known at least as far back as Hipparchus who measured stars in equatorial coordinates in the 2nd century BC. But Hipparchus and his successors made their star catalogs in ecliptic coordinates, and the use of RA was limited to special cases.


title: Right ascension

text: With the invention of the telescope, it became possible for astronomers to observe celestial objects in greater detail, provided that the telescope could be kept pointed at the object for a period of time. The easiest way to do that is to use an equatorial mount, which allows the telescope to be aligned with one of its two pivots parallel to the Earth's axis. A motorized clock drive often is used with an equatorial mount to cancel out the Earth's rotation. As the equatorial mount became widely adopted for observation, the equatorial coordinate system, which includes right ascension, was adopted at the same time for simplicity. Equatorial mounts could then be accurately pointed at objects with known right ascension and declination by the use of setting circles. The first star catalog to use right ascension and declination was John Flamsteed's "Historia Coelestis Britannica" (1712, 1725).


title: Evenks

text: The Evenks (also spelled Ewenki or Evenki based on their endonym ) are a Tungusic people of North Asia. In Russia, the Evenks are recognised as one of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North, with a population of 38,396 (2010 census). In China, the Evenki form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognised by the People's Republic of China, with a population of 30,875 (2010 census). There are 537 Evenks in Mongolia (2015 census), called "Khamnigan" in the Mongolian language.


title: Evenks

text: The Evenks or Ewenki are sometimes conjectured to be connected to the Shiwei people who inhabited the Greater Khingan Range in the 5th to 9th centuries, although the native land of the majority of Evenki people is in the vast regions of Siberia between Lake Baikal and the Amur River. The Ewenki language forms the northern branch of the Manchu-Tungusic language group and is closely related to Even and Negidal in Siberia. By 1600 the Evenks or Ewenki of the Lena and Yenisey river valleys were successful reindeer herders. By contrast the Solons (ancestors of the Evenkis in China) and the Khamnigans (Ewenkis of Transbaikalia) had picked up horse breeding and the Mongolian deel from the Mongols. The Solons nomadized along the Amur River. They were closely related to the Daur people. To the west the Khamnigan were another group of horse-breeding Evenks in the Transbaikalia area. Also in the Amur valley a body of Siberian Evenki-speaking people were called Orochen by the Manchus.


title: Evenks

text: The ancestors of the south-eastern Evenks most likely lived in the Baikal region of Southern Siberia (near the modern-day Mongolian border) since the Neolithic era.


title: Evenks

text: Considering the north-western Evenks, Vasilevich claims: "The origin of the Evenks is the result of complex processes, different in time, involving the mixing of different ancient aboriginal tribes from the north of Siberia with tribes related in language to the Turks and Mongols. The language of these tribes took precedence over the languages of the aboriginal population". Elements of more modern Evenk culture, including conical tent dwellings, bone fish-lures, and birch-bark boats, were all present in sites that are believed to be Neolithic. From Lake Baikal, "they spread to the Amur and Okhotsk Sea…the Lena Basin…and the Yenisey Basin".


title: Evenks

text: In the 17th century, the Russian empire made contact with the Evenks. Cossacks, who served as a kind of "border-guard" for the tsarist government, imposed a fur tax on the Siberian tribes. The Cossacks exploited the Evenk clan hierarchy, taking hostages from the highest members to ensure payment of the tax. Although there was some rebellion against local officials, the Evenks generally recognized the need for peaceful cultural relations with the Russians. The Russians and their constant demands for fur taxes pushed the Evenks east all the way to Sakhalin island, where some still live today. In the 19th century some groups migrated south and east into Mongolia and Manchuria. Today there are still Evenk populations in Sakhalin, Mongolia, and Manchuria, and to a lesser extent, their traditional Baikal region.


title: Evenks

text: Russian invasion of the Evenks caused them (and other indigenous peoples) language erosion, a decline in traditions, and identity loss, among others. This was especially true during the Soviet regime. Soviet policies of collectivization, forced sedentarization (sometimes referred to as sedentism), "unpromising villages", and Russification of the education system compromised social, cultural, and mental well-being of the Evenks. Today, few people can speak the Evenki language, reindeer herding is in significant decline, the suicide rate is extremely high, and alcoholism is a serious issue.


title: Evenks

text: Traditionally they were a mixture of pastoralists and hunter-gatherers—they relied on their domesticated reindeer for milk and transport and hunted other large game for meat. Today "[t]he Evenks are divided into two large groups…engaging in different types of economy. These are the hunting and reindeer-breeding Evenks…and the horse and cattle pastoral Evenks as well as some farming Evenks".


title: Evenks

text: The Evenks lived mostly in taiga, or boreal forest. They lived in conical tents made from birch bark or reindeer skin tied to birch poles. When they moved camp, the Evenks would leave these frameworks and carry only the more portable coverings. During winter, the hunting season, most camps consisted of one or two tents while spring encampments had up to 10 households


title: Evenks

text: Their skill at riding their domesticated reindeer allowed the Evenks to "colonize vast areas of the eastern taiga which had previously been impenetrable" The Evenks used a saddle unique to their culture, placed on the shoulders of the reindeer to lessen the strain on the animal, and used a stick rather than stirrups to balance. Evenks did not develop reindeer sledges until comparatively recent times They instead used their reindeer as pack animals and often traversed great distances on foot, using snowshoes or skis. The Evenki people did hunt and eat wild reindeer, but not their domesticated reindeer, which they kept for milk.


title: Evenks

text: Large herds of reindeer were very uncommon. Most Evenks had around 25 head of reindeer, because they were generally bred for transportation. Unlike in several other neighboring tribes Evenk reindeer-breeding did not include "herding of reindeer by dogs nor any other specific features". Very early in the spring season, winter camps broke up and moved to places suitable for calving. Several households pastured their animals together throughout the summer, being careful to keep "[s]pecial areas…fenced off…to guard the newborn calves against being trampled on in a large herd"


title: Evenks

text: The Evenks wore a characteristic garb "adapted to the cold but rather dry climate of the Central Siberia and to a life of mobility…they wore brief garments of soft reindeer or elk skin around their hips, along with leggings and moccasins, or else long supple boots reaching to the thigh" (49). They also wore a deerskin coat that did not close in front but was instead covered with an apron-like cloth. Some Evenkis decorated their clothing with fringes or embroidery (50). The Evenki traditional costume always consisted of these elements: a loincloth made of animal hide, leggings, and boots of varying lengths Facial tattooing was also very common.


title: Evenks

text: The traditional Evenk economy was a mix of pastoralism (horses or reindeer), fishing, and hunting. The Evenk who lived near the Okhotsk Sea hunted seal, but for most of the taiga-dwellers, elk, wild reindeer, and fowl were the most important game animals. Other animals included "roe deer, bear, wolverine, lynx, wolf, Siberian marmot, fox, and sable" Trapping did not become important until the imposition of the fur tax by the tsarist government. Before they acquired guns in the 18th century, Evenks used steel bows and arrows. Along with their main hunting implements, hunters always carried a "pike"—"which was a large knife on a long handle used instead of an axe when passing through thick taiga, or as a spear when hunting bear". The Evenks have deep respect for animals and all elements of nature: "It is forbidden to torment an animal, bird, or insect, and a wounded animal must be finished off immediately. It is forbidden to spill the blood of a killed animal or defile it. It is forbidden to kill animals or birds that were saved from pursuit by predators or came to a person for help in a natural disaster."