title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: In 2018, the government began granting spousal dependant visas to spouses of residents in same-sex legal unions. In July 2018, the Court of Final Appeal upheld a lower court's judgment in favour of a lesbian expat, stating that government's differential treatment towards her – denying her a spousal visa on the basis of marital status – amounted to unlawful discrimination. This gives the dependant visa holders the right to work and earn, and be eligible to apply for permanent residency after residing in Hong Kong continuously for 7 years.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 22 November 2018, a gay married man filed to the High Court a judicial review application, arguing that a decision by the Housing Authority was unconstitutional under the Hong Kong Bill of Rights and the Basic Law, after he and his husband married in Canada were rejected by the HKSAR government for an application for public housing under the category of "ordinary family" in September.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: India provides same-sex couples rights and benefits equal to married couples as a live-in couple (anagolous to cohabitation or common law marriage) as per a supreme court judgement in August 2022, which offers some sembience of equality in a country where the vast majority of marriages are not registered with government.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: While it does not recognise same-sex marriage or civil unions, the vast majority of heterosexual marriages are not registered with government and common law marriage based on traditional customs remains the dominant form of marriage. A number of common law marriages between same-sex couples in rural communities have been reported by the media since independence from colonialism. The Delhi High Court is currently hearing multiple petitions which seek to amend marriage laws for same-sex marriage in India.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: India does not possess a unified marriage law, and as such every citizen has the right to choose which law will apply to them based on their community or religion. Although marriage is legislated at the federal level, the existence of multiple marriage laws complicates the issue.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Marriages in Israel are performed under the authority of the religious authorities to which the couple belong. For Jewish couples the responsible religious authority is the orthodox Chief Rabbinate of Israel, which does not permit same-sex marriages. However, on 21 November 2006 the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that five same-sex Israeli couples who had married in Canada were entitled to have their marriages registered in Israel.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Article 24 of the Japanese constitution states that "Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis." The purpose of the clause was to amend previous feudal arrangements where the father or husband was legally recognized as the head of the household. However, the new constitution had the unintended consequence of defining the marriage as a union of "both sexes", i.e. man and woman. However, on 27 March 2009, a justice ministry official was reported to have said that Japan had granted permission for its citizens to marry foreign same-sex partners in countries where same-sex marriage is legal. Japan does not allow same-sex marriage within Japan, and had until that point also refused to issue a key document required for citizens to wed overseas if the applicant's intended spouse was of the same gender. Under the change, the Ministry of Justice instructed local authorities to issue the key certificate—which states a person is single and of legal age—for those wanting to enter same-sex marriages.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: In November 2008, Nepal's highest court issued a final judgement on matters related to LGBT rights. A new Nepalese constitution, approved by the Constituent Assembly on 16 September 2015, included several provisions pertaining to LGBT rights. Based on the ruling of the Supreme Court of Nepal in late 2008, the government was debating legalising same-sex marriage. Several sources suggested that the new constitution would include this provision. However, the new constitution did not address that topic explicitly.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: The Philippines does not recognize same-sex marriage. The Family Code of the Philippines defines marriage as "a special contract of permanent union between a man and a woman".


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 30 July 2004, the Democratic Labor Party of South Korea filed a formal complaint against the Incheon District Court's decision to refuse recognition of same-sex marriages. The complaint was filed on the grounds that the decision was unconstitutional, because neither the Constitution nor civil law define marriage as being between a man and a woman (the only mentioned requisite is age of majority) and because the Constitution explicitly forbids discrimination ""pertaining to all political, economic, social, or cultural aspects of life of an individual."" The committee also claimed that refusal to recognize same-sex marriages constitutes discrimination based on sexual orientation and a refusal to provide equal protection under the law.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: In 2003, the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan), led by the Presidential office, proposed legislation granting marriages to same-sex couples under the Human Rights Basic Law, but it did not proceed.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 22 December 2014, a proposed amendment to the Civil Code to legalize same-sex marriage went under review by the Judiciary Committee. If the amendment had passed the committee stage it would have been voted on at the plenary session of the Legislative Yuan in 2015. The amendment, called the marriage equality amendment, would have inserted neutral terms into the Civil Code replacing ones that imply heterosexual marriage, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage. It would also have allowed same-sex couples to adopt children. Yu Mei-nu of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the convener of the legislative session, expressed support for the amendment, as did more than 20 other DPP lawmakers as well as two from the Taiwan Solidarity Union and one each from the Kuomintang and the People First Party.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: The Constitutional Court's "J. Y. Interpretation No. 748" ruled on 24 May 2017 that laws limiting marriage to between a man and a woman were unconstitutional. The panel of judges gave the Legislative Yuan two years to amend or enact new laws. The court further stipulated that should the Legislative Yuan fail to amend or enact laws legalizing same-sex marriage within two years, same-sex couples would be able to marry through existing marriage registration processes at any household registration office.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 17 May 2019, the Legislative Yuan passed the "Act for Implementation of J. Y. Interpretation No. 748". The name of the law, referring to the Constitutional Court ruling two years earlier, was an attempt at compromise, employing neutral-sounding terminology. It was subsequently signed by the President on 22 May 2019. The law came into effect on 24 May 2019, making Taiwan the first country in Asia to recognize same-sex marriage.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Same-sex civil marriages are legally recognized nationwide in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom. In a number of other European countries, same-sex civil unions give similar or identical rights to marriage.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: A poll conducted by EOS Gallup Europe in 2003 found that 57% of the population in the then 15-member European Union supported same-sex marriage. Support among the member states who joined in 2004 was around 28%, meaning that 53% of citizens in the 28-member EU supported legalizing same-sex marriage.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Albania's government announced its intention to propose a bill allowing same-sex marriage in 2009. However, no bill has been presented.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Austria began performing same-sex marriages and different-sex registered partnerships on 1 January 2019, after the Constitutional Court deemed that the existing laws treated same-sex couples and different-sex couples differently, and were therefore discriminatory.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 1 June 2003, Belgium became the second country in the world to legally recognise same-sex marriage.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Civil cohabitations have been legal in Cyprus since 11 December 2015. The bill to establish civil cohabitation was approved by the parliament on 26 November 2015 with a 39–12 vote. It was published in the official gazette on 11 December 2015 and took effect upon publication.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 15 March 2006, the parliament of the Czech Republic voted to override a presidential veto and allow same-sex partnerships to be recognised by law, effective 1 July 2006, granting registered couples inheritance and health care rights similar to married couples. The legislation did not grant adoption rights. The parliament had previously rejected similar legislation four times.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 15 June 2012, Denmark became the eleventh country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage. The autonomous territory Greenland legalised same-sex marriage on 1 April 2016, and the Faroe Islands followed on 1 July 2017.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Registered partnerships were performed in Finland between 2002 and 2017. Legislation for same-sex marriage was submitted by individual members of the Parliament in March 2012 but it was turned down by the Legal Affairs Committee in February 2013. A similar bill was introduced to the Parliament in December 2013 as a citizens' initiative, with the support of 160,000 people. In June 2014 the Legal Affairs Committee recommended to reject it, but on 28 November 2014 the full Parliament rejected that recommendation by a vote of 92–105, thus paving the way for the legalisation of same-sex marriage. The initiative was approved by the full session at the second reading on 12 December 2014. A new citizens' initiative was started on 29 March 2015 aiming to rescind the new marriage law. The new initiative collected almost 110,000 signatures by 29 September 2015 but it was rejected by the Legal Affairs Committee and later voted down by the full Parliament on 17 February 2017, by 120–48. The new marriage law took effect on 1 March 2017.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Since 1999, same-sex civil unions (PACS) have been legal in France. In June 2011, an Ifop poll found that 63% of respondents were in favour of same-sex marriage. France legalised same-sex marriage on 23 April 2013. The bill was confirmed in the Constitutional Court of France on 17 May 2013 and signed by the French President on 18 May 2013.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Equal marriage (including full adoption rights) was passed by the Lower House of the German Parliament (the Bundestag) on 30 June 2017, was approved by the Upper House (the Bundesrat) on 7 July, and was signed into law on 20 July 2017 by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. It came into effect on 1 October 2017. Registered life partnerships ("Eingetragene Lebenspartnerschaft") (effectively, a form of civil union) have been instituted since 2001, giving same-sex couples most of the rights and obligations of marriage. Step-child adoption was legalized in 2004 and extended to children adopted by one partner first (successive adoption) in 2013.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: In Greece, there is a legal recognition of same-sex couples since 24 December 2015. Attempts to give equal rights to registered partners or to legalize same-sex marriage began in Spring 2008, after the Greek Minister of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights announced that a bill was to be introduced to the Hellenic Parliament in order to regulate civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples, but refused to include provisions for same-sex couples as well. In 2013 the case was brought to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled that the exclusion of same-sex couples from the bill was discriminatory and a violation of human rights. On 9 November 2015, a new bill granting same-sex couples all the rights of marriage except adoption was published. After a public consultation, which ended on 20 November 2015, the bill was submitted to the Hellenic Parliament on 9 December 2015, and approved 14 days later, on 23 December, with 194 MPs voting yes, 55 voting no and 51 being absent. The following day, the law was signed by the President of Greece and published in the government gazette. It took effect upon publication.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Unregistered cohabitation has been recognized since 1996. It applies to any couple living together in an economic and sexual relationship(common-law marriage), including same-sex couples. No official registration is required. The law gives some specified rights and benefits to two persons living together. These rights and benefits are not automatically given – they must be applied for to the social department of the local government in each case. An amendment was made to the Civil Code: "Partners – if not stipulated otherwise by law – are two people living in an emotional and economic community in the same household without being married." Widow-pension is possible, partners cannot be heirs by law (without the need for a will), but can be designated as testamentary heirs.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: The Hungarian Parliament on 21 April 2009 passed legislation by a vote of 199–159, called the "Registered Partnership Act 2009" which allows same-sex couples to register their relationships so they can access the same rights, benefits and entitlements as opposite-sex couples (except for the right to marriage, adoption, IVF, surrogacy, taking a surname or become the legal guardian of their partner's child). The legislation does not allow opposite-sex couples to register their relationships (out of fear that there might be duplication under the law). The law came into force on 1 July 2009.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 11 June 2010, a law was passed to make same-sex marriage legal in Iceland. The law took effect on 27 June 2010.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: The Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010 was first debated in Dáil Éireann on 3 December 2009. It passed in Dáil Éireann without a vote on 1 July 2010 due to all parties supporting the bill. The bill passed in Seanad Éireann on 8 July 2010 with a vote of 48–4. It was signed by the President of Ireland on 19 July 2010.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: The law took effect on 1 January 2011. It grants many rights to same-sex couples through civil partnerships but does not recognise both civil partners as the guardians of a child being raised by the couple. Irish law allows married couples and individuals to apply to adopt and allows gay couples to foster. The Act also gives new protections to cohabitating couples, both same-sex and opposite-sex.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: A referendum that took place on 22 May 2015 has amended the Irish constitution to make same-sex marriage legal. The Marriage Act 2015 was signed into law on 29 October 2015.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 11 May 2016, Italian MPs voted 372 to 51, and 99 abstaining, to approve Civil Unions in Italy. This came nearly a year after the European Court of Human Rights found Italy to be in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: The Italian law on Civil Unions (Legge 20 maggio 2016 N. 76) delivers all of the rights of marriage to same sex partners, except for joint adoption and stepchild adoption.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: In December 2005, the Latvian Parliament passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. President Vaira Vike-Freiberga signed the amendment shortly afterward.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 14 April 2014, the Maltese parliament voted in favour of civil unions at par with marriage (equal to marriage in all but the name) with all rights and obligations, including the right to adoption and recognition of same-sex marriage contracted abroad. The first foreign same-sex marriage was registered on 29 April 2014 and the first civil unions began on 14 June 2014. On 12 July 2017, Malta legalized same-sex marriage with a near unanimous parliamentary vote.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: The Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriages on 1 April 2001. The possibility exists in its European territory as well as in the special municipalities of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (known as the Caribbean Netherlands) while those marriages can be registered in the constituent countries of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Same-sex marriage is legally performed in Norway. The Norwegian government proposed a gender-neutral marriage law on 14 March 2008, that would give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexuals, including church weddings, adoption and assisted pregnancies. On 29 May 2008, the Associated Press reported that two Norwegian Opposition parties came out in favor of the new bill, assuring the bill's passage when the vote was held on 11 June. Prior to this, there were some disagreements with members of the three-party governing coalition on whether the bill had enough votes to pass. With this, it became almost certain that the bill would pass.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: The first hearings and the vote were held, and passed, on 11 June 2008. 84 votes for and 41 against. This also specified that when a woman who is married to another woman becomes pregnant through artificial insemination, the partner would have all the rights of parenthood "from the moment of conception". The law became effective from 1 January 2009.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Norway was also the second country to legalize registered partnerships, doing so in 1993. Since 1 January 2009, all registered partnerships from 1993 to 2008 were upon request by the couples upgraded to marriage status.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: In March 2001, the Socialist government of then Prime Minister António Guterres introduced legislation that would extend to same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples living in a de facto union for more than two years.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Same-sex marriage became a source of debate in February 2006 when a lesbian couple was denied a marriage license. They took their case to court alleging violation of the 1976 constitution which prohibits discrimination based on one's sexual orientation. Prime Minister José Sócrates of the Socialist Party was reelected in September 2009 and included same-sex marriage in his party's program. A bill recognizing same-sex marriage was proposed by the government and approved by parliament on 8 January 2010. However, Portugal's parliament rejected alternative proposals that included a provision to allow homosexual couples to adopt as a couple (single homosexuals can legally adopt). Although personally against it, the Portuguese President ratified the bill on 17 May 2010. The law became effective on 5 June 2010, after publication in the official gazette, on 31 May. The first marriage was celebrated on 7 June 2010 between Teresa Pires and Helena Paixão, the same lesbian couple that was denied a marriage licence in 2006.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: In July 2006, Slovenia became the first former Yugoslav country to introduce domestic partnerships nationwide. In December 2009 the Slovenian government approved a new Family Code, which includes same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption. The bill was approved by parliament, but rejected by voters in a 2015 referendum. On 24 February 2017, a new law came into effect which gives same-sex partnerships all the legal rights of marriages, with the exception of adoption and in-vitro fertilisation. On July 8, 2022, the Slovenian Constitutional Court ruled that same-sex marriage and joint adoption by same-sex couples were legal. Parliament was given six months to bring legislation in line with the constitution, although the ruling took effect immediately.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Spain became the third country in the world (after the Netherlands and Belgium) to legalize same-sex marriage. After being elected in June 2004, Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero restated his pre-election pledge to push for legalization of same-sex marriage. On 1 October 2004, the Spanish Government approved a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, including adoption rights. The bill received full parliamentary approval on 30 June 2005 and passed into law on 2 July, becoming fully legal on 3 July. Polls at the time suggested that 62% to 76% of Spain supports same-sex marriage, while recent polls indicate that 77% of Spaniards supported same-sex marriage, 13% were opposed and 10% did not know or refused to answer and the 2019 Eurobarometer found that 86% of Spaniards thought same-sex marriage should be allowed throughout Europe, while 9% were opposed.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Following a bill introduced jointly by six of the seven parties in the Riksdag, a gender-neutral marriage law was adopted on 1 April 2009. It came into force on 1 May, replacing the old legislation on registered partnerships. On 22 October, the assembly of the Church of Sweden (which is no longer officially the national church but whose assent was needed for the new system to function smoothly with regard to church officials) voted strongly in favor of the new law.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Switzerland allowed registered partnerships for same-sex couples since 1 January 2007. A legislative initiative to legalize same-sex marriage was introduced in 2013 in the Swiss parliament. This legislation was passed on 18 December 2020, but the act remains subject to a referendum if 50,000 citizens request it within three months after its passage.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 26 September 2021, 64.1% of the population voted in favour of allowing same-sex couples to marry, with 35.9% voting against. Switzerland therefore now allows same-sex marriage, as well as access to sperm banks for lesbian couples, and same-sex couples to adopt children.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 18 November 2004 the United Kingdom Parliament passed the Civil Partnership Act, which came into force in December 2005 and allows same-sex couples in England and Wales to register their partnership. The government stressed during the passage of the bill that it is "not" same-sex marriage, and some same-sex rights activists have criticized the act for not using the terminology of marriage. However, the rights and duties of partners under this legislation are exactly the same as for married couples. An amendment proposing similar rights for family members living together was rejected. The press widely referred to these unions as "gay marriage."  During and following the 2010 election, all parties stated they were in favor of allowing same-sex marriage in the UK. Following a public consultation, as of 2013 a bill allowing same-sex marriage in England and Wales, and also providing an exemption for conducting of same-sex marriage ceremonies for religious bodies whose doctrines oppose such relationships, passed its second reading on 5 February 2013 in a 400–175 vote. The bill passed its third reading in the House of Lords on 15 July 2013 and the Commons accepted all of the Lords' amendments on the following day, with Royal Assent granted on 17 July 2013. The law went into effect on 29 March 2014.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: In Scotland, which is a separate legal jurisdiction, the devolved Scottish Parliament also introduced Civil Partnerships, and performed also a consultation on the issue of same-sex marriage. On 25 July 2012 the Scottish Government announced it would bring forward legislation to legalise both civil and religious same-sex marriage in Scotland. The Government reiterated its intention to ensure that no religious group or individual member of the clergy would be forced to conduct such ceremonies; it also stated its intention to work with Westminster to make necessary changes to the Equality Act to ensure that this would be guaranteed.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 4 February 2014, the Scottish Parliament passed the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 105 to 18, legalizing same-sex marriage with effect from 16 December 2014.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Same-sex marriage is legal in Northern Ireland. Under the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, regulations were passed to legalise same-sex marriage on 13 January 2020. The first same-sex wedding took place on 11 February 2020.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Australia became the second nation in Oceania to legalise same-sex marriage when the Australian Parliament passed a bill on 7 December 2017. The bill received royal assent on 8 December, and took effect on 9 December 2017. The law removed the ban on same-sex marriage which previously existed and followed a voluntary postal survey held from 12 September to 7 November 2017, which returned a 61.6% "Yes" vote for same-sex marriage. The same legislation also legalised same-sex marriage in all of Australia's external territories.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 26 March 2013, Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama expressed his opposition to same-sex marriage. Answering a question from a caller on a radio talk show, he stated that same-sex marriage "will not be allowed because it is against religious beliefs".


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Civil unions, which grant all of the same rights and privileges as marriage excluding adoption, have been legal since 2005.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: On 17 April 2013, the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill, a private member's bill sponsored by lesbian Labour MP Louisa Wall that would legalise same sex marriage was passed by Parliament, 77 votes to 44. The bill received Royal Assent from the Governor-General on 19 April and took effect on 19 August 2013.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: In the first year after the law came into effect, 926 same-sex marriages were registered in New Zealand, including 532 marriages (57.5%) between New Zealand citizens, and 237 marriages (25.6%) between Australian citizens.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Samoa is a deeply conservative Christian nation. In 2012, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi was dismissive of the idea of same-sex marriage being adopted in Samoa, and indicated that he would not support it. He reiterated this position, on explicitly religious grounds, in March 2013.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: The religious status of same-sex marriage has been changing since the late 20th century and varies greatly among different world religions.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Among Christian churches, same-sex marriage is not recognized by the Roman Catholic church, Orthodox churches, or conservative Protestant churches. Many mainline Protestant churches recognize same-sex unions, while other Protestant churches remain divided.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Among Jewish communities, Reform Jewish communities are the most supportive of same-sex unions, while Conservative Jewish communities are more divided. Same-sex marriage is not recognized by Orthodox Jewish communities.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: Some religious institutions that recognize same-sex relationships avoid using the terms "marriages" or "weddings", and instead call them "blessings" or "unions." Some religious groups allow individual congregations to set their own policies regarding the blessing of same-sex relationships.


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: The following institutions have recognized same-sex relationships in some fashion, either as individual congregations or as a denomination-wide policy:


title: Legal status of same-sex marriage

text: The following religious traditions or institutions do not recognize same-sex marriage or unions in any congregation, and views same-sex relationships as immoral.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: The Kingdom of the Kentish (; ), today referred to as the Kingdom of Kent, was an early medieval kingdom in what is now South East England. It existed from either the fifth or the sixth century AD until it was fully absorbed into the Kingdom of Wessex in the late 9th century and later into the Kingdom of England in the early 10th century.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: Under the preceding Romano-British administration the area of Kent faced repeated attacks from seafaring raiders during the fourth century AD. It is likely that Germanic-speaking "foederati" were invited to settle in the area as mercenaries. Following the end of Roman administration in 410, further linguistically Germanic tribal groups moved into the area, as testified by both archaeological evidence and Late Anglo-Saxon textual sources. The primary ethnic group to settle in the area appears to have been the Jutes: they established their Kingdom in East Kent and may initially have been under the dominion of the Kingdom of Francia. It has been argued that an East Saxon community initially settled in West Kent, but was conquered by the expanding kingdom of East Kent in the sixth century.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: The earliest recorded king of Kent was Æthelberht, who, as "bretwalda", wielded significant influence over other Anglo-Saxon kings in the late sixth century. The Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons began in Kent during Æthelberht's reign with the arrival of the monk Augustine of Canterbury and his Gregorian mission in 597.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: Kent was one of the seven kingdoms of the so-called Anglo-Saxon heptarchy, but it lost its independence in the 8th century when it became a sub-kingdom of Mercia. In the 9th century it became a sub-kingdom of Wessex, and in the 10th century it became part of the unified Kingdom of England that was created under the leadership of Wessex. Its name has been carried forward ever since as the county of Kent.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: Knowledge of Anglo-Saxon Kent comes from scholarly study of Late Anglo-Saxon texts such as the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" and the "Ecclesiastical History of the English People", as well as archaeological evidence such as that left by early medieval cemeteries and settlements, and toponymical (place-name) evidence.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: In the Romano-British period, the area of modern Kent that lay east of the River Medway was a "civitas" known as "Cantiaca". Its name had been taken from an older Common Brittonic place-name, "Cantium" ("corner of land" or "land on the edge") used in the preceding pre-Roman Iron Age, although the extent of this tribal area is unknown.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: During the late third and fourth centuries, Roman Britain had been raided repeatedly by Franks, Saxons, Picts, and Scots. As the closest part of Britain to mainland Europe, it is likely that Kent would have experienced many attacks from seafaring raiders, resulting in the construction of four Saxon Shore Forts along the Kentish coast: Regulbium, Rutupiae, Dubris, and Portus Lemanis. It is also likely that Germanic-speaking mercenaries from northern Gaul, known as "foederati", would have been hired to supplement official Roman troops during this period, with land in Kent as payment. These "foederati" would have assimilated into Romano-British culture, making it difficult to distinguish them archaeologically.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: There is evidence that over the fourth and early fifth centuries, rural villas were abandoned, suggesting that the Romano-British elite were moving to the comparative safety of fortified urban centres. However, urban centres also witnessed decline; Canterbury evidenced a declining population and reduced activity from the late third century onward, while Dover was abandoned by the end of the fourth century.In 407, the Roman legions left Britain in order to deal with incursions into the Empire's continental heartlands.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: In 410, the Roman Emperor Honorius sent a letter to his British subjects announcing that they must thenceforth look after their own defence and could no longer rely on the imperial military to protect them.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: According to the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", produced in late Anglo-Saxon England and not considered an accurate record of events in the fifth century, in 418 many Romans left Britain via Kent, taking much of their wealth with them. This may represent a memory of a genuine exodus of the Roman aristocracy.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: According to archaeologist Martin Welch, the fifth century witnessed "a radical transformation of what became Kent, politically, socially and in terms of physical landscape". There has been much debate as to the scale of Jutish migration; some see it as a mass migration in which large numbers of Germanic peoples left northern Europe to settle in Britain, pushing the native British population to western Britain or Brittany; others have argued that only a small warrior elite came over, dominating (or even enslaving) the Romano-British population, who then began using the Old English language and material culture of the newcomers. Currently, many scholars accept that there was significant regional variation, with the former view being more applicable in the south and east and the latter in the north and west.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: In Kent, archaeological and historical evidence suggests that a large-scale immigration of Germanic peoples did indeed take place. However, some of the Romano-British population likely remained, as the Roman name for the area, "Cantiaca", influenced the name of the new Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the "Cantware" ("dwellers of Kent").


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: The Germanic migration to Britain is noted in textual sources from the late Anglo-Saxon period, most notably Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English People" and the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle"; both rely on oral histories from the fifth century, and were attempts to establish origin myths that would justify the politics of the time. According to the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", a "king of the Britons" known as Vortigern invited two Germanic leaders, Hengist and Horsa ("stallion" and "horse"), to Britain to help defend against Pictish raiders. After arriving at "Ypwinesfleot" (Ebba's Creek, modern Ebbsfleet near Ramsgate) in Kent in 449, Hengist and Horsa led the defeat of the Picts before turning on the British and inviting more Germanic tribes to colonise Britain. Among these were the Old Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes; the latter settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight, establishing the peoples known as the Cantware and Wihtware.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: According to the "Chronicle", in 455 Hengist and Horsa fought Vortigern at "Ægelesthrep" (probably Aylesford in Kent), in which battle Horsa was killed. Hengist succeeded him as king, followed in turn by his son Æsc. In 456 Hengest and Æsc battled the Britons at "Crecganford" (probably Crayford). The Britons then fled Kent for their London stronghold. A similar account is provided in Bede's "Ecclesiastical History": that the people of Kent and Isle of Wight were descended from Jutish settlers, and that Horsa was killed in battle against the Britons, adding that his body was buried in east Kent. The accuracy of these accounts is questioned; S. E. Kelly states that "the legendary details are easy to dismiss". Scholars often view Hengist and Horsa as mythological figures borrowed from folk tradition, to legitimise rulers in the Mid-to-Late Anglo-Saxon period.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: The incoming Germanic peoples settled on the prime agricultural land of the Romano-Britons; particularly the foothills to the north of the downs and Holmesdale south of the downs escarpment. It is likely that they complemented agriculture with animal husbandry, but with nearby coasts and rivers it is also likely that they engaged in fishing and trading. The Anglo-Saxons made use of pre-existing prehistoric and Roman road systems, with 85% of cemeteries being located within 1.2 km of a Roman road, a navigable river or the coast, and the remaining 15% being close to ancient trackways. Little archaeological evidence of these early settlements exists, but one prominent example is a grubenhaus at Lower Warbank, Keston that was built atop the site of a former Roman villa, adjacent to a Romano-British trackway through the North Downs. Fifth-century ceramics have also been found at a number of villa sites around Kent, suggesting reoccupation of these locations during this period.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: In East Kent, fifth century cemeteries mostly comprise solely of inhumation burials, with a distinct Kentish character. Conversely, in West Kent cemeteries such Orpington mix cremations with inhumations, which is more typical of Saxon cemeteries north of the River Thames.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: This may suggest that West Kent at this point was independent of East Kent, and part of the Kingdom of the East Saxons north of the Thames Estuary.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: In the sixth century the Kingdom of Kent had some relationship with the Merovingian-governed Kingdom of Francia, which was then extending its influence in northwestern Europe. Textual sources suggest that Kent may have been under Merovingian control for part of this century. Archeological evidence of Frankish material culture from this period has been found in Kent, but not in other areas of lowland Britain, suggesting a trade monopoly with the Frankish kingdom.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: Sixth century Kentish artefacts have been found in continental Europe, in particular in the areas of modern Charente, western Normandy, the Rhineland, Frisia, Thuringia, and southern Scandinavia. They are relatively absent between the Sein and the Somme across the English Channel from the Saxons in Sussex, suggesting that trade was established between particular tribal or ethnic groups rather than by geography.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: There is also archaeological evidence of Kentish trade links in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and copies or imitations appearing in cemeteries further afield, in areas such as Wiltshire and Cambridgeshire.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: Archaeological evidence suggests that at some point in the sixth century, East Kent annexed West Kent.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: To the south lay the Weald, a dense forest of no value to the Kentish elite, leaving the fertile area west of the kingdom attractive for conquest, particularly the Darenth Valley and the dip slopes of the North Downs to the west of the Medway. During the sixth century, while the archaeological record in Kent includes items from Jutland, the dominant influence became Frankish.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: Firmly in the control of an elite class, Kent is the first Anglo-Saxon kingdom to appear in the historical record in 597. The monk Bede refers to Kent as ruled by Æthelberht at this period, making him the earliest reliably attested Anglo-Saxon monarch. Bede states that Æthelberht was a "bretwalda" who controlled everything south of the River Humber, including other kingdoms.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" refers to wars in sixth-century Britain, but most were in the west and did not affect Kent; the one exception was a battle between the Kentish and West Saxons in 568, during which Æthelberht's forces were pushed back into Kent. Æthelberht's reign also produced the Law of Æthelberht, the oldest surviving text in Old English.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: According to Bede, the Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England began in Kent under Æthelberht's reign when the Benedictine monk Augustine arrived on the Ebbsfleet peninsula in 597, bringing the Gregorian mission with him. Æthelberht's Frankish wife, Bertha, was already a Christian, with Æthelberht himself converting a few years later. Æthelberht's attempts to convert Rædwald demonstrate the links between the Kingdom of Kent and Kingdom of East Anglia, with shared North Sea interests.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: During this period, Anglo-Saxon kings moved around their kingdoms continually, subsisting on goods from the local populations and reciprocating with gifts.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: Various seventh and eighth century documents attest to the fact that Kent was governed by two kings, a dominant one in the east and a subordinate in the west, likely reflecting the earlier divide. Trade with Francia was extensive in the seventh and eighth centuries and appears to have been under control of the kings of Kent, through the ports of Dover, Sarre and Fordwich.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: This period witnessed the end of furnished burial, marked archaeologically by less regional distinctiveness of grave goods and more artefacts decorated in the Salin Style II motifs. It also saw the emergence of elite burials with far greater wealth than others; notable Kentish examples have been found at Sarre Anglo-Saxon cemetery and the Kingston Barrow cemetery, while the elite Taplow burial in modern Buckinghamshire also contained Kentish characteristics, suggesting a potential Kentish influence in that region.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: In the seventh century, Kent's power waned as that of Mercia and Northumbria grew, but it remained the fourth wealthiest kingdom in England, according to the "Tribal Hidage" with 15,000 hides of land recorded in the seventh or eighth century. However the period was tumultuous for the Kentish royal family; Kent was ruled by Ecgberht from 664 to 673, but between 664 and 667 two royal cousins, Æthelred and Æthelberht, were killed at Eastry royal hall, perhaps because they were a threat to Ecgberht. Ecgberht was succeeded by his brother, Hlothere, who ruled from 674 to 686 before being overthrown and killed by one of Ecgberht's sons, Eadric, who had allied with the South Saxons; Eadric then ruled until 687.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: In the late seventh century, Kent gradually came to be dominated by Mercia. There had been a Kentish royal hall and reeve in Lundenwic until at least the 680s, but the city then passed into Mercian hands. The loss of Lundenwic probably broke Kent's monopoly on cross-Channel trade and its control of the Thames, eroding its economic influence. According to Bede's later account, in 676 the Mercian king Æthelred I led an attack that destroyed many Kentish churches. Mercia's control of Kent increased in the following decades; by 689–690 East Saxon kings under Mercian overlordship were active in West Kent, and there are records attesting that Æthelred arbitrated on the income of the Christian communities at Minster-in-Thanet and Reculver, indicating strong Mercian control over the east of the kingdom too.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: In 686 Kent was conquered by Cædwalla of Wessex; within a year, Cædwalla's brother Mul was killed in a Kentish revolt, and Cædwalla returned to devastate the kingdom again. After this, Kent fell into a state of disorder. The Mercians backed a client king named Oswine, but he seems to have reigned for only about two years, after which Wihtred became king. Wihtred, famous for the Law of Wihtred, did a great deal to restore the kingdom after the devastation and tumult of the preceding years, and in 694 he made peace with the West Saxons by paying compensation for the killing of Mul.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: Records of Kent following the death of Wihtred in 725 are fragmented and obscure. For forty years, two or even three kings typically ruled simultaneously. This division may have made Kent the first target of the rising power of Offa of Mercia: in 764, he gained supremacy over Kent and ruled it through client kings. By the early 770s, it appears that Offa was attempting to rule Kent directly, and a rebellion followed. A battle was fought at Otford in 776, and although the outcome is unknown, records of following years suggest that the rebels prevailed; Egbert II and later Ealhmund seem to have ruled independently of Offa for nearly a decade thereafter. This did not last, however, as Offa firmly re-established his authority over Kent in 785.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: Religious centres of this period, minsters containing a church, were often far larger than lay settlements, with access to many resources and trade links; the Minster-in-Thanet was recorded as possessing three trade ships.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: The seventh century saw the reintroduction of masonry in Anglo-Saxon England, primarily for churches. The earliest churches in the region have been termed the "Kentish Group" and reflect both Italian and Frankish influences in their design; early examples include St Pancras, St Mary, and St Peter and St Paul, all part of St. Augustine's monastery in Canterbury, as well as St. Andrews in Rochester and St Mary in Lyminge.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: In the late seventh century, the earliest charters appear, giving estate boundaries, and showing reclamation of land, for use by livestock, from the Wantsum Channel and Romney Marsh. The Ebbsfleet watermill near Gravesend in West Kent, dated to circa 700, also reflects new uses of the landscape.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: Canterbury grew into the economic and political centre of Kent during the seventh century, as evidenced by rubbish pits, metalworking, timber halls, and sunken-feature buildings from the period. Intensive development was also present at Dover, and possibly at Rochester, although archaeological evidence is lacking. It is known that both Canterbury and Rochester were the home to major mints in this period, primarily producing silver "sceattas". This suggests that from the seventh century onward, kings in Kent were establishing control over the kingdom's economic structure.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: During the eighth and ninth centuries, a number of fortified earthworks, most notably Wansdyke and Offa's Dyke, were constructed as barriers between the warring kingdoms; the Faestendic passing through the Cray Valley and the routeway that has since become the A25 were likely Kentish earthworks of this period designed to protect the kingdom. Evidence for such militarisation might also be seen in the Rochester Bridge burdens, documented from the 790s, which lay out the obligation for the Roman bridge across the River Medway to be maintained, which would be vital for allowing Kentish troops to cross the river.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: After King Ealhmund presumably died shortly after witnessing a charter in 784, his son Egbert was driven out of Kent and into exile by Offa of Mercia. It is clear from charters that Offa was in control of Kent by 785. Rather than just acting as overlord of his new possession, he attempted to annex it or at least reduce its importance by creating a new diocese in Mercia at Lichfield, possibly because the archbishop of Canterbury Jænberht refused to crown his son Ecgfrith. Jænberht resigned a part of his bishopric and the pro-Mercian Hygeberht was chosen by King Offa to replace him "through enmity conceived against the venerable Jænberht and the Kentish people", according to Offa's eventual successor Coenwulf. In 796 Offa died, and in this moment of Mercian weakness a Kentish rebellion under Eadbert Praen temporarily succeeded. Offa's eventual successor, Coenwulf, reconquered Kent in 798, however, and installed his brother Cuthred as king. After Cuthred's death in 807, Coenwulf ruled Kent directly.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: Mercian authority was replaced by that of Wessex in 825, following the latter's victory at the Battle of Ellendun, and the Mercian client king Baldred was expelled.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" records that Kent was first attacked by Viking raiders in the late eighth century. Kent and southeast England would have been an attractive target because of its wealthy minsters, often located on exposed coastal locations. In 804, the nuns of Lyminge were granted refuge in Canterbury to escape the attackers, while in 811 Kentish forces gathered to repel a Viking army based on the Isle of Sheppey. Further recorded attacks occurred on Sheppey in 835, through Romney Marsh in 841, in Rochester in 842, Canterbury (Battle of Aclea) and Sandwich (Battle of Sandwich) in 851, Thanet in 853, and across Kent in 865. Kent was also attractive for its easy access to major land and sea routes. By 811, it is recorded that Vikings built fortifications on the Kentish north coast, and over-wintered their armies on Thanet in 851–852 and Sheppey in 854–855. At this point, Canterbury and Rochester still had Roman walls that could have been refurbished, but they were nevertheless attacked by the Vikings: Rochester in 842, Canterbury in 851, and Rochester again in 885, when they laid siege until it was liberated by Alfred's army.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: Hoards have been found, particularly around the West Kent coast, that might have been wealth hidden from the Vikings.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: In 892, when southern England was united under Alfred the Great, Kent was on the brink of disaster. Alfred had defeated Guthrum the Old and allowed Vikings by treaty to settle in East Anglia and the North East. However, other Danes were still on the move. Haesten, a highly experienced warrior-leader, had mustered huge forces in northern France having besieged Paris and taken Brittany. As many as 350 Viking ships sailed from Boulogne to the south coast of Kent in 892. Between 5000 and 10,000 men, with their families and horses, came up Limen estuary (the east-west route of the Royal Military Canal in reclaimed Romney Marsh) and attacked a Saxon fort near St Rumwold's church, Bonnington, killing all inside. They moved on and over the next year built a fortress at Appledore. Hearing of this, Danes in East Anglia and elsewhere then rose against Alfred. They raided Kent from Appledore, razing a large settlement, "Seleberhtes Cert" (present-day Great Chart near Ashford). They moved further inland and engaged in numerous battles with the English, but after four years they gave up. Some retreated to East Anglia and others went back to northern France as the forebears of the Normans who conquered England in 1066.


title: Kingdom of Kent

text: A large Viking army led by Thorkell the Tall besieged Canterbury in 1011, culminating in the pillage of the city and the eventual murder of Archbishop Alphege, on 19 April 1012.


title: The Polka King

text: The Polka King is an American biographical comedy film directed by Maya Forbes and written by Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky. The film is about real-life Polish-American polka band leader Jan Lewan, who was imprisoned in 2004 for running a Ponzi scheme. The film stars Jack Black as Lewan, as well as Jenny Slate, Jason Schwartzman, and Jacki Weaver. It premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2017. It was released on Netflix on January 12, 2018.


title: The Polka King

text: "The Polka King" is based on a 2009 documentary about Lewan, "The Man Who Would Be Polka King", directed by Joshua Brown and John Mikulak.


title: The Polka King

text: The film opens at a performance of Jan Lewan's (Black) polka band in Pennsylvania. Near the close of the show, he brings his wife Marla (Slate) onstage. A former beauty queen, Marla models amber jewelry they sell at their souvenir store. After the concert, Jan recounts to a happy concertgoer how he and Marla met, and how he has worked every terrible job imaginable, from dishwasher to janitor, to achieve the American dream.


title: The Polka King

text: The clarinetist in his band, Mickey (Schwartzman), visits Jan at his gift shop to tell him he wants to quit the band. Jan takes Mickey to a pizza restaurant nearby, urging him to stay, promising more money. Mickey feels that Jan has enlarged the band to an unsustainable size, and reveals that other members are thinking of quitting, especially after a rumor that Jan had hired a dancing bear to accompany the shows. He admits the bear is now part of the act, but insists that better times are ahead. He then picks up a pizza, going out to deliver it.


title: The Polka King

text: An elderly couple visits Jan and asks about investing in his band. He explains that they are guaranteed a 12% annual return on their investment. The state Securities and Exchange Commission office discovers Jan is taking on investors and sends investigator Ron Edwards (Smoove) to meet with him. He informs Jan that because he has not registered properly, it is illegal for him to accept investments. He gives Jan three days to return his investors' money and close down.


title: The Polka King

text: With hundreds of thousands of dollars already invested, Jan can't meet the SEC deadline. He buys lottery tickets and asks to do more work at the pizza joint. When the elderly couple returns, asking to invest more money with him, Jan changes the corporate name on his forms and takes their money. He tells Edwards that he has officially closed down his first investment scheme, omitting the fact that he has started another.


title: The Polka King

text: The film follows Jan as he continues to expand his enterprises. Jan starts a travel company offering European tours. He sells a package that climaxes with a private audience with the Pope. In Rome, he begs Mickey to help him bribe Vatican officials to secure the Papal audience. Realizing he lied to all the tour goers, Mickey threatens to expose Jan, but Jan explains that his philosophy is to simply say his goals out loud until they become true. He encourages Mickey to do the same, and Mickey explains that he has dreamt of creating a stage name for himself. Jan kneels with him in the hotel lobby and dubs him "Mickey Pizzazz".


title: The Polka King

text: Thinking that business will increase if Marla wins another beauty pageant, Jan bribes the judges in order to crown her Mrs. Pennsylvania. The ensuing controversy in the press causes some investors to want to withdraw their money or complain to the SEC. A second investigation reveals that Jan's Ponzi scheme has expanded into the millions of dollars. As he is arrested, Jan is exhilarated that God has finally let the truth be known.


title: The Polka King

text: Jan is sentenced to five years in prison. His cellmate slashes his throat, and Jan is glad, because he is treated better by everyone after surviving the attack. Marla divorces Jan and he has lost everything. He is released from prison and returns to leading his polka band.


title: The Polka King

text: Principal photography on the film began in mid-July 2016 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and later it also took place in Woonsocket and Cranston. The movie has been released on Netflix streaming.


title: The Polka King

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 66% based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 6.04/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Despite moments of hilarity and a talented ensemble, discordant direction and a sloppy script keep "The Polka King" from truly singing." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Jane Digby

text: Jane Elizabeth Digby (3 April 1807 – 11 August 1881) was an English aristocrat, famed for her remarkable love life and lifestyle. She had four husbands and many lovers, including Lord Ellenborough, Governor-General of India, King Ludwig I of Bavaria and his son King Otto of Greece, Bohemian nobleman and Austrian statesman Prince Felix zu Schwarzenberg, and the Greek general Christodoulos Hatzipetros. She died in Damascus, Syria, as the wife of Arab Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab, who was 20 years her junior.


title: Jane Digby

text: Jane Elizabeth Digby was born in Holkham Hall, Norfolk, on 3 April 1807, daughter of Admiral Henry Digby and Lady Jane Elizabeth Coke. Jane's father seized the Spanish treasure ship "Santa Brígida" in the action of 16 October 1799 and his share of the prize money established the family fortune. Holkham Hall was the family seat of her maternal grandfather Thomas Coke and in 1815 her father inherited and settled in Minterne House and estate, Dorset.


title: Jane Digby

text: Considered promiscuous for her times, Digby was first married to Edward Law, 2nd Baron Ellenborough (later Earl of Ellenborough), who became Governor General of India, on 15 October 1824. They had one son, Arthur Dudley Law (15 February 1828 – 1 February 1830), who died in infancy.


title: Jane Digby

text: After successive affairs with her maternal cousin Colonel George Anson and Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg, she was divorced from Lord Ellenborough in 1830 by an act of Parliament. This caused considerable scandal at the time. Digby had two children with Felix; Mathilde "Didi" (born 12 November 1829 Basel, Switzerland, and raised by Felix's sister) and Felix (born December 1830 Paris, France) who died just a few weeks after his birth. The affair with Felix ended shortly after the death of their son.


title: Jane Digby

text: She then moved on to Germany and became the lover of Ludwig I of Bavaria. In Munich, she met Baron Karl von Venningen (6 January 1806 – 10 June 1874). They married in November 1833 and had a son, Heribert (27 January 1833 Palermo, Italy – 1885 Munich, Germany), and a daughter, Bertha (4 September 1834 Mannheim, Germany – 22 September 1907).


title: Jane Digby

text: In 1838, Digby found a new lover in the Greek Count Spyridon Theotokis (born 1805). Venningen found out and challenged Theotokis to a duel, in which the latter was wounded. Venningen released Digby from their marriage and took care of their children. They remained friends for the rest of their lives.


title: Jane Digby

text: Though she was not legally divorced from Venningen until 1842, Digby converted to the Greek Orthodox faith and married Theotokis in Marseille, France, in 1841. The couple moved to Greece with their son Leonidas (21 March 1840 Paris, France – 1846 Bagni di Lucca, Italy). In 1846, after their son's fatal fall off a balcony, Theotokis and Digby divorced. Greece's King Otto became her next lover.


title: Jane Digby

text: Subsequently came an affair with a hero of the Greek War of Independence, the Thessalian general Christodoulos Chatzipetros, acting as 'queen' of his army, living in caves, riding horses and hunting in the mountains. She walked out on him when he was unfaithful.


title: Jane Digby

text: At age 46, Digby travelled to the Middle East and fell in love with Sheik Medjuel el Mezrab. The sheik's name has also been spelled as "Mijwal al Mezrab" and as "Mijwal al-Musrab". Twentieth-century sources sometimes incorrectly report it as "Abdul Medjuel el Mezrab". Medjuel was a sheik of the Mezrab section of the Sba'a, a sub-tribe in Syria of the great Anizzah tribe. He was 20 years her junior. The two were married under Muslim law and she took the name Jane Elizabeth Digby el Mezrab. Their marriage was a happy one and lasted until her death 28 years later. It has been written that Jane Digby was referred to as Shaikhah Umm al-Laban (literally "sheikha mother of milk") due to the colour of her skin.


title: Jane Digby

text: Digby adopted Arab dress and learned Arabic in addition to the other eight languages in which she was fluent. Half of each year was spent in the nomadic style, living in goat-hair tents in the desert, while the rest was enjoyed in a palatial villa that she had built in Damascus. She spent the rest of her life in the city, where she befriended Sir Richard Burton and Lady Burton – Isabel Burton – while the former was serving as the British consul, and Abd al-Kader al-Jazairi, the exiled leader of the Algerian revolution.


title: Jane Digby

text: Digby died of fever and dysentery in Damascus on 11 August 1881, and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery. She was buried with her horse in attendance at the funeral. Upon her footstone—a block of pink limestone from Palmyra—is her name, written in Arabic by Medjuel in charcoal and carved into the stone by a local mason. After her death her house was let and the family of the young H. R. P. Dickson were among its tenants. A small part of the house survives, and is in the ownership of the same family who purchased it from Medjuel's son in the 1930s.


title: Jane Digby

text: Digby’s grave is visited, and her life there discussed, in the novel “Night of a Thousand Stars” by Deanna Raybourn.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he gained prominence at the Habsburg court at Vienna. There he brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices for which many intellectuals had been campaigning. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them "Orfeo ed Euridice" and "Alceste", he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian "opera seria" had enjoyed for much of the century. Gluck introduced more drama by using orchestral recitative and cutting the usually long da capo aria. His later operas have half the length of a typical baroque opera. Future composers like Mozart, Schubert, Berlioz and Wagner revered Gluck very highly.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: The strong influence of French opera encouraged Gluck to move to Paris in November 1773. Fusing the traditions of Italian opera and the French (with rich chorus) into a unique synthesis, Gluck wrote eight operas for the Parisian stage. "Iphigénie en Tauride" (1779) was a great success and is generally acknowledged to be his finest work. Though he was extremely popular and widely credited with bringing about a revolution in French opera, Gluck's mastery of the Parisian operatic scene was never absolute, and after the poor reception of his "Echo et Narcisse" (1779), he left Paris in disgust and returned to Vienna to live out the remainder of his life.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Gluck's earliest known ancestor is his great-grandfather, Simon Gluckh von Rockenzahn, whose name is recorded in the marriage contract (1672) of his son, the forester Johann (Hans) Adam Gluck (c. 1649–1722) and grandfather of Christoph. 'Rockenzahn' is believed to be Rokycany, located in the central part of western Bohemia (about 70 km southwest of Prague and 16 km east of Pilsen). The family name Gluck (also spelled Gluckh, Klugh, Kluch, etc.) likely comes from the Czech word for boy ("kluk"). In its various spellings, it is repeatedly found in the records of Rokycany. Around 1675 Hans Adam moved to Neustadt an der Waldnaab in the service of Prince Ferdinand August von Lobkowitz, who possessed extensive landholdings in Bohemia as well as the county of Störnstein-Neustadt in the Upper Palatinate.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Gluck's father, Alexander, was born in Neustadt an der Waldnaab on 28 October 1683, one of four sons of Hans Adam Gluck who became foresters or gamekeepers. Alexander served in a contingent of about 50 soldiers under Philipp Hyazinth von Lobkowitz, the son of Ferdinand August von Lobkowitz, during the War of Spanish Succession, and, according to Gluck family tradition, rose to the level of gunbearer to the great general of the imperial forces, Eugene of Savoy. In 1711 Alexander settled outside Berching as a forester and hunter in the service of the monastery Seligenporten, Plankstetten Abbey, and the mayors of Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz. He took the vacant position of hunter in Erasbach in 1711 or 1712 (his predecessor had been found shot in the forest).


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: About Gluck's mother, Maria Walburga, almost nothing is known, including her surname, but she probably grew up in the same area as she was named after Saint Walburga, the sister of Saint Willibald, the first bishop of nearby Eichstätt. The couple probably married around 1711. In 1713 Alexander built a house in Erasbach and by 12 September had taken possession of it.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Although there is no documentary record with Gluck's birthdate at the time of his birth, he himself gave it as 2 July 1714 on an official document requested by Paris that he signed in 1785 in Vienna in the presence of the French ambassador Emmanuel Marie Louis de Noailles. This has long been the commonly accepted date. He was baptized Christophorus Willibaldus on 4 July 1714 in the village of Weidenwang, a parish that at that time also included Erasbach. Gluck himself never used the name Willibald. The church in Weidenwang was consecrated to Saint Willibald (as was the entire Eichstätt diocese to which it belonged), and the name Willibald is frequently found in the baptismal register, often as a second name. No documents contemporary with Gluck's life use the name Willibald. Only in the 19th century did scholars begin using it to distinguish the composer from his father's brother Johann Christoph, born in 1700, whose baptism had earlier been confused with that of the composer.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: In the year of Gluck's birth, the Treaty of Rastatt and the Treaty of Baden ended the War of Spanish Succession and brought Erasbach under Bavarian control. Gluck's father had to reapply to retain his position and received no salary until after 1715, when he began receiving 20 gulden. He obtained additional employment in the vicinity of Weidenwang in 1715 as a forester in the service of Seligenporten Monastery, and after 1715, also with Plankstetten Abbey. In 1716 Alexander Gluck was cited for poor performance and warned he might be terminated. He sold his house in August 1717 and voluntarily left Erasbach near the end of September to take up employment as head forester in Reichstadt, serving the Duchess of Tuscany, the wealthy Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg, since 1708 separated from her husband Gian Gastone de' Medici, the last duke of Tuscany.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: On 1 April 1722 Alexander Gluck took a position as forest-master under Count Philipp Joseph von Kinsky in Böhmisch Kamnitz, where Kinsky had increased his domains. The family moved to the forester's house in nearby Oberkreibitz.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: In 1727 Alexander moved with his family to Eisenberg (Jezeří in Horní Jiřetín) to take his final post, head forester to Prince Philipp Hyazinth von Lobkowitz. It is not sure if Christoph was sent to the Jesuit college in Chomutov, 20 km southwest.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: The Alsatian painter Johann Christian von Mannlich relates in his memoirs, published in 1810, that Gluck told him about his early life in 1774. He quotes Gluck as saying:


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: In 1727 or 1728, when Gluck was 13 or 14, he went to Prague. A childhood flight from home to Vienna is included in several contemporary accounts of Gluck's life, including Mannlich's, but some scholars have cast doubt on Gluck's picturesque tales of earning food and shelter by his singing as he travelled. Most now feel it is more likely that the object of Gluck's travels was not Vienna but Prague. Gluck's German biographer Hans Joachim Moser claimed in 1940 to have found documents showing Gluck matriculated in logic and mathematics at the University of Prague in 1731. Gerhard and Renate Croll find this astonishing, and other biographers have been unable to find any documents supporting Moser's claim. At the time the University of Prague boasted a flourishing musical scene that included performances of both Italian opera and oratorio. Gluck sang and played violin and cello, and also the organ at Týn Church.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Gluck eventually left Prague without taking a degree, and vanishes from the historical record until 1737. Nevertheless, the memories of his family and indirect references to this period in later documents give good grounds for believing Gluck arrived in Vienna in 1734, where he likely was employed by the Lobkowitz family at their palace in the Minoritenplatz. Philipp Hyazinth Lobkowitz, Gluck's father's employer, died on 21 December 1734, and his successor, his brother Georg Christian Lobkowitz, is thought to have been Gluck's employer in Vienna from 1735 to 1736. Two operas with texts Gluck himself was later to set were performed during this period: Antonio Caldara's "La clemenza di Tito" (1734) and "Le cinesi" (1735). It is likely that the Lobkowitz family introduced Gluck to the Milanese nobleman Prince Antonio Maria Melzi, who engaged Gluck to become a player in his orchestra in Milan. The 65-year-old prince married the 16-year-old Maria Renata, Countess of Harrach, on 3 January 1737, and not long after returned with Gluck to Milan.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: According to the music historian Daniel Heartz, there has been considerable controversy concerning Gluck's native language. Gluck's protégé in Vienna, the Italian-born Antonio Salieri, wrote in his memoirs (translated into German by Ignaz von Mosel), that "Gluck, whose native tongue was Czech, expressed himself in German only with effort, and still more so in French and Italian." Salieri also mentions that Gluck mixed several languages when speaking: German, Italian and French, like Salieri himself. Gluck's first biographer, , wrote that Gluck grew up in a German-speaking area, and that Gluck learned to speak Czech, but did not need it in Prague and in his later life. Heartz writes: "More devious manoeuvres have been attempted by Gluck's German biographers of this [the 20th] century, while the French ones have, without exception, taken Salieri at his word. His German biographer Max Arend objected that not a single letter written in Czech can be found, to which Jacques-Gabriel Prod'homme countered that "no letters written by Liszt in Hungarian were known either, but does this make him a German?" Hans Joachim Moser wanted a lyric work in Czech as proof. In fact, the music theorist Laurent Garcin, writing in 1770 (published 1772) before Gluck arrived in Paris, included Gluck in a list of several composers of Czech "opéras-comiques" (although such a work by Gluck has yet to be documented). A presentation by Irene Brandenburg classifying Gluck as a Bohemian composer was considered controversial by her German colleagues.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: In 1737 Gluck arrived in Milan, and was introduced to Giovanni Battista Sammartini, who, according to Giuseppe Carpani, taught Gluck "practical knowledge of all the instruments". Apparently, this relationship lasted for several years. Sammartini was not, primarily, a composer of opera, his main output being of sacred music and symphonies, but Milan boasted a vibrant opera scene, and Gluck soon formed an association with one of the city's up-and-coming opera houses, the Teatro Regio Ducale. There his first opera "Artaserse" was performed on 26 December 1741, dedicated to Otto Ferdinand von Abensberg und Traun. Set to a libretto by Metastasio, the opera opened the Milanese Carnival of 1742. According to one anecdote, the public would not accept Gluck's style until he inserted an aria in the lighter Milanese manner for contrast.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Nevertheless, Gluck composed an opera for each of the next four Carnivals at Milan, with renowned castrato Giovanni Carestini appearing in many of the performances, so the reaction to "Artaserse" was likely to have been reasonably favorable. He also wrote operas for other cities of Northern Italy in between Carnival seasons, including Turin and Venice, where his "Ipermestra" was given during November 1744 at the Teatro San Giovanni Crisostomo. Nearly all of his operas in this period were set to Metastasio's texts, despite the poet's dislike for his style of composition.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: In 1745 Gluck accepted an invitation from Lord Middlesex to become house composer at London's , probably travelling to England via Frankfurt and in the company of the violinist Ferdinand Philipp Joseph von Lobkowitz, the son of Phillip Hyacinth. The timing was poor, as the Jacobite Rebellion had caused much panic in London, and for most of the year, the King's Theatre was closed. Six trio sonatas were the immediate fruits of his time. Gluck's two London operas ("La caduta de' giganti" and "Artamene"), eventually performed in 1746, borrowed much from his earlier works. Gluck performed works by Galuppi and Lampugnani, who both had worked in London. A more long-term benefit was exposure to the music of Handel – whom he later credited as a great influence on his style – and the naturalistic acting style of David Garrick, an English theatrical reformer. On 25 March, shortly after the production of "Artamene", Handel and Gluck together gave a concert in the Haymarket Theatre consisting of works by Gluck and an organ concerto by Handel, played by the composer. On 14 April Gluck played on a glassharmonica in Hickford's Rooms, a concert hall in Brewer Street, Soho. Handel's own experience of Gluck pleased that composer less: Charles Burney reports Handel as saying that "he [Gluck] knows no more of contrapunto, as my cook, Waltz".


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: The years 1747 and 1748 brought Gluck two highly prestigious engagements. First came a commission to produce an opera for Pillnitz, performed by Pietro Mingotti's troupe, to celebrate a royal double wedding that would unite the ruling families of Bavaria and Saxony. "Le nozze d'Ercole e d'Ebe", a "festa teatrale", borrowed heavily from earlier works, and even from Gluck's teacher Sammartini. The success of this work brought Gluck to the attention of the Viennese court, and, ahead of such a figure as Johann Adolph Hasse, he was selected to set Metastasio's "La Semiramide riconosciuta" to celebrate Maria Theresa's birthday. Vittoria Tesi took the title role. On this occasion Gluck's music was completely original, but the displeasure of the court poet, Metastasio, who called the opera ""archvandalian" music", probably explains why Gluck did not remain long in Vienna despite the work's enormous popular success (it was performed 27 times to great acclaim). For the remainder of 1748 and 1749 Gluck travelled with Mingotti's troupe, contracting a venereal disease from the "prima donna" and composing the opera "La contesa de' numi" for the court at Copenhagen, where he repeated his concert on the glassharmonica.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: In 1750 he abandoned Mingotti's group for another company established by a former member of the Mingotti troupe, Giovanni Battista Locatelli. The main effect of this was that Gluck returned to Prague on a more consistent basis. For the Prague Carnival of 1750 Gluck composed a new opera, "Ezio" (again set to one of Metastasio's works, with the manuscript located at the Lobkowicz Palace). His "Ipermestra" was also performed in the same year. The other major event of Gluck's stay in Prague was, on 15 September 1750, his marriage to Maria Anna Bergin, aged 18 years old, the daughter of a rich (but long-dead) Viennese merchant. Gluck seems to have spent most of 1751 commuting between Prague and Vienna.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: The year 1752 brought another major commission to Gluck, when he was asked to set Metastasio's "La clemenza di Tito" (the specific libretto was the composer's choice) for the name day celebrations of King Charles VII of Naples. The opera was performed on 4 November at the Teatro di San Carlo, and the world-famous castrato Caffarelli took the role of Sextus. For Caffarelli Gluck composed the famous, but notoriously difficult, aria "Se mai senti spirarti sul volto", which provoked admiration and vituperation in equally large measures. Gluck later reworked this aria for his "Iphigénie en Tauride." According to one account, the Neapolitan composer Francesco Durante claimed that his fellow composers "should have been proud to have conceived and written [the aria]". Durante simultaneously declined to comment whether or not it was within the boundaries of the accepted compositional rules of the time.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Gluck finally settled in Vienna, where he became Kapellmeister invited by Prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen. He wrote "Le cinesi" for a festival in 1754 and "La danza" for the eighth birthday of the future Emperor Leopold II the following year. After his opera "Antigono" was performed in Rome in February 1756, Gluck was made a Knight of the Golden Spur by Pope Benedict XIV. From that time on, Gluck used the title "Ritter von Gluck" or "Chevalier de Gluck".


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Gluck turned his back on Italian opera seria and began to write opéra comiques. In 1761 Gluck produced the groundbreaking ballet-pantomime "Don Juan" in collaboration with the choreographer Gasparo Angiolini; the more radical Jean-Georges Noverre was involved for the first time? The climax of Gluck's opéra comique writing was "La rencontre imprévue" (1764). By that time, Gluck created musical drama, based on Greek tragedy, with more compassion, influencing the latest style Sturm und Drang.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Under the teaching of Gluck, Marie Antoinette developed into a good musician. She learned to play the harp, the harpsichord and the flute. She sang during the family's evening gatherings, as she had a beautiful voice. All her brothers and sisters were involved in playing Gluck's music; on 24 January 1765 her brother Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor directed one of Gluck's compositions, "Il Parnaso confuso".


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: In Spring 1774, she took under her patronage her former music teacher and introduced him to the Paris public. For that purpose, she asked him to compose a new opera, "Iphigénie en Aulide". "Mindful of the Querelle des Bouffons between adherents of Italian and French opera, she asked the composer to set the libretto in French." To get to her goals she was assisted by the singers Rosalie Levasseur and Sophie Arnould. Gluck had gruff ways, demanding strict adherence from the cast when rehearsing. Gluck told the bass-bariton Henri Larrivée to change his ways. The soprano Arnould was replaced. He insisted that the chorus, too, had to act and become a part of the drama – that they could no longer just stand there posing stiffly and without expression while singing their lines. Gluck was assisted by François-Joseph Gossec, director of the Concert Spirituel. The Chevalier de Saint-Georges attended the first performance on 19 April; Jean-Jacques Rousseau was delighted with Gluck melodic style. Marie Antoinette received a large share of the credit.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Gluck had long pondered the fundamental problem of form and content in opera. He thought both of the main Italian operatic genres, "opera buffa" and "opera seria", had strayed too far from what opera should really be and seemed unnatural. "Opera buffa" had long lost its original freshness. Its jokes were threadbare and the repetition of the same characters made them seem no more than stereotypes. In "opera seria", the singing was devoted to superficial effects and the content was uninteresting and fossilised. As in "opera buffa", the singers were effectively absolute masters of the stage and the music, decorating the vocal lines so floridly that audiences could no longer recognise the original melody. Gluck wanted to return opera to its origins, focusing on human drama and passions and making words and music of equal importance.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Francesco Algarotti's "Essay on the Opera" (1755) proved to be an inspiration for Gluck's reforms. He advocated that "opera seria" had to return to basics and that all the various elements—music (both instrumental and vocal), ballet, and staging—must be subservient to the overriding drama. Several composers of the period, including Niccolò Jommelli and Tommaso Traetta, attempted to put these ideals into practice (and added more ballets).


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: In Vienna, Gluck met like-minded figures in the operatic world: Count Giacomo Durazzo, the head of the court theatre, and one of the primary instigators of operatic reform in Vienna ; the librettist Ranieri de' Calzabigi, who wanted to attack the dominance of Metastasian opera seria; the innovative choreographer Gasparo Angiolini; and the London-trained castrato Gaetano Guadagni.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: The first result of the new thinking was Gluck's reformist ballet "Don Juan", but a more important work was soon to follow. On 5 October 1762, "Orfeo ed Euridice" was given its first performance, on a libretto by Calzabigi, set to music by Gluck. Gluck tried to achieve a noble, Neo-Classical or "beautiful simplicity". The dances were arranged by Angiolini and the title role was taken by Guadagni, a catalytic force in Gluck's reform, renowned for his unorthodox acting and singing style. "Orfeo", which has never left the standard repertory, showed the beginnings of Gluck's reforms. His idea was to make the drama of the work more important than the star singers who performed it, and to do away with dry recitative (recitativo secco, accompanied only by continuo) that broke up the action. In 1765 Melchior Grimm published ""Poème lyrique"", an influential article for the Encyclopédie on lyric and opera librettos.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Gluck and Calzabigi followed "Orfeo" with "Alceste "(1767) and "Paride ed Elena "(1770), dedicated to his friend João Carlos de Bragança (Duke de Lafões), an expert on music and mythology, pushing their innovations even further. Calzabigi wrote a preface to "Alceste", which Gluck signed, setting out the principles of their reforms:


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Joseph von Sonnenfels praised Gluck's tremendous imagination and the setting after attending a performance of "Alceste". In 1769 Gluck performed his operas in Parma.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: On 2 September 1771 Charles Burney visited Gluck, living in Sankt Marx. Burney thought Gluck's preface, in which Gluck gives his “reasons for deviating from the beaten track”, important enough to give it almost in its entirety: "It was my intention to confine music to its true dramatic province, of assisting poetical expression, and of augmenting the interest of the fable; without interrupting the action, or chilling it with useless and superfluous ornaments; for the office of music, when joined to poetry, seemed to me, to resemble that of colouring in a correct and well disposed design, where the lights and shades only seem to animate the figures, without altering the out-line." On 11 September Burney went to see Gluck to say goodbye; Gluck was still in bed, as he used to work in the night.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: As his operas were not appreciated by Frederick II of Prussia, Gluck began to focus on France. Under the patronage of Marie Antoinette, who had married the future French King Louis XVI in 1770, Gluck signed a contract for six stage works with the management of the Paris Opéra. He began with "Iphigénie en Aulide". The premiere on 19 April 1774 sparked a huge controversy, almost a war, such as had not been seen in the city since the Querelle des Bouffons. Gluck's opponents brought the leading Italian composer Niccolò Piccinni to Paris to demonstrate the superiority of Neapolitan opera, and the "whole town" engaged in an argument between "Gluckists" and "Piccinnists". The composers themselves took no part in the polemics, but when Piccinni was asked to set the libretto to "Roland", on which Gluck was also known to be working, Gluck destroyed everything he had written for that opera up to that point.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: On 2 August 1774 the French version of "Orfeo ed Euridice" was performed, more Rameau-like, with the title role transposed from the castrato to the tenor voice. This time Gluck's work was better received by the Parisian public. In the same year, Gluck returned to Vienna, where he was appointed composer to the imperial court (18 October 1774) after 20 years serving as Kapellmeister. Over the next few years, the now internationally famous composer would travel back and forth between Paris and Vienna. He became friends with the poet Klopstock in Karlsruhe. On 23 April 1776, the French version of "Alceste" was given.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: During the rehearsals for "Echo et Narcisse" in September 1779, Gluck became dangerously ill. Since the opera itself was a failure, running for only 12 performances, Gluck decided to return to Vienna within two weeks. In that city "Die unvermuthete Zusammenkunft" or "Die Pilgrime von Mekka" (1772), a German version of "La rencontre imprévue", had been performed 51 times.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: His musical heir in Paris was the composer Antonio Salieri, who had been Gluck's protégé since he arrived in Vienna in 1767, and later had made friends with Gluck. Gluck brought Salieri to Paris with him and bequeathed him the libretto for "Les Danaïdes" by François-Louis Gand Le Bland Du Roullet and baron de Tschudi. The opera was announced as a collaboration between the two composers; however, after the overwhelming success of its premiere on 26 April 1784, Gluck revealed to the prestigious "Journal de Paris" that the work was wholly Salieri's.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: In Vienna Gluck wrote a few more minor works, spending the Summer with his wife in Perchtoldsdorf, famous for its wine (Heuriger). Gluck suffered from melancholy and high blood pressure. In 1781, he brought out a German version of "Iphigénie en Tauride". Gluck dominated the season's proceedings with 32 performances. On 23 March 1783 he seems to have attended a concert by Mozart who played KV 455, variations on "La Rencontre imprévue" by Gluck (Wq. 32).


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: On 15 November 1787, lunching with friends, Gluck suffered a heart arrhythmia and died a few hours later, at the age of 73. Usually, it is mentioned Gluck had several strokes and became paralyzed on his right side. Robl, a family doctor, had doubts as Gluck was still able to play his clavicord or piano in 1783. At a formal commemoration on 8 April 1788, his friend, pupil and successor Salieri conducted Gluck's "De profundis", and a requiem by the Italian composer Niccolò Jommelli was given. His death opened the way for Mozart at court, according to H. C. Robbins Landon. Gluck was buried in the Matzleinsdorfer Friedhof. On 29 September 1890 his remains were transferred to the Zentralfriedhof; a tomb was erected containing the original plaque.


title: Christoph Willibald Gluck

text: Although only half of his work survived after a fire in 1809, Gluck's musical legacy includes approximately 35 complete full-length operas plus around a dozen shorter operas and operatic introductions, as well as numerous ballets and instrumental works. His reforms influenced Mozart, particularly his opera "Idomeneo" (1781). He left behind a flourishing school of disciples in Paris, who would dominate the French stage throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period. As well as Salieri, they included Sacchini, Cherubini, Méhul and Spontini. His greatest French admirer would be Hector Berlioz, whose epic "Les Troyens" may be seen as the culmination of the Gluckian tradition. Though Gluck wrote no operas in German, his example influenced the German school of opera, particularly Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner, whose concept of music drama was not so far removed from Gluck's own.


title: Hum Tum (2022 TV series)

text: Hum Tum () is a 2022 Pakistani Ramadan special television comedy drama series, written by Saima Akram Chaudhry, directed by Danish Nawaz, developed by Shahzad Javed, Head of Content, HUM TV and produced by Momina Duraid under banner MD Productions. The series starring Ahad Raza Mir, Ramsha Khan, Sarah Khan and Junaid Khan as main protagonists.


title: Hum Tum (2022 TV series)

text: The series revolves around two houses in one neighborhood where one house has intelligent girls while the other possesses good mannered boys. It aired on Hum TV from 3 April 2022 to 3 May 2022, with the last episode airing on the first day of Eid-ul-Fitr. The series received critical acclaim.


title: Hum Tum (2022 TV series)

text: Adam Sultan and Neha Qutub ud Din are childhood rivals and neighbors. Adam's elder brother Sarmad is a professional cook and owns a restaurant, and Sarmad has a crush on Neha's elder sister Maha. Maha is fond of yoga and keeping her body in shape and taking care of her diet. Qutub ud Din, Neha and Maha's father, pays more attention to Adam than his own daughters since he has always lamented not having a son. Adam, whose own father has neglected fatherly duties of financial and emotional care all their lives, deeply respects and cares for Qutub as well.


title: Hum Tum (2022 TV series)

text: Since childhood, Adam and Neha have shared a mutual dislike, constantly bickering and playing pranks. Both Adam and Neha are very intelligent and are liked by all professors in their university except Professor Jabir who dislikes Professor Qutub ud Din and thinks he favors Neha and Adam. In an attempt to one up each other, Neha and Adam regularly try to get the other in trouble at college and at home. On the result day Adam gets highest GPA while Neha loses her marks because of Professor Jabir as he dislike her. Neha plans to revenge professor Jabir. Neha tells Sasha(her younger sister) to hack professor Jabir's account. After hacking Neha posts an apology from professor Jabir to her. The dean appreciates professor Jabir's apology, after seeing the post because of this dean approves his Germany research which was denied by the management many times. Going to Germany was professor Jabir's dream.


title: Hum Tum (2022 TV series)

text: As a result professor Jabir goes off to Germany for research work and is replaced by his own son, Sarim. At professor Jabir's recommendation of Neha as a brilliant student, Sarim starts spending time with Neha, helping her with her chemistry project with Adam. Adam begins to feel jealous and ignored by both Neha and Qutub in Sarim's presence. Soon, Adam and Sarmad's father Sultan goes to Qutub's house to propose Sarmad and Maha's be wed. At first, Qutub is skeptical about this since Maha is a divorcee but Maha says to her father to do what he thinks is right for her.


title: Hum Tum (2022 TV series)

text: At Sarmad and Maha's mehandi, Jabir comes back and asks Qutub for Sarim and Neha to be officially engaged, which Adam overhears and becomes saddened by. Adam then realizes that he has fallen in love with Neha. Qutub asks Neha for her decision regarding Sarim's proposal to which Neha responds positively, to please her father. After Sarmad and Maha's marriage, the preparations begin for Sarim and Neha's wedding, but Neha finds out about Adam's love for her, which bemuses her. Unbeknownst to Adam, she uses this opportunity to test Adam's patience and love for her. Through this, Adam and Neha begin to talk and become friends.


title: Hum Tum (2022 TV series)

text: At the university, Adam gets into a fight with some people that were insulting Neha. Neha comes in to stop the fight, while Sarim doesn't get involved. At Sarim and Neha's engagement, Neha confronts Adam, but Sarim interrupts. Afterwards, when Sarem takes Neha's hand, hurting her, Neha asks he let go of her hand. Adam intervenes, but Qutub gets mad at Adam for being disrespectful. Sarim realizes that he isn't worthy of Neha and breaks his engagement with Neha.


title: Hum Tum (2022 TV series)

text: Adam meets with Neha after hearing this, and they both confess their love for each other. Then, Sarmad and Maha find out they are having a baby, and they both celebrate. So both couples get their happy ending, with Adam and Neha deciding to be with each other and Sarmad and Maha celebrating their upcoming child.


title: Hum Tum (2022 TV series)

text: In December 2021, writer Saima Akram Chaudhry revealed in an interview that one of her upcoming Ramadan play is titled "Hum Tum", which will began shooting in January. In January 2022, it was reported that Ahad Raza Mir and Ramsha Khan joined the leading cast while Danish Nawaz will direct the series which made this his second collaboration with writer after the 2021 series "Chupke Chupke". Next month, it was confirmed that YouTuber Danish Ali has joined the cast in a prominent role as his television debut. Later in same month, the casting of Sarah Khan and Junaid Khan was also confirmed, all in leading roles. Besides the leading cast, Arjumand Rahim, Adnan Jaffar, Munazza Arif, Syed Mohammad Ahmed, Uzma Beg and Farhan Ally Agha were chosen to portray supporting roles.


title: Hum Tum (2022 TV series)

text: The title song was sung by Ali Zafar and Damia Farooq. The song was composed Naveed Nashad with lyrics written by Qamar Nashad.


title: Hum Tum (2022 TV series)

text: It received praise from the audience for the portrayal of the girls as independent, breaking gender stereotypes and tackling issues such as marriage of a divorcee, inheritance division in case of no male heirs and mental health in light manner.


title: Hum Tum (2022 TV series)

text: Apart from critical acclaim, the drama responded well on youtube and trended for several days. It got TRPs of 4-5 per episode, with highest of 5.6 TRP and lowest of 3.7 TRP. It ended with 4.1 TRPs.


title: Paraná River

text: The Paraná River ( , , ) is a river in south-central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina for some . Among South American rivers, it is second in length only to the Amazon River. It merges with the Paraguay River and then farther downstream with the Uruguay River to form the Río de la Plata and empties into the Atlantic Ocean.


title: Paraná River

text: The first European to go up the Paraná River was the Venetian explorer Sebastian Cabot, in 1526, while working for Spain.


title: Paraná River

text: In eastern South America there is "an immense number of river names containing the element "para-" or "parana-"", from Guarani language words meaning "river" or "sea"; attempts to derive a more precise meaning for the name of this, the largest of them, e.g. "kin of the sea", have been discounted.


title: Paraná River

text: The course is formed at the confluence of the Paranaiba and Rio Grande rivers in southern Brazil. From the confluence the river flows in a generally southwestern direction for about before encountering the city of Saltos del Guaira, Paraguay. This was once the location of the Guaíra Falls (Sete Quedas waterfalls, where the Paraná fell over a series of seven cascades. This natural feature was said to rival the world-famous Iguazu Falls to the south. The falls were flooded, however, by the construction of the Itaipu Dam, which began operating in 1984.


title: Paraná River

text: For approximately the next the Paraná flows southward and forms a natural boundary between Paraguay and Brazil until the confluence with the Iguazu River. Shortly upstream from this confluence, however, the river is dammed by the Itaipu Dam, the second largest hydroelectric power plant in the world (following the Three Gorges Dam in the People's Republic of China), and creating a massive, shallow reservoir behind it.


title: Paraná River

text: After merging with the Iguazu, the Paraná then becomes the natural border between Paraguay and Argentina. Overlooking the Paraná River from Encarnación, Paraguay, across the river, is downtown Posadas, Argentina. The river continues its general southward course for about before making a gradual turn to the west for another , and then encounters the Paraguay River, the largest tributary along the course of the river. Before this confluence, the river passes through a second major hydroelectric project, the Yaciretá Dam, a joint project between Paraguay and Argentina. The massive reservoir formed by the project has been the source of a number of problems for people living along the river, most notably the poorer merchants and residents in the low-lying areas of Encarnación, a major city on the southern border of Paraguay. River levels rose dramatically upon completion of the dam, flooding out large sections of the city's lower areas.


title: Paraná River

text: From the confluence with the Paraguay River, the Paraná again turns to the south for another approximately through Argentina, making a slow turn back to the east near the city of Rosario for the final stretch of less than before merging with the Uruguay River to form the Río de la Plata. This flows into the Atlantic Ocean. During the part of its course downstream from the city of Diamante, Entre Ríos, it splits into several arms and it forms the Paraná Delta.