Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, from 1945 to 1953. He became president when President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in office. Truman served as the 34th vice president of the United States for a short time, from January to April 1945.

As president, Truman made important foreign policy decisions, such as using atomic weapons on Japan to end World War II; repairing Europe (which was destroyed during the war); beginning the Cold War, and getting the U.S. involved in the Korean War.

Early years

Harry S. Truman was born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Missouri. The initial, "S", in Truman's name has no meaning.

Truman was raised in Independence, Missouri. He lived for 12 years as a Missouri farmer.

The presidential election of 1892 happened when Truman was eight years old. He wanted Grover Cleveland, a Democrat like Truman's family, to win. Grover Cleveland did win.

Truman joined the United States Military in 1917. He went to France in World War I and became a captain in the Field Artillery.

Truman left the military in 1919. That same year, he married Elizabeth Virginia Wallace. He opened a clothing store in Kansas City.

On February 17, 1924, Bess had a baby girl and named her Mary Margaret Truman.

Political life
Truman was active in the Democratic Party. In 1922, he was elected judge of Jackson County Court.

Two years later, Truman lost the next county judge election. However, he was elected county judge again in  1926.

In 1934, Truman was elected Senator of Missouri. He became a member of the Interstate Commerce Committee. He was also the vice-chairman of a subcommittee on railroad safety.

In 1940, Truman ran for re-election to the Senate. First he would have to beat another Democrat, Governor Lloyd Stark, in a primary election. The primary election would decide which Democrat would go on to face a Republican candidate in the final elections in November.

President Franklin Roosevelt and St. Louis Mayor Bernard Dickmann both wanted Stark to win. Truman had a hard time getting money. Most people thought he would lose. However, about a month before the primary election, the railroad unions said that they wanted Truman to win. Then, two days before primary election day, Bernard Dickmann also said that he wanted Truman to win.

Truman won by about 8,000 votes. He also won the election in November.

Truman became the head of a committee that looked at how much money the United States was spending on defense during World War II. He found billions of dollars of spending that he thought was a waste, and could be cut out of what the U.S. was spending. Truman supported Roosevelt's leadership of the country in the war, but wanted to make the government less wasteful and more effective. He became well known for leading that committee.

Vice Presidency, 1945
In 1944, President Roosevelt ran for reelection again. Roosevelt was in bad health and he did not have much longer to live. The Democratic Party realized that whoever they selected as Vice President could be the next president of the United States. (In the U.S. government, if the President dies, the Vice President automatically becomes the new president.)

Henry A. Wallace, Roosevelt's former vice president, was not chosen because he had a friendly attitude toward the Soviet Union, which many people saw as a dictatorship. Roosevelt wanted Truman as his vice president, and Truman was chosen.

They won the election, and Roosevelt began his fourth term as president. On April 12, 1945, shortly after his fourth inauguration, Franklin Delano Roosevelt died. Truman became president.

Presidency, 1945–53
About becoming president, Truman said: "it felt like the moon, the stars, and all of the planets had fallen upon me."

Truman had become president during the last few months of World War II. While Truman was vice president, Roosevelt never told him much about World War II. At that time, people did not think of the Vice Presidency as an important job in politics. Because of this, Truman entered the presidency knowing not much more than the average person about what the U.S. military was doing in World War II.

Nazi Germany surrendered less than a month after Truman became president. This ended the war in Europe. However, the Japanese kept fighting. The Allies of World War II made the Potsdam Declaration, telling Japan to surrender or it would face "prompt and utter destruction." Japan did not surrender, so Truman ordered the first atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6th, 1945. Three days later, Truman ordered the second atomic bomb to be dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Japan surrendered and the war ended.

The huge destructive power of the atomic bombs razed both cities, and killed over one hundred thousand people, with many more dying of radiation induced illnesses over subsequent years. People who disagreed with the decision, like General and future president Dwight Eisenhower, believe it was a cruel and inhumane attack on innocent people, when Japan was already close to being beaten. Other people thought it was a good decision because it ended the war early. Truman thought that if the U.S. had invaded Japan instead of using the bombs to end the war quickly, many more Americans would have died.

After the war

After the war, Truman ordered Europe (which was destroyed during the war) to be repaired with the Marshall Plan. Germany was divided into two parts after the war. The Soviet Union controlled East Germany. The United States, Britain, and France controlled West Germany. During the Soviet blockade of West Berlin, Truman ordered the Berlin Airlift, which flew in tons of food to West Germany to feed the starving people.

Truman also helped create the United Nations, an organization which was based on the League of Nations. The United Nations still exists today. Its goal is for different countries to work together to help humanity and to promote peace.

After World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States were the only two powerful countries left. With Germany being divided between the Soviet Union and the United States, tensions began to increase between the two countries. The Cold War began. This was a war where the Soviet Union and the United States did not fight directly, but each wanted to have a bigger influence than the other over the world. The Soviet Union wanted to spread communism around the world. (Communism is the belief that the government should own the economy to make everybody equal). Truman believed in a policy called containment: that the U.S. should contain communism and stop it from spreading. Truman declared the Truman Doctrine, which said the United States should give money to Turkey and Greece so that they could be strong enough to defend themselves from communism.

Truman sent Congress his "Fair Deal." It was based on Roosevelt's New Deal. It gave more money to education, more money to farmers, and a higher minimum wage for workers. Labor union leaders asked him for higher wages and more benefits.

After coal miners went on strike, Truman had the Department of the Interior take over the mines. While Truman sympathized with the working class, when there was a huge railroad strike, Truman believed it was illegal. He also thought it was unfair to people who could not get to work because the railroads were not running. He reacted by threatening to force the strikers to go into the army if they did not return to work.

Truman de-segregated the military, allowing blacks and whites to fight together.

1948 election
Further information: 1948 United States presidential election

In 1948, Truman ran for a second term as president against Thomas Dewey. He was the underdog and everyone thought he was going to lose. The Chicago Tribune published a newspaper on the night of the election with the title "Dewey Defeats Truman". To everyone's surprise, Harry Truman won the election.

The Korean War
On June 25, 1950, North Korea attacked South Korea. China supported North Korea. North Korea wanted to bring Communism into South Korea.

The U.S. fought the Korean War to defend South Korea and keep communism from spreading there. General Douglas MacArthur wanted to bomb China. Truman thought it was too dangerous to do that, so he fired MacArthur. Many people respected MacArthur, so they were angry at Truman. He made Mathew B. Ridgeway general.

During the end of his term, Harry Truman's approval rating was at an all-time low. He was very unpopular because thousands of Americans died in the Korean War; there was a medium amount of corruption in his government; and people were accusing many of Truman's employees of being communists. He left office on January 20, 1953. The Korean War ended about six months later.

As time passed, Truman's reputation got a lot better. Many historians now believe that Harry Truman was one of the greatest presidents.

Later life
Truman moved back to Missouri. He died on December 26, 1972 in Kansas City, Missouri of multiple organ failure caused by pneumonia at the age of 88.

Related pages
 Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
 Marshall Plan
 Cold War
 Truman Doctrine
 Korean War

References

Other websites
 WW2DB: Harry Truman
 White House biography on Truman

1884 births
1972 deaths
American military personnel of World War I
American people of World War II
American Presbyterians
Anti-communists
American colonels
Deaths from multiple organ failure
Deaths from pneumonia
Infectious disease deaths in Missouri

People from Independence, Missouri
People of the Korean War
Time People of the Year
United States senators from Missouri
Democratic Party (United States) politicians
20th-century American politicians
Military people from Missouri

Harry S. Truman


The 1872 Republican National Convention was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 5–6, 1872. President Ulysses S. Grant was unanimously nominated for reelection by the convention's 752 delegates. Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson replaced sitting Vice President Schuyler Colfax as the Republican vice presidential nominee.

Presidential nomination

Presidential candidate

Vice President Colfax was considered a potential rival to Grant for the presidential nomination. Although Colfax declared himself open to the prospect should Grant decide not to run for a second term, his stance alienated him from both the President and his many supporters.

Grant's nomination was co-seconded by William Henry Grey of Arkansas, the first African-American to address a major U.S. political party national convention. Grant received the nomination unanimously on the first ballot. Grant's re-nomination would be the last time the Republican party nominated a candidate unanimously until McKinley's re-nomination in 1900.

Presidential Balloting / 2nd Day of Convention (June 6, 1872)

The platform
The platform, significantly so in the first section, boasted of the party's achievements since it had attained power in 1861:

The Republican party of the United States, assembled in National Convention in the city of Philadelphia, on the 5th and 6th days of June, 1872, again declares its faith, appeals to its history, and announces its position upon the questions before the country:

First: During eleven years of supremacy it has accepted with grand courage the solemn duties of the time. It suppressed a gigantic rebellion, emancipated four millions of slaves, decreed the equal citizenship of all, and established universal suffrage. Exhibiting unparalleled magnanimity, it criminally punished no man for political offenses, and warmly welcomed all who proved loyalty by obeying the laws and dealing justly with their neighbors. It has steadily decreased with firm hand the resultant disorders of a great war, and initiated a wise and humane policy toward the Indians. The Pacific railroad and similar vast enterprises have been generously aided and successfully conducted, the public lands freely given to actual settlers, immigration protected and encouraged, and a full acknowledgment of the naturalized citizens' rights secured from European Powers. A uniform national currency has been provided, repudiation frowned down, the national credit sustained under the most extraordinary burdens, and new bonds negotiated at lower rates. The revenues have been carefully collected and honestly applied. Despite large annual reductions of the rates of taxation, the public debt has been reduced during General Grant's Presidency at the rate of a hundred millions a year, great financial crises have been avoided, and peace and plenty prevail throughout the land. Menacing foreign difficulties have been peacefully and honorably composed, and the honor and power of the nation kept in high respect throughout the world. This glorious record of the past is the party's best pledge for the future. We believe the people will not in trust the Government to any party or combination of men composed chiefly of those who have resisted every step of this beneficent progress.

Second: The recent amendments to the national constitution should be cordially sustained because they are right, -not merely tolerated because they are laws, -and should be carried out according to their spirit by appropriate legislation, the enforcement of which can safely be entrusted only to the party that secured those amendments.

Third: Complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment of all civil, political, and public rights should be established and effectually maintained throughout the Union by efficient and appropriate state and federal legislation. Neither the law nor its administration should admit any discrimination in respect of citizens by reason of race, creed, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Fourth: The national government should seek to maintain honorable peace with all nations, protecting its citizens everywhere, and sympathizing with all peoples who strive for greater liberty.

Fifth: Any system of the civil service, under which the subordinate positions of the government are considered rewards for mere party zeal, is fatally demoralizing, and we therefore for a reform of the system by laws which shall abolish the evils of patronage, and make honesty, efficiency, and fidelity the essential qualifications for public positions, without practically creating a life-tenure of office.

Sixth: We are opposed to further grants of public lands to corporations and monopolies, and demand that the national domain be set apart for free homes and people.

Seventh: The annual revenue, after paying current expenditures, pensions, and the interest on the public debt, should furnish a moderate balance for the reduction of the principal, and that revenue, except so much as may be derived from a tax upon tobacco and liquors, should be raised by duties upon importations, the details of which should be so adjusted as to aid in securing remunerative wages to labor, and to promote the industries, prosperity, and growth of the whole country.

Eight: We hold in undying honor the soldiers and sailors whose valor saved the Union. Their pensions are a sacred debt of the nation, and the widows and orphans of those who died for their country are entitled to the care of a generous and grateful people. We favor such additional legislation as will extend the bounty of the government to all our soldiers and sailors who were honorably discharged, and who, in the line of duty, became disabled, without regard to the length of service or the cause of such discharge.

Nine: The doctrine of Great Britain and other European powers concerning allegiance- "once a subject always a subject" -having at last, through the efforts of the Republican party, been abandoned, and the American idea of the individual's right to transfer allegiance having been accepted by European nations, it is the duty of our government to guard with jealous care the rights of adopted citizens against the assumption of unauthorized claims by their former governments, and we urge continued careful encouragement and protection of voluntary immigration.

Tenth: The franking privilege ought to be abolished, and the way prepared for a speedy reduction in the rates of postage.

Eleventh: Among the questions which press for attention is that which concerns the relations of capital and labor, and the Republican party recognizes the duty of so shaping legislation as to secure full protection and amplest field for capital, -and for labor, the creator of capital, the largest opportunities and a just share of the mutual profits of these two great servants of civilization.

Twelfth: We hold that congress and the President have only fulfilled an imperative duty in their measures for the suppression of violent and treasonable organizations in certain lately rebellious regions, and for the protection of the ballot-box, and therefore they are entitled to the thanks of the nation.

Thirteenth: We denounce repudiation of the public debt, in any form or disguise, as a national crime. We witness with pride the reduction of the principal of the debt, and of the rates of interest upon the balance, and confidently expect that our excellent national currency will be perfected by a speedy resumption of specie payment.

Fourteenth: The Republican party is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America for their noble devotion to the cause of freedom. Their admission to wider fields of usefulness is viewed with satisfaction, and the honest demand of any class of citizens for additional rights should be treated with respectful consideration.

Fifteenth: We heartily approve the action of congress in extending amnesty to those lately in rebellion, and rejoice in the growth of peace and fraternal feeling throughout the land.

Sixteenth: The Republican party proposes to respect the rights reserved by the people to themselves, as carefully as the powers delegated by them to the state and to the federal government. It disapproves of the resort to unconstitutional laws for the purpose of removing evil, by interference with rights not surrendered by the people to either the state or national government.

Seventeenth: It is the duty of the general government to adopt such measures as may tend to encourage and restore American commerce and shipbuilding.

Eighteenth: We believe that the modest patriotism, the earnest purpose, the sound judgement, the practical wisdom, the incorruptible integrity, and the illustrious services of Ulysses S. Grant have commended him to the heart of the American people, and with him at our head we start to-day upon a new march to victory.

Nineteenth: Henry Wilson, nominated for the Vice-Presidency, known to the whole land from the early days of the great struggle for liberty as an indefatigable laborer in all campaigns, an incorruptible legislator, and a representative man of American institutions, is worthy to associate with our great leader, and share the honors which we pledge our best efforts to bestow upon them.

Anti-Temperance and the Raster Resolution
The late 19th century saw a massive and nationwide growth of the temperance movement, and until 1872 the Republican Party had not formally adopted a stance on the prohibition of alcohol. Famous German American editor and political figure Hermann Raster of Chicago wrote a passionate and carefully worded resolution, dubbed the Raster Resolution, for the 1872 convention. The resolution attacked the temperance movement and solidified the Republican Party's opposition to prohibition, and it was inserted in condensed form as the sixteenth section of the official platform.

Vice Presidential nomination

Vice Presidential candidates

Not Nominated

Colfax's chances for re-nomination were further damaged when a small movement within the Liberal Republican Party sought to enter his name for their presidential nomination. While the rumors of Colfax's nomination for either party's nomination amounted to little more than speculation, it likely cost him his bid for re-nomination. Colfax narrowly missed the mark by garnering 308.5 delegates compared to Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson's 399.5 on a revised first ballot. President Grant was among many notables who remained on the sideline during the vice presidential balloting.

Vice Presidential Balloting / 2nd Day of Convention (June 6, 1872)

See also
 History of the United States Republican Party
 U.S. presidential nomination convention
 List of Republican National Conventions
 U.S. presidential election, 1872
 1872 Democratic National Convention
 Temperance movement
 Hermann Raster

References

 Presidential election, 1872.: Proceedings of the National union Republican convention held at Philadelphia, June 5 and 6, 1872 .../ Reported by Francis H. Smith, Official reporter.

External links
 Republican Party Platform of 1872 at The American Presidency Project

Republican National Conventions
1872 United States presidential election
Political conventions in Philadelphia
1872 in Pennsylvania
1872 conferences
June 1872 events
19th-century political conferences
1870s political events
19th century in Philadelphia

1872 Republican National Convention


Let It Be is a 12th and final studio album it was release 8 May 1970 and movie, by rock band The Beatles. It was the last Beatles project finished before the band broke up.

History
After the "White Album" (The Beatles) was released in late 1968, the Beatles talked about making a television special, where they would play songs from the album for an audience. It would be the band's first live public performance since 1966.

As 1969 began, the band decided instead to begin work on a new set of songs, and film the process of rehearsing and recording all the songs, then performing them live. The project was titled Get Back, and a song by that name was worked up during rehearsals. The band agreed to perform all the songs without studio  or , as they had long used.

First week: Twickenham Film Studios
The Beatles rented a  at Twickenham Film Studios, where their instruments and equipment were set up. They were used to working from afternoons until late at night on music, but had to arrive between eight and ten o'clock in the morning, to meet the filming schedule. The band did not use this setup for long. The early hours and the cold, huge soundstage made them uncomfortable.

There was also  between the Beatles, and it showed. The Beatles could not agree on where to perform the show, and for how large an audience. The suggested locations ranged from Los Angeles, California to Tunisia, and the size of the audience from a few dozen to thousands of people. Nobody had a location in mind that the rest liked, and George Harrison decided he did not want to perform a public concert at all.

Paul McCartney took charge of the rehearsals, and drove the band hard to play his new songs just the way he imagined them. The other Beatles became tired of this, because it did not give them much chance to , the way they were used to doing. George Harrison got especially tired of McCartney telling him what to play, and his own songs not getting the attention they deserved. John Lennon also had new songs, but was more interested in spending time with Yoko Ono than in making another Beatles record. He was also  of Harrison's new songs. Yoko Ono gave her opinions on the band's music, which they were not used to hearing from anyone but their producer, George Martin. McCartney and Harrison  Ono's being at Lennon's side constantly. Ringo Starr tried to play the peacemaker, but did not always succeed. Harrison walked out during one lunch break, saying he had had enough. The band stopped work on the production, and decided to find a new location to work.

The next weeks: Apple Studio
Harrison went to a Beatles business meeting, a few days after he left the rehearsal. McCartney agreed to mend his ways, and let Harrison have more input. Lennon and Harrison also made up. The idea of finishing Get Back with a public show was dropped. Nobody wanted to return to the movie studio, and they began to look for another place to work on their new songs.

"Magic Alex", a Greek-born inventor, had been hired by the Beatles to build them a new recording studio, in the basement of the  which was the home of their company, Apple Corps. Alex spent a great deal of money over many months, trying to make a first-rate facility. He did not understand recording or studio technology well, though, and the studio he made had many technical problems. The Beatles only found this out when they tried to use the place to record. Things did not work, and this added to the tension felt by the band, and the people who worked for them.

George Martin was able to help the Beatles, by working around the problems in the basement studio. He borrowed recording equipment so the band could finish their project. The movie cameras were also set up in the basement, and the Beatles went back to work on their music. This time things were as crowded as the first location was cavernous, and again the band and their crew were uncomfortable.

The Beatles usually "warmed up" by playing old songs they had learned growing up. Many of these were captured on camera or tape during the sessions. Not all the songs were complete, or true to their original versions. When the band went from playing old songs to trying out new ones, problems came up. Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison each wanted certain things for their music, and enough time to make the records the best they could be. This did not always work out, and they sometimes insulted each other for trying to outdo the others, or for letting their musical influences show. It made the sessions unpleasant.

George Harrison helped the  of the band, when he brought a guest musician, Billy Preston, to the sessions. All of the Beatles liked Preston, and got along while he was there. He played keyboards along with the band, and gave the records a fuller sound. McCartney's girlfriend Linda brought her daughter Heather to the studio, and they helped cheer things up. Linda sang background vocals on "Let It Be", a gospel-like song by McCartney.

The question of where and when to finally perform the new songs was settled, when the Beatles decided to give a show on the roof of Apple headquarters. This happened on January 30, 1969, early in the afternoon. The Beatles performed for the movie cameras, and for anyone who could hear them outside.

As it happened, the music coming from the rooftop caused a traffic jam along Savile Row, where the building was located. Local police came to Apple, and tried to stop the show. Mal Evans, one of the Beatles's most trusted helpers, went downstairs and talked to the police, to stall them until the band could finish playing. After performing "Get Back", "Don't Let Me Down", "I've Got A Feeling", "One After 909", "Dig A Pony", and another version of "Get Back", the band went inside.

The next day, the Beatles gave another show, back in the Apple basement. This show was for the cameras, though, and not a live audience. They performed "Two of Us", "Don't Let Me Down", "Let it Be", "Get Back", and "The Long and Winding Road". Some of these songs were too hard to record outdoors, with their keyboard parts.

Postproduction
The movie crew shot more than a hundred hours of movie footage, which was more than enough to make a television special. The Beatles worked a little longer on the recordings of the Get Back songs, ending up with over twenty-nine hours of session tapes. The problem was, nobody was happy with the music that had come from the sessions. The band members had argued and disagreed on camera, and did not always make their best efforts on each other's songs, or to get along. This was plain to anyone who saw the footage, or listened to the dialogue between songs.

George Martin tried to remix the recordings, and make an album from the songs, while the Beatles' movie personnel tried to edit the movie footage into the TV special the band wanted. The band's problems were only magnified by the results, and they blamed each other, and the people who worked for them, for what showed. The Beatles decided to abandon the project, and work on other things. Only one single was released from the sessions, with the songs "Get Back" and "Don't Let Me Down". Billy Preston's name appeared underneath the band's, and stories started that Preston might join the Beatles. He never did, but he signed a recording contract with Apple Records, their record label. The other songs stayed "in the can".

The Get Back project became another problem that was dividing the Beatles. There was also trouble with Apple Corps, and personal issues between the band members. They had begun to make music apart the year before, and this increased as they stopped getting along as people. McCartney and Lennon both married their girlfriends, and lost control of their publishing company, Northern Songs. George Harrison began to play with musicians outside the Beatles. Ringo Starr started a new career as an actor in movies. The Beatles issued a new single, with the songs "The Ballad of John and Yoko" and "Old Brown Shoe". John and Paul played on the first song, and George and Ringo on the second. They had stopped working as a unit, and George Martin stopped coming to recording sessions, which he had never done before.

Abbey Road
During the summer of 1969, the Beatles felt sorry for the way the Get Back sessions had gone. They wanted to forget that time, and make another new album of songs, back at Abbey Road Studios. George Martin decided to come back, on the band's promise that they really would work together "like the old days", with Martin taking charge. The band kept their promise. Abbey Road was the result, and was issued in the early fall. As the record was being released, the Beatles met to discuss future projects. John Lennon, freshly back from his first non-Beatles concert, playing in Toronto, surprised everyone by announcing that he was quitting the band. He agreed to not make a public announcement, because this would have hurt the band's chance to  their recording contract. Lennon instead focused on his and Yoko Ono's new group, the Plastic Ono Band.

Let it Be
At the end of the year, Apple's accountants told the Beatles that they would have to release some kind of album and program from the Get Back sessions. They had spent too much money on the project to just forget about it. Glyn Johns, a young music producer, tried to assemble an album from the session tapes, but he also could not please the Beatles. Anxious fans and insiders worked together and released a  album from Johns's mix. Even though it was an  album, it sold many copies and received radio airplay. The public wanted to hear the songs, good or bad.

Phil Spector, a legendary producer who predated the Beatles, had always wanted to work with them. Allen Klein brought Spector to England early in 1970 to meet them. John Lennon and George Harrison got along well with Spector, who produced a record of Lennon's song "Instant Karma!" the same day he wrote it. Lennon and Harrison gave their OK for Spector to work on the recordings, and Ringo Starr played along with the musicians Spector hired, to make overdubs. This went against the original plan to present the songs live, but was accepted to "sweeten" – and finish – the recordings.

An eighty-minute program was edited together from the movie footage, and the band decided it would make a better movie than a television show. The Beatles had a contract with United Artists, who agreed to distribute the movie, which was titled Let it Be. (The Get Back title was dropped, since "Get Back" had already appeared as a single almost a year earlier.)

Some of the new songs that appeared in the movie, including "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine", were not finished on record. A session was scheduled in January 1970 to record full versions of some songs, but John Lennon refused to attend. George Harrison made a joke about this, during a take of "I Me Mine", referring to Lennon as "Dave Dee", another British musician.

Spector applied his "Wall of Sound" style to the Beatles recordings, including an old tape of "Across the Universe", so it could appear on record. His finished album was listenable, and showed none of the troubles that affected the band during the sessions, but it did not sound the same as other Beatles albums. Paul McCartney hated the changes Spector made to his songs on the album, especially "The Long and Winding Road", but he could not stop the album from being issued.

Another problem was the timing of the record's release. Allen Klein had succeeded in remaking the Beatles's recording deal, and McCartney was not bound by the same promise Lennon had been, to not say he was leaving the band. His first solo album, finished early in 1970, included a press release stating that he had no further plans to work with the Beatles. This effectively broke up the band. He also wanted the album released ahead of Let it Be.

Ringo Starr, who also had a solo record (Sentimental Journey), due to appear, was sent to ask McCartney to change his release date. The two argued, and McCartney threw Starr out of his house. The release schedule was changed, so McCartney could have his wish. Starr's album appeared earlier than planned, and Let it Be was pushed back from April to May.

Reception
Let it Be was both a hit movie and a hit album, and won a Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack. Paul McCartney accepted the award. The news that the Beatles were breaking up was very sad to their fans, however, and the knowledge made watching the movie a  experience. Many fans and critics did not like Spector's changes to the Beatles style on record, and said so publicly.

A souvenir book was also issued, but instead of being a real document of the sessions, the book was  and heavily edited, and reflected little of what was intended. It never appeared in the United States.

Late in 1970, John Lennon issued a solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, which made his feelings plain in its last song, "God": Lennon sang "I don't believe in Beatles." He gave a long interview to Rolling Stone magazine, which was later published as a book, Lennon Remembers. He told his side of the Let it Be story, declared "That movie was set up by Paul, for Paul", and said he regretted not announcing that he quit the Beatles first.

When home video came along in the 1970s, Let it Be became a popular rental and sales title. Over time, the Beatles asserted their copyright control over the movie, and copies were withdrawn. The movie has been planned as a reissue many times, but has yet to be officially released on DVD.

In 2003, recording engineers went back to the old session tapes, and used  to make a new version of the familiar Let it Be songs. The new version was close to what the Beatles had wanted to make in the first place, and had none of Spector's post-production work. The album was issued as Let it Be... Naked, and was praised as a "real"-sounding recording.

Songs in the album

Other websites
 Recording data and notes
 The Lost Beatle Tapes / The Making of Let It Be
 'Let it be' entry on BootlegZone
 The song Let It Be on the piano

The Beatles albums
1970 albums
1970 movies
Rock albums
Movies directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg

Let It Be (Beatles album)


A woodwind instrument is an instrument belonging to the woodwind family.  Traditionally they were always made of wood, although some of them are now made of metal or plastic.

In an orchestra there are four main types of woodwind instrument. Each of these also has related instruments of different sizes:

The flute is the highest of the four main instruments.  The lowest note is Middle C and it has a range of 3 octaves.  The piccolo is the smallest and highest instrument in the orchestra.  It plays one octave higher than the flute.  There is also an alto flute which sounds a fifth lower than the ordinary flute.  Flutes are still sometimes made of wood, but mostly they are metal.

The oboe can play slightly lower than the flute.  There is a larger version called the cor anglais (which means: "English horn").

The clarinet plays nearly an octave lower than the flute.  The bass clarinet plays an octave lower than the clarinet.

The bassoon is the lowest of the four main members, but the contrabassoon plays right down to the bottom B flat of the piano.

The recorder is one of the oldest and most popular woodwinds and has been used to great effect by greats, such as Bach, Telemann and Vivaldi.  The general public is normally only familiar with the plastic, child's version of the recorder, but professional and high-quality recorders are still made of wood.

The saxophone may look like a brass instrument, but it is played like a clarinet and therefore it is a woodwind instrument.  It is usually played in bands and jazz groups.

Use
Woodwind instruments are played in several ways. The flute is played by blowing across the top of the mouthpiece.  It is like blowing across the top of an empty bottle.  The oboe and bassoon both have a double reed.  It is like blowing through a drinking straw.  Bagpipes have double reeds which are inside the mouthpiece ("enclosed reeds"). The clarinet and saxophone have single reeds which are clamped against the opening of the mouthpiece.

In comparison, brass instruments are all blown in the same way: by blowing against a cup-shaped mouthpiece.  This is why the saxophone cannot be called a brass instrument, although it is made of brass.

The way that a player shapes his mouth to blow an instrument is called the "embouchure".  Woodwind instruments have several different embouchures.

In an orchestra there may be two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons.  In larger orchestras, particularly from the Romantic period onwards, there may be three or four.  Sometimes the extra instruments such as the piccolo are used.  If, for example, in an orchestral piece the third flute is marked "doubling piccolo", it means that the person playing flute 3 will also play the piccolo.  However, if the piccolo plays at the same time as flute 3 they will obviously need an extra player for the piccolo part.

Woodwind instruments in an orchestra often have short solos.  These will be played by the first player (the "section principal").

Woodwind instrument


Yerevan () is the capital and largest city of Armenia. In 2004 about 1,088,300 people lived in Yerevan. Some people write Yerevan as Erevan. In past, Yerevan was called Erebuni or Erivan.

It is on the Hrazdan River, and is the administrative, cultural, and industrial center of the country.

The history of Yerevan dates back to the 8th century BC, with the founding of the Urartian fortress of Erebuni in 782 BC. Eventually, the letter "b" in the name Erebuni changed in the 5th or 4th century BC, becoming "v".

Climate
The climate of Yerevan is continental, with dry, hot summers and cold, snowy and short winters. The temperature in August can reach 40°C (104°F), while January may be as cold as -15 °C (5 °F). The amount of precipitation is small,  about 350 mm (14 in) per year.

Culture
As a centre of Armenian culture, Yerevan is the site of Yerevan State University (1919), the Armenian Academy of Sciences, a historical museum, an opera house, a music conservatory and several technical institutes. The Matenadaran archives hold a rich collection of valuable ancient Armenian, Greek, Assyrian, Hebrew, Roman and Persian manuscripts. Yerevan has several large public libraries, a number of museums and theaters, botanical gardens and zoos. It is also at the heart of an extensive rail network and is a major trading centre for agricultural products. In addition, industries in the city produce metals, machine tools, electrical equipment, chemicals, textiles and food products.

Two major tourist attractions are the Opera House, the ruins of an Urartu fortress and a Roman fortress. The Armenia Marriott Hotel is in the heart of the city at Republic Square (also known as Hraparak).

Metro
The Yerevan Metro is a rapid transit system that serves the capital city.
Its interior resembles that of western former Soviet nations with chandeliers hanging
from the corridors. The metro stations had most of their names changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Independence of the Republic of Armenia.

Economy

Yerevan is Armenia's industrial, transportation, and cultural center. Manufactures include chemicals, primary metals, machinery, rubber products, plastics, textiles, and processed food.  Not only is Yerevan the headquarters of major Armenian companies, but of international ones as well, as it's seen as an attractive outsourcing location for Western European, Russian and American multinationals.

Development
Recently, Yerevan has been undergoing an ambitious redevelopment process in which old Soviet-style apartments and buildings are being demolished and replaced with modern buildings. However, this urban renewal plan has been met with opposition and ( ) criticism from some residents.

References

Sergey Vardanyan 1995. The capitals of Armenia. Apolo.
G. Zakoyan, M. Sivaslian, V. Navasardian 2001. My Yerevan. Acnalis.

Other websites

 Yerevan Municipality webpage in Armenian and English
 Yerevan.ru - The capital of Armenia online (Russian)
 Erebuni History and excavation description, edited by Rick Ney
 - Online News From Armenia. Edited by John Hughes.
 Yerevan article on Armeniapedia
 Yerevan article on Cilicia.com
 Armenia Info Yerevan page
 The Yerevan Metro system
 Interactive CD - Yerevan Virtual

Related pages
 Blue Mosque, Yerevan

Yerevan


The Reinheitsgebot is a regulation about the purity of beer.  The regulation started in Ingolstadt, in Bavaria, in Germany, in 1516.

The regulation says several things:
It says what can be part of beer, and what can not. Beer may only contain water, barley, and hops.
It gives a price to beer. This is important for taxation. The price is set to 1-2 Pfennigs per Maß.

Some people talk about the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot, or the German Reinheitsgebot. They all mean the same thing.  There are similar acts in the other states which later became known as Germany.

The Reinheitsgebot is no longer part of German law. It has been replaced by the Provisional German Beer Law,  which allows things prohibited in the Reinheitsgebot, such as wheat malt and cane sugar, but which no longer allows unmalted barley.

Yeast was not a part of beer until Louis Pasteur discovered what it did during fermentation. This was around the year 1800. Brewers (the people brewing beer) usually re-used some of the sediments of the fermentation. They took some sediments of an older brew and added those sediments to the next brew.

Hops were added as a method of preservation (to stop the beer going bad quickly).   Hops were allowed to stop other things (like adding certain mushrooms to the beer, which was done in the Middle Ages) being done to preserve beer. Other herbs, like stinging nettles had been used. The stinging nettle is part of the same plant family as hops.

A brewer who broke the Reinheitsgebot was punished: The beer barrels were taken by the state and destroyed and he/she did not receive any money for the loss.

Even today, many brewers are proud of the Reinheitsgebot; most German breweries say they follow it. Some only use it as a marketing tool.  The ''Reinheitsgebot' says that beer is made of barley, so all wheat beers were not allowed by the original Reinheitsgebot).

Belgian beers are different.  The brewers often add sugar (to boost fermentation). Nevertheless, Belgian beers have a brewing tradition at least as long as those of Germany. They taste totally different from the German ones.

References

Beer-related culture
German beers

Reinheitsgebot


The Marshall Plan (officially called the European Recovery Program [ERP]) was a plan of the United States for rebuilding the allied countries of Europe after World War II. One of the main reasons this was done was to stop communism and the USSR.

The plan was named after Secretary of State George Marshall, but the plan was worked out by other people in the State Department.

The plan ran for four years beginning in April 1948. During that period US$ 13 billion in economic and technical help were given to help the recovery of the European countries that had joined in the Organization for European Economic Co-operation.

By the time the plan ended, the economy of every member state had grown well past pre-war levels.

In recent years some historians have said that another reason for the plan was to make the United States stronger, and to make the countries of western Europe need the United States. They also say that the United Nations (UN) Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, which helped millions of refugees from 1944 to 1947, it also helped the European postwar recovery.

Alternatives to the Marshall Plan

Morgenthau plan
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. said that if Europe needed money to rebuild what had been destroyed by the war, they should take it from Germany. This money was called war reparations. Morgenthau said it would also stop Germany from ever being rebuilt, and threatening to start another war. Taking money from Germany was done after World War I. It did not work. Instead of helping other countries it hurt them. This is because companies could not sell the coal and steel that they made because it was coming in free from Germany.

Monnet plan
Jean Monnet of France said that France should control the German coal areas of the Ruhr and Saar and use it to rebuild French industry. In 1946 the occupying powers agreed to put strict limits on how quickly Germany could reindustrialize. Limits were placed on how much coal and steel could be produced.

Level of industry agreement
This was the first German industrial plan. It was signed in early 1946 and said that German heavy industry was to be cut down to half% of its 1938 levels by the destroying 1,500 manufacturing plants.

By the end of 1946 governments could see the problems of the plan, and the agreement was changed several times, the last time in 1949. But dismantling factories went on into 1950. Germany had been very important to the economy of Europe for a long time. This meant that a poor Germany was holding back European recovery, because other countries could not sell so many things to Germany. A poor Germany was also expensive for the occupying powers. They had to give Germany food and other things which it needed and could not grow or make for itself anymore.

Because of this the Morgenthau and Monnet plans were rejected.

The Marshall Plan ended in 1952. Ideas to extend it were stopped because of the cost of the Korean War and rearmament. U.S. Republicans hostile to the plan had also gained seats in the 1950 Congressional elections.

Criticism
The Marshall Plan has been described as "the most unselfish act in history." However, this may not be the case. The United States benefited from the plan because part of the agreement for giving the aid was that the country would have to open up their economies to US companies.

"Historical revisionist" historians, such as Walter LaFeber, during the 1960s and 1970s said that the plan was American economic imperialism. That means, that it was an attempt to gain control over Western Europe just as the Soviets controlled Eastern Europe.

Tyler Cowen, economist, has said that nations receiving the most aid from the Marshall Plan (Britain, Sweden, Greece) saw the least returns and grew the least between 1947 and 1955. Those nations who received little (e.g. Austria) grew the most.

When he looked at West Germany's economy from 1945 to 1951, German analyst Werner Abelshauser decided that foreign aid was not needed to start the recovery or to keep it going. Cowen found that the economic recoveries of France, Italy, and Belgium, started before the Marshall Plan. Belgium relied heavily on free market economic policies after its liberation in 1944, and had the fastest recovery. It also did not have the severe housing and food shortages seen in the rest of continental Europe.

Related pages
 Alliance for Progress failed Central and South American Marshall Plan.
 GARIOA (Government and Relief in Occupied Areas) The precursor of the Marshall plan aid.
 Morgenthau plan Post-surrender plan for Germany
 The industrial plans for Germany

References
 Arkes, Hadley. Bureaucracy, the Marshall Plan, and the National Interest. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1972.
 Agnew, John and J. Nicholas Entrikin, eds. The Marshall Plan Today: Model and Metaphor. Routledge. (2004) online version
 John Bledsoe Bonds; Bipartisan Strategy: Selling the Marshall Plan Praeger, 2002 online version
 Bothwell, Robert. The Big Chill: Canada and the Cold War. Canadian Institute for International Affairs/Institut Canadien des Affaires Internationales Contemporary Affairs Series, No. 1. Toronto: Irwin Publishing Ltd., 1998.
 Crafts, Nicholas, and Gianni Toniolo, eds. Economic Growth in Europe Since 1945. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
 Djelic, Marie-Laure A.; Exporting the American Model: The Post-War Transformation of European Business.Oxford University Press, 1998 online version
 Chiarella Esposito; America's Feeble Weapon: Funding the Marshall Plan in France and Italy, 1948 – 1950, Greenwood Press, 1994 online version
 Fossedal, Gregory A. Our Finest Hour: Will Clayton, the Marshall Plan, and the Triumph of Democracy. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1993.
 Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
 Grogin, Robert C. Natural Enemies: The United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War, 1917 – 1991. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2001.
 Hogan, Michael J. The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947 – 1952. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
 Matthias Kipping and Ove Bjarnar; The Americanisation of European Business: The Marshall Plan and the Transfer of Us Management Models Routledge, 1998 online version
 Mee, Charles L. The Marshall Plan: The Launching of the Pax Americana. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.
 Milward, Alan S. The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945 – 51. London: Methuen, 1984.
 Schain, Martin, ed. The Marshall Plan: Fifty Years After. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
 Stueck, William Whitney, ed. The Korean War in World History. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 2004.
 Rhiannon Vickers; Manipulating Hegemony: State Power, Labour and the Marshall Plan in Britain Palgrave Publishers, 2000 online edition
 Wallich, Henry Christopher. Mainsprings of the German Revival. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955.
 Wasser, Solidelle F. and Michael L. Dolfman; "BLS and the Marshall Plan: The Forgotten Story: The Statistical Technical Assistance of BLS Increased Productive Efficiency and Labor Productivity in Western European Industry after World War II; Technological Literature Surveys and Plan-Organized Plant Visits Supplemented Instruction in Statistical Measurement," Monthly Labor Review, Vol. 128, 2005
 Wend, Henry Burke; Recovery and Restoration: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Politics of Reconstruction of West Germany's Shipbuilding Industry, 1945 – 1955. Praeger, 2001 online version

Further reading
 John Gimbel "The origins of the Marshall plan" (Stanford University Press, 1976). (reviewed here)
 Greg Behrman The Most Noble Adventure: The Marshall Plan and the Time When America Helped Save Europe (Free Press, 2007)

Notes

Other websites

 The German Marshall Fund of the United States
 Economist Tyler Cowen questions the conventional wisdom surrounding the Plan
 Truman Presidential Library online collection of original Marshal Plan documents from the year 1946 onwards
 The Marshal Plan documents collection at MCE
 Marshall Plan from the National Archives
 Excerpts from book by Allen W. Dulles
 United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes famous Stuttgart speech, September 6, 1946 The speech marked the turning point away from the Morgenthau Plan philosophy of economic dismantlement of Germany and towards a policy of economic reconstruction.
 Marshall Plan Commemorative Section: Lessons of the Plan: Looking Forward to the Next Century
 U.S. Economic Policy Towards defeated countries  April, 1946.
 "Pas de Pagaille!" , Time magazine July 28, 1947
 "The Marshall Plan as Tragedy," comment on Michael Cox and Caroline Kennedy-Pipe, "The Tragedy of American Diplomacy? Rethinking the Marshall Plan," both published in the Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 7, no. 1 (Winter 2005) (text of comment on pdf ) (text of original article on pdf )
 Luis García Berlanga's critique of the Marshall Plan in a classic Spanish film: Welcome Mr. Marshall!
 Marshall Plan Still Working, 60 Years Later Cincinnati Enquirer December 10, 2006

Economic history
World War II

Marshall Plan


Marvin Gaye (born Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr.,  April 2, 1939 - April 1, 1984) was an American soul and R&B singer and songwriter. He was a famous artist recording on the Motown label in the 1960s and 1970s. He became an independent artist when he released his 1971 album, What's Going On. After living in Europe in the late 1970s, Gaye had a comeback hit with 1982's "Sexual Healing". The record won him two Grammy Awards and became his biggest hit. He was killed on April 1, 1984 by his own father, Marvin Gay, Sr.. After his death, he was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Biography

Early life and career
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. was the eldest son of a Pentecostal minister and the second of four children. His family lived in a mostly African-American community in Washington, D.C. When he was a child, Gaye was abused by his father. He used music to help him cope with the abuse, playing instruments and singing gospel music in his father's church. When he was a teenager, Gaye became a fan of doo-wop and joined several groups before he left high school at the start of his senior year.

In 1956, when he was seventeen years old, Gaye left home and enlisted in (joined) in the United States Air Force. He was honorably discharged the following year. Gaye moved back to Washington D.C. and formed a group called The Marquees. The group was discovered by musician Bo Diddley and they recorded the songs "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" and "Wyatt Earp". They then met Harvey Fuqua and joined with his group The Moonglows. They released a song called "Mama Loocie" in 1959. This was the first song recorded with Gaye singing as lead vocalist. The following year, the new Moonglows split up and with Fuqua as his mentor, Gaye traveled to Detroit, Michigan where they met Berry Gordy, who had formed Motown Records. Gordy was impressed by Marvin's talent as a piano player and drummer and signed him as a session drummer for Motown. Gaye played drums on most of Motown's early hits for artists like The Marvelettes, Mary Wells, the Miracles and Stevie Wonder. In 1961, Gordy signed Gaye as a recording artist and released  The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye. The album did not sell well.

Early stardom
Gaye's first became successful when he co-wrote the Marvelettes' top twenty hit, "Beechwood 4-5789". In 1962 he released his own song called "Stubborn Kind of Fellow". It was partly about his own life and got into the top fifty of the pop chart and number eight on the R&B side. His first top 40 single, "Hitch Hike", and his first top ten hit, "Pride & Joy", made him a teen idol. These early singles and those on his second release, That Stubborn Kind of Fellow, featured Martha and the Vandellas in the backGaye had more successful songs like early success continued with "Can I Get a Witness", "Baby Don't You Do It", "You Are a Wonderful One" and "Try It Baby". In late 1964, Gaye recorded "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", which peaked at the top ten of the American pop charts and became one of his first hits abroad reaching the top fifty in the United Kingdom. Gaye also worked with his friend, singer Smokey Robinson to write number-one singles, "I'll Be Doggone" and "Ain't That Peculiar".

Duets with female artists
After his early success, which Marvin had struggles with, Motown began to widen his role as a ladies man, having him record duet albums with Mary Wells, Kim Weston and Diana Ross. His first album with Wells, Together, became Marvin's first charted album, and yielded two popular hits, while his single with Weston, the Sylvia Moy-penned "It Takes Two", hit the top twenty on both sides of the Atlantic. But it would be his collaboration with Philadelphia R&B singer Tammi Terrell that landed him his biggest known success in his duet work. Building on songs written by Ashford & Simpson, the team of Marvin and Tammi scored a multitude of hits including their original version of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", "Your Precious Love", "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" and "You're All I Need to Get By". Their success would be short-lived following Tammi's collapse during a show at Virginia in October 1967. Having complained of headaches, Tammi was rushed to the hospital that night and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Terrell braved it out but by the release of their third and last album together, Easy, was losing her fight with the tumor. Tammi died in March 1970 at the age of 24 from complications of her brain cancer. Marvin was said to be so devastated by Tammi's death that he said he felt a piece of him died with her, and reports state at her funeral, Marvin talked to her remains as if she was gonna respond. Promising not to tour again and not to record another duet album after that, Marvin went into a self-imposed seclusion that ended briefly. In 1973, Marvin would work on his final duet album with Diana Ross. Their recording was hampered by arguments between them as Marvin refused to stop smoking marijuana in the studio as Diana was then pregnant. The resulting album, Diana and Marvin, became a top twenty U.S. success and reached the top ten in the U.K.

Breakthrough from Motown
In 1968, Marvin returned to the top of the charts as a solo act with the Norman Whitfield-penned "I Heard It Through the Grapevine". The song, originally recorded in 1967, was initially blocked from release since Berry Gordy disapproved of the song. Instead, one of its cover versions by Gladys Knight & the Pips was released, and it ended up reaching number-two. Whitfield was determined to get Gordy to release Marvin's, and in October 1968, Motown finally issued "Grapevine" as a single where it eventually reached number-one in December of that year, it also reached number one in the U.K. and became the biggest-selling single in Motown history during the sixties. During this period, Marvin used his "Grapevine" success to produce a collection of singles for his background group the Originals. Those songs, "Baby I'm for Real" and "The Bells" became top 40 recordings. After two more top ten hits that followed, Marvin began working on a more personal production. Inspired by Tammi Terrell's death, his brother Frankie's Vietnam stories, footage of the Vietnam War and race riots in the U.S., Marvin's success with his first productions and a rough draft of a song composed by Four Tops member Obie Benson, Marvin recorded an introspective single titled "What's Going On". Like "Grapevine", Motown refused to release it due to it being "uncommercial" and "risky" since Gordy could not find a song to match anything with and also because Gordy was against anyone in his company to talk openly about serious issues. In spite of releases by the Temptations, the Supremes and Edwin Starr, which opened about inner city struggle, illegitimate pregnancy and wars respectively, Motown was afraid the song would ruin Marvin's squeaky-clean teen pop image. Marvin, confident in his own abilities, stood his ground, and in January 1971, the song was released quickly becoming a hit single reaching number two on the Billboard pop chart and number one on the Cashbox pop chart, also hitting number-one on the Billboard R&B chart. A follow-up album of the same name was quickly released that May and with accompanying top ten singles "Mercy Mercy Me" and "Inner City Blues", songs that also talked about social issues including environmentalism, the album sold over a million copies and permanently made Marvin one of the first independent artists on the label. Inspired by Marvin's success, Stevie Wonder refused to renew his contract with Motown in May 1971 after releasing the non-Motown approved Where I'm Coming From, an album that also dealt with social issues. In 1972, Motown signed Marvin to a $1 million contract, making him at the time the highest-paid black recording artist in music history. Marvin celebrated the contract by releasing the pro-political single "You're the Man", which attacked the Nixon administration. Moving from Detroit to Los Angeles that year, he recorded the soundtrack to the movie, "Trouble Man". The soundtrack and its title track became top twenty and top ten hits on the charts respectively. In 1973, Marvin dramatically changed direction from social topics to sexual politics with the release of "Let's Get It On". The song became Marvin's second number-one Billboard hit and was the biggest-selling R&B single of that year. Its subsequent album became another critical milestone as What's Going On had been and with his new look as a wool hat-wearing, studded jean outfit, bearded "messiah", Marvin had become an icon of early seventies soul music.

Decline
In 1974, Marvin returned officially to touring after a four-year sabbatical following the death of Tammi Terrell and began to suffer from the effects of a long-developing cocaine addiction, which started in the late sixties. Marvin went a year without producing a record though through yet another new Motown contract, he built a recording studio in the middle of Sunset Boulevard. In 1976, Marvin released the erotic I Want You album, an album that had been delayed by his first wife, Anna Gordy's divorce case against him. The divorce was finalized after Marvin agreed to remit a portion of his royalties from his next album to Ms. Gordy. The result was the controversial Here, My Dear project, which came out in early 1979 after two years of holding the project from release. Marvin recorded a disco hit in 1977 titled "Got to Give It Up". The song hit number-one marking his third pop hit to reach the spot and his twelfth on the R&B side. It would end up being his last major hit with the Motown label. Following the release of Here, My Dear, the album tanked and Marvin, already run dry by dwindling finances, numerous lawsuits, a troubling marriage to a second wife and an even more troubling cocaine addiction, eventually left his wife, three children, and the U.S. settling first in Hawaii and then settling in London in 1980 after a European promoter advised him to tour Europe. Recording most of his final Motown release, In Our Lifetime, in London, the album was rush-released by Motown in early 1981 much to Marvin's chagrin: he complained that the label had edited certain songs, including one that seemed unfinished, and had taken off a question mark that he put at the end of the title to ask a question about life. Marvin stated he would no longer record for Motown and was granted his wish when CBS Records brought him out of his contract in April 1982.

Return from exile
In 1981, Marvin settled in Ostend, Belgium thanks to a former Belgian sports promoter and with his encouragement began rebuilding his life cutting away from drugs and also rebuilding his music career. After a successful European tour, Marvin signed with CBS Records and began work on a new album in his adopted home. After his friend and biographer David Ritz arrived to interview him, Marvin and David collaborated on a reggae-styled track in which Ritz titled "Sexual Healing" after a conversation between the two evolved into pornography. The song was one of eight Marvin worked on to fit into his comeback release, Midnight Love. Boosted by its Caribbean flavor, the song returned Marvin to the top of the charts, hitting number-one on the R&B chart for a period of ten weeks and also becoming a top ten hit in several countries including number-three in the U.S. pop chart and number-four in England. It also hit number-one in New Zealand. Selling over two million copies, it became Marvin's biggest-selling single to date and won him his first couple of Grammys in 1983. Marvin's comeback was cemented with his emotional performance of the national anthem at the NBA All Star Game and a reunited showcase at Motown 25, where Marvin was reunited with his old Motown buddies. Marvin's performance consisted of him playing piano while speaking on the illustrious history of black music before singing "What's Going On" to a receptive audience. That year, Marvin went on the road to promote the Midnight Love album. It would end up being his final tour.

Murder and legacy
Settling in his parents' Los Angeles home after the tour, Marvin reportedly struggled with drug abuse and his troubling relationship with his father continued spiraling downwards. On the morning of April 1, 1984, Marvin and his father got into an argument after his father verbally assaulted Marvin's mother while they were arguing over misplaced business documents. The two men clashed and Marvin reportedly shoved his father to the ground during the struggle. After returning to his room, Marvin's father reentered Marvin's room with a loaded shotgun Marvin had bought for him for Christmas and shot him twice with one fatal shot to his chest. At approximately 1:10 pm, Marvin Gaye was pronounced dead on the scene at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. He was one day shy of his forty-fifth birthday. Marvin's death shocked his fans though family members and friends knew of Marvin's depression. Over 10,000 well-wishers paid their last respects at a star-studded funeral in Los Angeles. Marvin's ashes were spread to the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean. In 1985, Motown and CBS collaborated on two posthumous records while Motown re-released Marvin's famed material. In 1987, Marvin was posthumously inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame confirming his status as one of the greatest artists in music history.

Personal life
Marvin first dated Anna Gordy in 1961. Anna was said to be the inspiration behind Marvin's sixties hits including "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" and "You Are a Wonderful One". He married her in 1964 and the couple adopted a boy they named Marvin Pentz Gaye III in 1965. Their marriage was rocky by the time Marvin began courting a beautiful seventeen-year-old high-school student named Janis Hunter in 1973. Hunter was reportedly the inspiration behind the song "If I Should Die Tonight" as he had sung the song to her in the studio. His 1976 album, I Want You, was dedicated to Janis, who married him in 1977. The couple had two children together, daughter Nona and son Frankie. They divorced in 1981.

Discography
Studio albums
 The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye (1961)
 That Stubborn Kinda Fellow (1963)
 When I'm Alone I Cry (1964)
 Hello Broadway (1964)
 How Sweet It Is to Be Loved by You (1965)
 A Tribute to the Great Nat "King" Cole (1965)
 Moods of Marvin Gaye (1966)
 In The Groove (a.k.a. I Heard It Through the Crapevine (1968)
 M.P.G. (1969)
 That's the Way Love Is (1970)
 What's Going On (1971)
 Trouble Man (1972)
 Let's Get It On (1973)
 I Want You (1976)
 Here, My Dear (1978)
 In Our Lifetime (1981)
 Midnight Love (1982)
 Dream of a Lifetime (1985)
 Romantically Yours (1985)
 Vulnerable (1997)

References

African American musicians
American manslaughter victims
American R&B singers
American singer-songwriters
American soul musicians
Deaths by firearm in the United States
Musicians from Washington, D.C.
1939 births
1984 deaths
Murdered African-American people

Marvin Gaye


Airchitectur is the airt an science o biggins an structurs like yetts, brigs, an ither things that's biggit. Whiles, the pairts aboot the biggins, sic as pads an gairdens, is includit in the design an aw.

Fowk that designs biggins is cried airchitects. They micht be needin skeels in a lot o fields, for ensaumple: mathematics, science, airt, technology, social sciences, politics, history an philosophy.

Fowk in unalike kintras an periods o history haes designed biggins in different styles. This micht lippen on the climate, the materials tae haund for biggin, an fashion.

The earliest airchitectur wis the biggin o semple shielins, bothies an hooses.

As fowk first begoud tae leeve thegither in touns an ceeties, types o airchitectur becam mair complicate. Some o the auldest biggins that's been fund includes the peeramids in Egypt an the ziggurats in Mesopotamia, an ither earlie temples. The hooses ordinar fowk bid in wis fairly semple, wee, an close thegither.

The airchitectur o the Auncient Greeks an Romans is cried Clessical airchitectur. Some important clessical biggins haes stane columns wi complicate designs. Greek columns haes bauks pitten athort them, bit Romans cleckit the airch in their airchitectur that wis spreid athort the Roman Empire.

Indie airchitectur is weel-kent for the stane cairvin o its temples an pailaces. Unalike airchectural styles cam tae the fore in Cheenae, Japan, Sootheast Asie, Africae, Mexico, an Central an Sooth Americae.

Fowk in Wastern Europe in the Middle Ages makkit Romanesque airchitectur, syne Gothic airchitectur. Gothic biggins haes lang, pyntit windaes an airches. A lot o kirks haes Gothic airchitectur. Whan the Normans invadit England it wis merkit that the Ingles likit wee hooses wi a laid o things in them, while the French likit big hooses wi a want o furnitur. A lot o castles wis biggit at that time an aw. In Eastren Europe, the Byzantine influence meant that kirks for ordinar haes domes.

Mosques micht hae domes an aw, that's a wey o biggin a braid appen space that can haud mony fowk. This is important for releegious biggins.

The Industrial Revolution led tae new types o biggins for machines an for fowk tae wirk in. Industrial airchitectur is the airchitectur o factories, mills, an ither wirkin biggins.

Modren airchitectur wis a new type o airchitectur creatit aboot 1900. Modren biggins aften haes a bittie decorement an is aften makkit o steel, gless, an concrete.

References

Airchitectural design

Airchitectur


Gioachino Rossini (born Pesaro 29 February 1792; died Passy 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer. He was the most famous composer of operas in his time. His operas had lots of new ideas. Italian operas had become rather unimaginative, with composers such as Cimarosa and Paisiello writing the same sort of thing each time. Rossini made his operas interesting by writing skillfully for the singers, giving them good tunes, as well as giving the orchestra interesting music, and by choosing a variety of stories for his operas. The opera for which he is best known today is the Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville). Many of the overtures to his operas are played at orchestral concerts. The most popular is the overture to his opera Guillaume Tell (William Tell) with its feature in the British TV show The Adventures of William Tell.

During the last 40 years of his life Rossini wrote no more music. His friends begged him to write another opera but he always refused.

Life
Rossini was born on 29 February of the leap year 1792. His birthplace was Pesaro, a small town in Italy on the Adriatic coast. His father played the horn in military bands and opera houses and his mother sang in operas. Often his parents toured together and the young Rossini was left in the care of his grandmother. The family eventually settled in Bologna. Rossini had lessons in singing, cello, piano and counterpoint. He did not like the counterpoint lessons, but it did help him to study different styles of music and he became very good at writing harmony in a clear way.

Early career
Italian opera at this time needed a new composer to bring more life into it. Five of his first nine operas were written for the Teatro S Moise in Venice. Other theatres soon asked him to write operas. In 1812 he wrote La pietra del paragone for the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. It was a great success. Many of these early operas were comic operas (opera buffa). Sometimes he had to produce so many new operas that he kept reusing some of the music he had already written in another opera. Nevertheless, they include a lot of fine music, and Rossini was developing his musical personality. His overtures have a fine sense of orchestral colour. He often started with a slow section and then went into fast music with a crescendo. Because he did this a lot it is often called a "Rossini crescendo" or "Rossini rocket".

It was not easy for him to earn enough money to keep himself. He only got paid for the operas he took part in. There were no copyright laws in those days. The important singers were well paid, but the composers earned much less. We know very little about his life at this time, but we do know that he travelled a lot. His most famous operas from this period are Tancredi, La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie) and Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) which has often been called the greatest of all comic operas.

Mid career
By 1815 Rossini's operas were famous everywhere in Western Europe except in Naples. Neapolitan opera had been famous throughout the 18th century and the city was proud of its tradition. The Neapolitans did not want a young composer from the north to continue their operatic tradition. Nevertheless, Rossini soon won their hearts. He wrote for the Teatro S Carlo which had a fine orchestra and very good singers. He wrote many of his best serious operas (opera seria) for Naples, and this tradition which he built up made it possible for Verdi to take over thirty years later as Italy's leading opera composer.

Later career
Rossini's international fame took him to Vienna where he met Beethoven. After returning to Italy for a while he travelled to Paris and England. He was only 31 years old and had written 34 operas. The Paris audiences already knew his operas. In London a Rossini Festival was organized. Most of the time in England he spent at social parties at the houses of rich people who were glad to pay him money to come and be their guest. Soon after this he settled in Paris for five years. He was director of the Théâtre-Italien until 1836. His two greatest operas from this period were Le Comte Ory (which was an opéra comique) and Guillaume Tell which was based on a play by Schiller. These works have beautifully flowing tunes (like Italian opera) as well as grand drama (like French opera).

Retirement
In 1829, at the age of 37, Rossini decided to retire. He had lots of money but his health was not particularly good. Although he wrote a few small pieces of music he never composed another opera. He went back to Bologna, although he returned to Paris nearly 20 years later with his wife. Here his health improved and he wrote a little music. His Petite messe solennelle for 12 voices, two pianos and harmonium is still performed today. When he died in 1868 thousands of people came to his funeral.

Rossini's place in music history
Rossini was a composer of the classical period. He was brought up hearing 18th century opera, and much of his best known music is still Classical in style, but he developed a lot as he matured and was writing in a more Romantic way by the end of his career. He gradually stopped writing music which has set numbers all the time: music divided sharply into arias and recitative. His recitative became more expressive and was accompanied by the orchestra instead of by a harpsichord. This helped to make his music more continuous. He did not often write for castrati as they were going out of fashion. The chorus have an important part in the drama of his operas (in 18th century opera they just used to comment on what was going on).

1792 births
1868 deaths
19th-century Italian composers
Classical era composers
Romantic composers

Gioachino Rossini


Anemia (U.S. spelling) or anaemia is not having enough red blood cells or hemoglobin in the blood.

Types or causes of anemia

Microcytic anemia
 Iron deficiency anemia is the most common type of anemia overall
 Hemoglobinopathies—much rarer
 Sickle-cell disease (once called sickle-cell anemia)
 Thalassemia

Normocytic anemia
 Acute blood loss
 Anemia of chronic disease
 Aplastic anemia (bone marrow failure)

Macrocytic anemia
 Megaloblastic anemia due to not having enough of either vitamin B12 or folic acid (or both)
 Pernicious anemia is an autoimmune problem with the parietal cells of the stomach
 Alcoholism
 Methotrexate, zidovudine, and other drugs that stop DNA replication. This is the most common cause in nonalcoholic patients.

Dimorphic anemia
Dimorphic anemia means two types of anemia at the same time. For example, macrocytic hypochromic, due to hookworm infestation leading to not enough of both iron and vitamin B12 or folic acid or following a blood transfusion.

Blood disorders

Anemia


Franz Liszt (born Raiding, October 22, 1811; died Bayreuth, July 31, 1886) was a Hungarian composer and pianist. Liszt (pronounced like "list") was one of the most influential musicians of the 19 th century. He was the greatest pianist of his time and went on lots of tours through Europe where everyone filled the concert halls to hear him. He wrote a lot of music for piano. Many of his piano pieces were harder to play than anything that had been written before. In this way he developed the technique of piano playing, setting new standards for the future. In his compositions he often used new ideas which sounded very modern in his time. He was very helpful to other composers who lived at that time, helping them to become better known by conducting their works and playing some of their orchestral pieces on the piano.

Early years
Liszt's father was an official who worked for Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, the same noble family who employed the composer Joseph Haydn. When he was seven his father started to teach him the piano. He was a child prodigy, and within a year or two he was already playing in concerts. He was so promising that some rich Hungarians said they would pay for his music education.

In 1821 his family moved to Vienna. He had piano lessons from Czerny and composition lessons from Salieri. He soon became famous although he was still a young boy, and he met famous musicians like Beethoven and Schubert. Beethoven is supposed to have kissed him on the forehead.

In 1823 his family moved again, this time to Paris. He wanted to go to the Conservatoire to study music but Luigi Cherubini would not let him in because he was a foreigner (i.e. not French). So he studied music theory privately with Reicha and composition with Paer. Soon he was asked to play the piano everywhere in Paris. He travelled to London. On his second visit there in 1825, he played to King George IV at Windsor.

Liszt continued to travel to other countries. After his father died he became a piano teacher in Paris. He fell in love with one of his pupils. It was the first of many love affairs he had with various women. He read a lot of books to try to educate himself properly. He met Berlioz and he liked the music of Berlioz very much. In 1831 he met the violinist Niccolò Paganini and was amazed by his virtuoso playing. Liszt was to do for the piano what Paganini had done for the violin. Both men were drawn by cartoonists as devilish characters. Both men wrote music which was incredibly hard for their instruments.

Soon Liszt met a Countess called Marie d'Agoult. He began to have an affair with her. The Countess left her husband and went to live with Liszt in Geneva. They lived together for several years and had three children. When Liszt gave away a lot of his money to help pay for a monument to Beethoven in Bonn he had to earn money by going on tours again, so the countess left him. He still saw her and the children every summer for a few years but finally they separated completely.

Later years

Liszt spent eight years in Rome. He wrote religious music and took holy orders in the Catholic Church. His daughter Cosima, who had married a famous conductor Hans von Bülow, left her husband and lived with Richard Wagner. They had two children together. Liszt and Wagner quarreled for many years about this.

Liszt spent most of his last years travelling to and fro between three cities: Rome, Weimar and Budapest. He called this his "vie trifurquée" (three-forked life). He died in Bayreuth July 31, 1886.

His personality

Liszt had a very strong personality which affected everyone he met. When he played the piano at concerts he was a great showman. People drew caricatures of him playing the piano with his wild mop of hair. He could be very polite and knew how to get on with the aristocracy. He could be very generous, giving both money and time to other musicians and giving praise where it was deserved. He was a powerful, unique character and one of the most important romantic composers of his day. He is known for his dazzling virtuostic piano displays best.

Compositions

Most of Liszt's compositions were for piano. He wrote one piano sonata. It is in B minor. Its form is very different from the sonatas of composers like Beethoven. It is a very Romantic work, but it does not tell a story like a lot of Romantic pieces do. Most of his piano works are shorter pieces that are quite free in form. He often took a theme and transformed it (changed it gradually). He wrote studies which are much more than just pieces to improve one's piano technique. One collection is called Transcendental Studies. In Switzerland he wrote Années de pèlerinage (Years of Wandering), a collection of pieces to which he gave titles later. Liszt explored all the possible sounds that the piano could make (it was still a fairly new instrument). Sometimes he made it sound like an orchestra. Some of his last piano works are much simpler to play, although the chords would have sounded very modern for his time. They are like the Impressionistic music of Debussy.

Not all Liszt's piano pieces were original compositions: he also made arrangements or transcriptions. It seems a strange idea to us now to take someone else's symphony and arrange it for piano. This is what Liszt often did. He took symphonies by Beethoven or songs by Schubert and changed them so that they could be played on the piano. Many people did not have the opportunity to hear concerts very often, and they certainly did not have radios or CDs, so Liszt was making these works more famous, helping them to reach a wider audience. He often made difficult transcriptions which meant that he changed the pieces and added ornamental notes, making a new piece out of an old one.

Liszt's orchestral music is also very important. He wrote symphonic poems: pieces which tell a story or describe something. The best known one is called Les préludes. He also wrote two piano concertos.

He wrote a lot of church music. Church music was often quite sentimental in those days, but Liszt tried to make his works help people to feel religious devotion. For composing and performing Liszt was using a variety of pianos (fortepiano). In his Portugal tour as well as in Kiev and Odessa tours, he used a Boisselot piano. This model has been recreated in the XXI century. The composer also owned an Erard piano, a Bechstein piano and Beethoven's Broadwood grand piano.

Conclusion

In many ways Liszt was typical of the Romantic artist. He was always looking for a spiritual meaning to life. He carried a walking stick with the heads of St Francis of Assisi and Gretchen and Mephistopheles, characters from Goethe's Faust. He was a 19th-century musician but through his thinking and his music he looked forward to the 20th century.

References

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (1980)
 Demko Miroslav: Franz Liszt compositeur Slovaque, L´Age d´Homme, Suisse, 2003.

Other websites

 The Franz Liszt Site with timeline
 Piano Society - Liszt  - A short biography and various free recordings in MP3 format.
 The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 by Rupert Hughes, full-text from Project Gutenberg
 Franz Liszt Project  - A comprehensive Liszt site with searchable databases.
 Letters of Franz Liszt
 Concert programme for September 16, 1840 at The Centre for Performance History
 Old cylinder recordings of orchestral arrangements of Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
 International Franz Liszt Piano Competition - official page
 Catalogue of the Complete Liszt Recording by Leslie Howard
 WorldCat Identities page for 'Liszt, Franz 1811-1886'
 Lizst in Limerick , The Old Limerick Journal, Richard Ahern

1811 births
1886 deaths
Hungarian composers
Hungarian pianists
Romantic composers
Deaths from pneumonia

Franz Liszt


In feudalism, a fiefdom (also called a fief, feud, feoff, or fee) was a property or right that an overlord gave a vassal in exchange for military service. This property, of whatever size, could be inherited by the man's heirs.  However, not only land but anything of value could be held in fee, including a political office, hunting or fishing rights or monopolies in trade. A fief included the right of possession of something but with conditions.

References

Middle Ages

Fiefdom


Luigi Pirandello (Agrigento 28 June 1867 – Rome 10 December 1936) was an Italian playwright, novelist, and short story writer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage". Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written in Sicilian. Pirandello's tragic farces are often seen as forerunners for Theatre of the Absurd.

Works
Una boccata d'aria (A Breath of Air)
 L'Esclusa (The Excluded Woman)
 Il Turno (The Turn)
 Il Fu Mattia Pascal (The Late Mattia Pascal)
 Suo Marito (Her Husband)
 I Vecchi e I Giovani (The Old and the Young)
 Quaderni di Serafino Gubbio (Serafino Gubbio's Journals)
 Uno, Nessuno e Centomila (One, No one and One Hundred Thousand)
 Sei Personaggi in Cerca d'Autore (Six Characters in Search of an Author)
 Ciascuno a Suo Modo (Each In His Own Way)
 Questa Sera Si Recita a Soggetto (Tonight We Improvise)
 Enrico IV (Henry IV)
 L'Uomo dal Fiore in Bocca (The Man With The Flower In His Mouth)
 La Vita che ti Diedi (The Life I Gave You)
 Il Gioco delle Parti (The Rules of the Game)
 Diana e La Tuda (Diana and Tuda)
 Il Piacere dell'Onestà (The Pleasure Of Honesty)
 L'Imbecille (The Imbecile)
 L'Uomo, La Bestia e La Virtù (The Man, The Beast and The Virtue)
 Vestire gli Ignudi (Clothing The Naked)
 Così è (Se Vi Pare) (So It Is (If You Think So))

Italian playwrights
Italian writers
1867 births
1936 deaths
Italian Nobel Prize winners

Luigi Pirandello