prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: When was the last time the sports team Alan O'Neil was a member of beat the winner of the 1894-95 FA cup?

The following are given passages.
Context 1: Passage 1:
1894–95 FA Cup
The 1894–95 FA Cup was the 24th season of the world's oldest association football competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup (more usually known as the FA Cup)  The cup was won by Aston Villa, who defeated West Bromwich Albion 1–0 in the final of the competition, played at Crystal Palace in London  This was Villa's second victory in the FA Cup 
The Trophy was stolen from a display in the shop window of W  Shillcock (a football fitter) in Newton Row, Birmingham, after the Final and never recovered despite a £10 reward  According to the Police, it was taken sometime between 21:30 on Wednesday 11 September and 7:30 the following morning, along with cash from a drawer  The cup was replaced by a copy of the original, made by Howard Vaughton, the former Aston Villa player and England international, who had opened a silversmith's business after his retirement from the game 
Matches were scheduled to be played at the stadium of the team named first on the date specified for each round, which was always a Saturday  If scores were level after 90 minutes had been played, a replay would take place at the stadium of the second-named team later the same week  If the replayed match was drawn further replays would be held at neutral venues until a winner was determined  If scores were level after 90 minutes had been played in a replay, a 30-minute period of extra time would be played 

Calendar
The format of the FA Cup for the season had a preliminary round, four qualifying rounds, three proper rounds, and the semi-finals and final 

First round proper
The first round proper contained sixteen ties between 32 teams  The 16 First Division sides were given a bye to this round, as were Notts County, Darwen, Bury, Newcastle United, Newton Heath and Woolwich Arsenal from the Second Division  The other Second Division sides were entered into the first round qualifying, with the exceptions of Burton Swifts, who started in the second round qualifying, and Manchester City, who played no part in the season's competition  Of the qualifying League sides, only Burton Wanderers and Leicester Fosse qualified to the FA Cup proper  Eight non-league sides also qualified 
The matches were played on Saturday, 2 February 1895  One match was drawn, with the replay taking place in the following midweek fixture  The Barnsley St Peter's – Liverpool game was voided following a dispute over extra time being played   The match was replayed nine days later, resulting in a 4–0 win to Liverpool 

Second round proper
The eight Second Round matches were scheduled for Saturday, 16 February 1895  There were two replays, played in the following midweek fixture 

Third round proper
The four Third Round matches were scheduled for Saturday, 2 March 1895  There were no replays 

Semi-finals
The semi-final matches were both played on Saturday, 16 March 1895  Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion went on to meet in the final at Crystal Palace 

Final
The Final was contested by Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion at Crystal Palace  Aston Villa won 1–0, with Bob Chatt being credited with scoring the fastest goal in FA Cup Final history, scored after just 30 seconds  Devey found Hodgetts, whose cross was laid off by Athersmith to Chatt, whose half volley took a deflection 

Match details
See also
FA Cup Final Results 1872-
Passage 2:
History of Chelsea F C 
The History of Chelsea F C  spans the period from 1905 to the present day:

History of Chelsea F C  (1905–1952)
History of Chelsea F C  (1952–1983)
History of Chelsea F C  (1983–2003)
History of Chelsea F C  (2003–2022)
History of Chelsea F C  (2022–present)For a season-by-season account of Chelsea's history, see List of Chelsea F C  seasons 

See also
Chelsea F C  § History
Passage 3:
Second City derby
In English football, the Second City derby or Birmingham derby, is the local derby between the two major clubs in the city of Birmingham – Aston Villa and Birmingham City, first contested in 1879  Villa play at Villa Park while Birmingham play at St Andrew's, the two grounds separated by roughly 2 4 miles (3 9 km)  It is known as the Second City Derby based on Birmingham being referred to as the second city of the United Kingdom  The two clubs are generally regarded as each other's most fierce rivals  In addition both sides have affiliated women's sides, Aston Villa W F C  and Birmingham City W F C 

History
The clubs first met on 27 September 1879, when Birmingham City were called Small Heath Alliance  The game, on a pitch at Small Heath's Muntz Street ground described by the Villa players as "only suitable for pot-holing", finished 1–0 – recorded as "one goal and a disputed goal to nil" – to the home side  Villa won the first competitive game between the clubs, in the Second Round of the FA Cup at Wellington Road in 1887, by four goals to nil, and their first league encounter, in the First Division in the 1894–95 season, 2–1 The two teams have engaged in several hotly contested matches  In the 1925 league game at Villa Park, with the home side 3–0 ahead with eleven minutes to go, Blues scored three times in a dramatic final spell to draw the match  The following year, Aston Villa made headlines with the signing of Tom 'Pongo' Waring, and his first appearance was for the reserves against Birmingham City's reserves, which famously drew a crowd of 23,000  Waring scored three times in the match The most significant clash was the final of the 1963 League Cup, which was staged not long after Aston Villa had beaten Birmingham City 4–0 in the league  Blues won 3–1 on aggregate over the two-legged final to claim their first major domestic honour During the late 1970s to early 1980s both Villa and Blues met regularly in the First Division and both teams had some memorable successes in the fixture  In 1980–81 Villa did the double over Blues and went on to win the First Division title  Blues scored a memorable 3–0 victory at St Andrew's in the first meeting following Villa's European Cup triumph in 1982  Both teams promptly went into decline  Blues racked up a 3–0 win in a relegation battle at Villa Park in March 1986 but were relegated at the end of that season  Villa would be demoted the following campaign  The next time Villa met Blues in a league fixture at Villa Park again was in the Second Division and saw a 2–0 Blues victory  The reverse fixture at St Andrew's was a 2–1 Villa victory with both goals coming from Garry Thompson  The two sides would only meet again in the 1980s in cup competitions  Villa won 7–0 on aggregate when they clashed twice in the 1988–89 League Cup  The same season Villa also won a Full Members Cup clash 6–0 

The Premier League Era
Following the creation of the Premier League, Aston Villa and Birmingham City met twice in the second round of the 1993–94 League Cup  Villa won both matches 1–0  The game at St Andrew's was settled by a Kevin Richardson goal after his keeper Mark Bosnich had saved a penalty from John Frain to keep the game at 0–0  The second leg at Villa Park was notable for a winning goal from Villa's Dean Saunders and a red card for Blues' Paul Tait  Villa went on to win the trophy 
Blues' promotion to the Premier League in 2002 saw fans eagerly anticipating the first league derbies in 15 years  Blues won both derbies 3–0 and 2–0, respectively  Both matches saw goalkeeping errors by Villa goalkeeper Peter Enckelman, including a goal scored directly from an Olof Mellberg throw-in  Violence between both sets of fans occurred before both matches as evening kick-off times had allowed fans to get drunk over the course of the day  In March 2003, during the game at Villa Park, two Villa players were sent off, Dion Dublin for a head-butt on Blues' Robbie Savage and Joey Guðjónsson for a reckless two-footed tackle on Matthew Upson  Trouble also took place following the game on Witton Lane outside Villa Park, where missiles were hurled at police who were attempting to keep both sets of fans apart 
The 2003–04 Premiership season saw games ending in 0–0 and 2–2 draws  The 2–2 draw saw Blues recover a two-goal deficit thanks to a 90th-minute equaliser from Stern John  Both games were lunchtime kick-offs to avoid drunken behaviour, which was achieved although the games lost none of their passionate edge  The following season Blues got back to winning ways, with 2–1 victory at Villa Park just before Christmas and 2–0 at home in March, Villa keeper Thomas Sørensen making mistakes in both matches, though it's debatable if his errors directly affected the respective results  In the 2005–06 Premiership Season, Villa finally beat Blues in the Premiership, thanks to a Kevin Phillips goal  This was followed up by another Villa victory on 16 April 2006, Easter Sunday, with Aston Villa winning 3–1 thanks to two goals from Milan Baroš and a bicycle kick from Gary Cahill  Blues were relegated in 2006 but subsequently promoted in 2007 
In November 2007, Villa won their third consecutive derby match with a 2–1 victory at St Andrew's  Former Villa defender Liam Ridgewell scored an own goal to put Villa 1–0 up, Blues equalised through Mikael Forssell only for Gabriel Agbonlahor to clinch it with a late header for Villa, having cleared off his own line seconds before  Violent clashes took place outside the ground after the game in which over 20 police officers were hurt  The derby on 20 April 2008 between the two sides ended in a 5–1 win for Aston Villa at Villa Park, the biggest winning margin for either side in a league match for 40 years 
Villa continued their winning ways in the derby, when they won both of the meetings between the clubs in the 2009–10 Premier League season  The first took place on 13 September 2009 at St Andrew's, and ended 1–0 to Aston Villa, with Agbonlahor scoring the winner in the 85th minute, once again there was trouble with 14 arrests  Villa then went on to beat Blues 1–0 at Villa Park thanks to a disputed penalty from James Milner in the 82nd minute  This was the 3rd time in 4 derbies that Villa had scored the winning goal in the final 10 minutes of the game  Villa also possess the record of six straight wins from 1987 to 1993, including five cup matches  This record was then achieved in the Premier League after Villa beat Blues 1–0 on 25 April 2010, setting a record of six straight league wins from 2005 to 2010  The record was finally ended at the next derby match on 31 October 2010, which resulted in a 0–0 draw at Villa Park  The return match at St Andrew's also ended in a draw, with it finishing 1–1 
In those games in October and December 2010 where Aston Villa played Birmingham City, at Villa Park (Premier League, 31 October) and St Andrew's (League Cup, 1 December, which was the first mid-week game between the two sides since 2003) violence between the two sets of supporters and hooligan firms occurred, with many fans being arrested  In the first game, there were scenes of violence outside Villa Park and there were a small amount of arrests including a Birmingham City club chef  In the second of the two games (and larger scale violence) after Blues had beaten Villa 2–1, Blues supporters came onto the pitch and confronted the visiting Villa fans, this resulted in flares, ripped out seats and other missiles being hurled by Villa fans into the Blues supporters, there were also flash points before and after the game including the attack on a Blues supporters pub by Villa hooligans, the events were described as a "warzone" by a supporter who attended the game  Birmingham City were later fined £40,000 by the Football Association for failing to control their fans On 10 April 2011, an episode of Police Academy UK, a TV show aired on BBC Three which documents overseas police officers' introduction to British crime and policing, was set in Birmingham and covered the violence that occurred at the game between Birmingham City and Aston Villa on 1 December 2010 On 17 June 2011, Birmingham City manager Alex McLeish swapped Blues for Villa in a move that shocked the football world  The reaction from both sets of supporters was one of anger  Blues supporters were angry at McLeish, who guided them to only their second ever major trophy win in February 2011, for betraying them to join bitter rivals Villa, and Villa fans were unhappy with the appointment of a manager that had got Blues relegated twice in four seasons, and was perceived to play a negative style of football; that he came from Blues only served to rub salt into the wound of the board making such an unambitious and negative appointment  Several hundred Villa supporters protested at Villa Park when it emerged that Villa owner Randy Lerner has begun talks with McLeish  McLeish received death threats from followers of both teams following his appointment as Aston Villa manager  This controversial move only increased tension and hostility between the players, supporters and owners of both clubs even more as Blues directors threatened legal action against Villa for allegedly "tapping up" McLeish, who resigned as Blues manager on 12 June 2011, while he was still under contract at Birmingham City  McLeish's appointment marked the first time in history that a manager had moved directly from Birmingham City to Aston Villa  On 14 May 2012, one day after the 2011–12 Premier League season ended, McLeish was sacked as Villa manager after a massively disappointing one season in charge 

The EFL Championship Era
After being relegated in 2011, Birmingham are still yet to gain promotion back to the top flight of English football  However, since Alex McLeish was sacked as Villa manager, Villa's poor form continued  Despite several manager changes over the next few years, after several close calls they were finally relegated at the end of the 2015/16 season  Earlier on in the 2015/16 season, the two teams were drawn to play each other in the third round of the League Cup  Aston Villa ran out 1–0 winners thanks to a goal from Rudy Gestede  
In the 2016–17 season the two teams faced off in the second tier of English football for the first time since 1987  The first game at St Andrew's ended in a 1–1 draw  Villa won the second match 1–0 with a 69th-minute goal scored by Agbonlahor  The two sides faced each other again in the league during the 2017/18 season, producing a dismal 0–0 draw at St  Andrews marred by Birmingham fans throwing clappers at the Villa players all throughout the game, before Villa emphatically fortified their second city superiority with a 2–0 victory in front of 41,232 spectators at Villa Park  Some fans believed this game to be a coming of age for lifelong Villa fan and local Jack Grealish, who produced a match-winning man-of-the-match display  
The teams next met on 25 November in one of the most exciting derby games in recent times, Villa ran out 4-2 winners after goals from Jonathan Kodjia, Jack Grealish, a Tammy Abraham penalty and Alan Hutton who ran half the length of the pitch to score, Pedersen and Lukas Jutkiewicz scored for Birmingham On 10 March 2019, a Birmingham City fan invaded the pitch during the reverse fixture at St  Andrew's and assaulted Aston Villa captain Jack Grealish on the pitch by punching him from behind in the head, which was labelled as "disgraceful and cowardly" by supporters of both teams  The man was arrested and charged by West Midlands Police  St Andrew's' security was criticised as a result  The game ended in an ironic twist with a 1–0 win for Aston Villa with Grealish scoring the winning goal  At the end of the same season, Villa were promoted as they won ten in a row including that game  Since then, this fiercely contested fixture hasn't been played between the two rivals 

Women's Sides
Birmingham City W F C  were founded in 1968, whilst Aston Villa W F C  were founded in 1973 as Solihull F C , and took on their current Aston Villa guise in 1996  During the 2000-01 and 2001-02 seasons both teams competed in the second tier FA Women's Premier League North  Birmingham were then promoted to the Women's Premier League National with Villa joining them for one season in 2003-04 before being relegated  Then followed 18 years of the teams being in different divisions, Birmingham being in the top tier and Villa elsewhere, until the 2020–21 Women's Super League season when Villa were promoted up to join Blues  In the first ever WSL match between the two sides Birmingham beat Villa 1–0 at an empty Villa Park (due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom), while the Birmingham's home match which was also played behind closed doors at Damson Park, Solihull was a 1–1 draw  In the 2021–22 season, Aston Villa won 1–0 at St  Andrew's  Birmingham returned the favour and won 1–0 at Villa Park on 8 May 2022, the final day of the season, as they were relegated to the FA Women's Championship As of the 2021–22 Birmingham currently play at St Andrew's, home of the men's team, having played at Redditch Utd, Stratford Town and Solihull Moors in the 21st century  Villa play at Walsall's Bescot Stadium, having moved from Boldmere St Michaels - although important games such as the Second City Derby will often take place at Villa Park 

Statistics and records
As of the end of the 2010–11 season, there have been 120 meetings in major competition between the two teams since the first FA Cup meeting in 1887, of which Aston Villa have won 52 and Birmingham City 38  The most goals in one game were scored in a league game on 7 July 1895, in the First Division, as Small Heath lost to Aston Villa 7–3  The biggest winning margin was 6–0 to Aston Villa on 9 November 1988, in a Full Members Cup fixture  The last Birmingham City league victory over Aston Villa was on 20 March 2005, when Blues won 2–0 at St Andrew's  Villa won six encounters in a row, most recently on 25 April 2010 (2005–2010)  The two teams drew for the first time in over six years in the next match (the first of three in the 2010–11 season), with the match finishing 0–0 (the other Premier League match of the season also finished as a draw)  The second match of the season resulted in the first Blues win since 2005, as they beat Villa 2–1 in the 2010–11 League Cup Quarter Final on 1 December 2010 

All-time results
Cup matches
Women's matches
Summary of results
Stats correct as of 10 March 2019 

Records
Firsts
First competitive meeting: Aston Villa 4–0 Small Heath Alliance (FA Cup), 5 November 1887 
First league meeting: Aston Villa 2–1 Small Heath, 1 September 1894 
First away victory for Aston Villa: Small Heath 1–4 Aston Villa, 26 October 1895 
First away victory for Birmingham City: Aston Villa 1–3 Birmingham, 20 January 1906 

Results
Highest scoring game: Aston Villa 7–3 Small Heath, 7 September 1895 
Largest winning margin (Aston Villa): 6 goals – 6–0, 9 November 1988 
Largest winning margin (Birmingham City): 4 goals – 4–0, 21 September 1968 

Players
Most goals in a match (Aston Villa):
Most goals in a match (Birmingham City):

Trends
Most games won in a row (Aston Villa): 6, 16 October 2005 to 25 April 2010 
Most games won in a row (Birmingham City): 5, 3 April 1976 – 25 February 1978 
Most games without defeat (Aston Villa): 14, 16 October 2005 – on going
Most games without defeat (Birmingham City): 6, 8 March 1933 – 23 November 1935 and 16 September 2002 – 20 March 2005 
Most drawn games in a row: 4, 10 December 1949 – 21 September 1955 
Whenever the clubs have met in the Premier League the result has always been the same during that particular season: 2002/2003– 2 Blues wins, 2003/2004– 2 draws, 2004/2005– 2 Blues wins, 2005/2006– 2 Villa Wins, 2007/2008– 2 Villa wins, 2009/2010– 2 Villa wins, 2010/11- 2 draws 

Top scorers
The following is a list of the top goal scorers for each team in the fixture  Only players who have scored 4 or more goals feature 

Crossing the divide
Players
Unlike, for example, the Old Firm derby, there is no shortage of players who have appeared for both clubs  Villa legend Harry Hampton transferred to Blues after the First World War and helped the club to the Second Division title  The last established first-team player to make this move was Des Bremner in 1984, though there had been loan signings and movement of youth players during this period  The most recent permanent transfer from Aston Villa to Birmingham City was that of Gary Gardner in Summer 2019, his brother Craig was the previous player to move from Villa to Birmingham in 2010  The last player to move directly in the other direction was Spanish Winger Jota in the same transfer window 
Notable players who have been transferred directly between the clubs are listed below 

Aston Villa to Birmingham City
Notes
The players listed above made a direct transfer from Villa to Blues  In addition, there are several players who have "crossed the divide" but done so via another league club 
European Cup winner Dennis Mortimer – regarded by Villa fans as one of their greatest ever players – also played for Birmingham City in the 1986/7 season 
Kevin Phillips played for Villa in the 2005/06 season before moving to Blues in 2008 via West Bromwich Albion 

Birmingham City to Aston Villa
Notes
The players listed above made a direct transfer from Blues to Villa  In addition, there are several high-profile players who have "crossed the divide" but done so via another league club  Notable examples include former England international Emile Heskey and European Cup winner Peter Withe 
Chris Sutton was released by Birmingham City at the end of the 2005–06 season  His next club was Aston Villa, for whom he signed for in October 2006 
Scott Sinclair has played on loan at both clubs  He was on loan at Birmingham City while he was playing for Chelsea during the 2008–09 season and he was on loan at Aston Villa during the 2014–15 season before signing permanently from Manchester City 

Managers
Former Aston Villa Manager Ron Saunders, who managed Villa to League Cup success in 1975 and again in 1977 before taking the club to its first Championship success for 70 years in 1981, also moved across to Birmingham City following his resignation in 1982 
Alex McLeish's appointment as Aston Villa manager in June 2011 after resigning from Birmingham City five days before was the first time in history a manager has moved from Birmingham City to Aston Villa  The move shocked the football world and increased tension between the two clubs even more Former Birmingham City Manager Steve Bruce was appointed Villa manager in 2016 

Aston Villa to Birmingham City
Birmingham City to Aston Villa
Chairmen
Doug Ellis was a director of Birmingham City in the late 1960s before becoming part of a consortium which took over at Aston Villa in 1968 

See also
Aston Villa Hardcore (hooligan firm)
Birmingham Zulu Warriors (hooligan firm)
List of Aston Villa F C  seasons
List of Birmingham City F C  seasons
List of Aston Villa F C  records and statistics
List of Birmingham City F C  records and statistics
Passage 4:
Alan O'Neill (footballer, born 1973)
Alan O'Neill (born 27 August 1973) is an Irish former professional footballer who played in the Football League for Birmingham City  He also played in Ireland 

Career
O'Neill was born in Cork  A forward, he played in Ireland for Cork City and Cobh Ramblers before coming to England to sign for Birmingham City in February 1992 for a fee of £15,000  He made his debut in the Football League Third Division on 29 February 1992, coming on as a substitute in a home game against Stoke City which finished as a 1–1 draw  He played in three more league games during the 1991–92 season, but dropped out of consideration when the club were promoted, and returned to Ireland in 1993 
Passage 5:
Singapore FA Cup
The Singapore FA Cup, (also known as the Singapore Pools FA Cup for sponsorship reasons), is an annual football competition in Singapore Initially held for clubs from the S League from 1996-1998, the Football Association of Singapore decided to change format of the cup to allow only teams from National Football League to take part in the knock out competition from 1999,
so that the S League clubs can focus on Singapore Cup, competition created in 1998 After the Singapore Cup and earlier League Cup, Singapore FA Cup is the next major cup competition in Singapore  For a number of years, the FA Cup was solely restricted to NFL clubs  In 2006, S League clubs were once again allowed in the competition, but were only permitted to field their developmental Prime League teams  The team matchups were drawn out of a hat against one another for the initial 2006 and 2007 seasons, before being seeded into two groups since 2008 

Results
Note: 
Tampines Rovers SC is a separate entity from Tampines Rovers 
SAFSA is a separate entity from Singapore Armed Forces 
Police SA is a separate entity from Home United (formerly Police FC) 
Passage 6:
Manchester United F C 
Manchester United Football Club, commonly referred to as Man United (often stylised as Man Utd), or simply United, is a professional football club based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, England  The club competes in the Premier League, the top division in the English football league system  Nicknamed the Red Devils, they were founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, but changed their name to Manchester United in 1902  After a spell playing in Clayton, Manchester, the club moved to their current stadium, Old Trafford, in 1910 
Domestically, Manchester United have won a record 20 league titles, 12 FA Cups, six League Cups and a record 21 FA Community Shields  In international football, they have won the European Cup/UEFA Champions League three times, and the UEFA Europa League, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, the UEFA Super Cup, the Intercontinental Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup once each  In 1968, under the management of Matt Busby, 10 years after eight of the club's players were killed in the Munich air disaster, they became the first English club to win the European Cup  Sir Alex Ferguson is the club's longest-serving and most successful manager, winning 38 trophies, including 13 league titles, five FA Cups, and two Champions League titles between 1986 and 2013  In the 1998–99 season, under Ferguson, the club became the first in the history of English football to achieve the continental treble of the Premier League, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League  In winning the UEFA Europa League under José Mourinho in 2016–17, they became one of five clubs to have won the original three main UEFA club competitions (the Champions League, Europa League and Cup Winners' Cup) 
Manchester United is one of the most widely supported football clubs in the world and has rivalries with Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal and Leeds United  Manchester United was the highest-earning football club in the world for 2016–17, with an annual revenue of €676 3 million, and the world's third most valuable football club in 2019, valued at £3 15 billion ($3 81 billion)  After being floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1991, the club was taken private in 2005 after a purchase by American businessman Malcolm Glazer valued at almost £800 million, of which over £500 million of borrowed money became the club's debt  From 2012, some shares of the club were listed on the New York Stock Exchange, although the Glazer family retains overall ownership and control of the club 

History
Early years (1878–1945)
Manchester United was formed in 1878 as Newton Heath LYR Football Club by the Carriage and Wagon department of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (LYR) depot at Newton Heath  The team initially played games against other departments and railway companies, but on 20 November 1880, they competed in their first recorded match; wearing the colours of the railway company – green and gold – they were defeated 6–0 by Bolton Wanderers' reserve team  By 1888, the club had become a founding member of The Combination, a regional football league  Following the league's dissolution after only one season, Newton Heath joined the newly formed Football Alliance, which ran for three seasons before being merged with The Football League  This resulted in the club starting the 1892–93 season in the First Division, by which time it had become independent of the railway company and dropped the "LYR" from its name  After two seasons, the club was relegated to the Second Division 

In January 1902, with debts of £2,670 – equivalent to £310,000 in 2023 – the club was served with a winding-up order  Captain Harry Stafford found four local businessmen, including John Henry Davies (who became club president), each willing to invest £500 in return for a direct interest in running the club and who subsequently changed the name; on 24 April 1902, Manchester United was officially born  Under Ernest Mangnall, who assumed managerial duties in 1903, the team finished as Second Division runners-up in 1906 and secured promotion to the First Division, which they won in 1908 – the club's first league title  The following season began with victory in the first ever Charity Shield and ended with the club's first FA Cup title  Manchester United won the First Division for the second time in 1911, but at the end of the following season, Mangnall left the club to join Manchester City In 1922, three years after the resumption of football following the First World War, the club was relegated to the Second Division, where it remained until regaining promotion in 1925  Relegated again in 1931, Manchester United became a yo-yo club, achieving its all-time lowest position of 20th place in the Second Division in 1934  Following the death of principal benefactor John Henry Davies in October 1927, the club's finances deteriorated to the extent that Manchester United would likely have gone bankrupt had it not been for James W  Gibson, who, in December 1931, invested £2,000 and assumed control of the club  In the 1938–39 season, the last year of football before the Second World War, the club finished 14th in the First Division 

Busby years (1945–1969)
In October 1945, the impending resumption of football after the war led to the managerial appointment of Matt Busby, who demanded an unprecedented level of control over team selection, player transfers and training sessions  Busby led the team to second-place league finishes in 1947, 1948 and 1949, and to FA Cup victory in 1948  In 1952, the club won the First Division, its first league title for 41 years  They then won back-to-back league titles in 1956 and 1957; the squad, who had an average age of 22, were nicknamed "the Busby Babes" by the media, a testament to Busby's faith in his youth players  In 1957, Manchester United became the first English team to compete in the European Cup, despite objections from The Football League, who had denied Chelsea the same opportunity the previous season  En route to the semi-final, which they lost to Real Madrid, the team recorded a 10–0 victory over Belgian champions Anderlecht, which remains the club's biggest victory on record 

The following season, on the way home from a European Cup quarter-final victory against Red Star Belgrade, the aircraft carrying the Manchester United players, officials and journalists crashed while attempting to take off after refuelling in Munich, Germany  The Munich air disaster of 6 February 1958 claimed 23 lives, including those of eight players – Geoff Bent, Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Duncan Edwards, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor and Billy Whelan – and injured several more 

Assistant manager Jimmy Murphy took over as manager while Busby recovered from his injuries and the club's makeshift side reached the FA Cup final, which they lost to Bolton Wanderers  In recognition of the team's tragedy, UEFA invited the club to compete in the 1958–59 European Cup alongside eventual League champions Wolverhampton Wanderers  Despite approval from The Football Association, The Football League determined that the club should not enter the competition, since it had not qualified  Busby rebuilt the team through the 1960s by signing players such as Denis Law and Pat Crerand, who combined with the next generation of youth players – including George Best – to win the FA Cup in 1963  The following season, they finished second in the league, then won the title in 1965 and 1967  In 1968, Manchester United became the first English club to win the European Cup, beating Benfica 4–1 in the final with a team that contained three European Footballers of the Year: Bobby Charlton, Denis Law and George Best  They then represented Europe in the 1968 Intercontinental Cup against Estudiantes de La Plata of Argentina, but defeat in the first leg in Buenos Aires meant a 1–1 draw at Old Trafford three weeks later was not enough to claim the title  Busby resigned as manager in 1969 before being replaced by the reserve team coach, former Manchester United player Wilf McGuinness 

1969–1986
Following an eighth-place finish in the 1969–70 season and a poor start to the 1970–71 season, Busby was persuaded to temporarily resume managerial duties, and McGuinness returned to his position as reserve team coach  In June 1971, Frank O'Farrell was appointed as manager, but lasted less than 18 months before being replaced by Tommy Docherty in December 1972  Docherty saved Manchester United from relegation that season, only to see them relegated in 1974; by that time the trio of Best, Law, and Charlton had left the club  The team won promotion at the first attempt and reached the FA Cup final in 1976, but were beaten by Southampton  They reached the final again in 1977, beating Liverpool 2–1  Docherty was dismissed shortly afterwards, following the revelation of his affair with the club physiotherapist's wife Dave Sexton replaced Docherty as manager in the summer of 1977  Despite major signings, including Joe Jordan, Gordon McQueen, Gary Bailey, and Ray Wilkins, the team failed to win any trophies; they finished second in 1979–80 and lost to Arsenal in the 1979 FA Cup final  Sexton was dismissed in 1981, even though the team won the last seven games under his direction  He was replaced by Ron Atkinson, who immediately broke the British record transfer fee to sign Bryan Robson from his former club West Bromwich Albion  Under Atkinson, Manchester United won the FA Cup in 1983 and 1985 and beat rivals Liverpool to win the 1983 Charity Shield  In 1985–86, after 13 wins and two draws in its first 15 matches, the club was favourite to win the league but finished in fourth place  The following season, with the club in danger of relegation by November, Atkinson was dismissed 

Ferguson years (1986–2013)
Alex Ferguson and his assistant Archie Knox arrived from Aberdeen on the day of Atkinson's dismissal, and guided the club to an 11th-place finish in the league  Despite a second-place finish in 1987–88, the club was back in 11th place the following season  Reportedly on the verge of being dismissed, Ferguson's job was saved by victory over Crystal Palace in the 1990 FA Cup final  The following season, Manchester United claimed their first UEFA Cup Winners' Cup title  That triumph allowed the club to compete in the European Super Cup for the first time, where United beat European Cup holders Red Star Belgrade 1–0 at Old Trafford  The club appeared in two consecutive League Cup finals in 1991 and 1992, beating Nottingham Forest 1–0 in the second to win that competition for the first time as well  In 1993, in the first season of the newly founded Premier League, the club won their first league title since 1967, and a year later, for the first time since 1957, they won a second consecutive title – alongside the FA Cup – to complete the first "Double" in the club's history  United then became the first English club to do the Double twice when they won both competitions again in 1995–96, before retaining the league title once more in 1996–97 with a game to spare 
 
In the 1998–99 season, Manchester United became the first team to win the Premier League, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League – "The Treble" – in the same season  Trailing 1–0 going into injury time in the 1999 UEFA Champions League final, Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjær scored late goals to claim a dramatic victory over Bayern Munich, in what is considered one of the greatest comebacks of all time  That summer, Ferguson received a knighthood for his services to football In November 1999, the club became the only British team to ever win the Intercontinental Cup with a 1–0 victory over the strong 1999 Copa Libertadores winners Palmeiras in Tokyo  The Red Devils counted on an unexpected goalkeeper fail by future 2002 FIFA World Cup winner Marcos and a disallowed goal scored by Alex to win the game 
 
Manchester United won the league again in the 1999–2000 and 2000–01 seasons, becoming only the fourth club to win the English title three times in a row  The team finished third in 2001–02, before regaining the title in 2002–03  They won the 2003–04 FA Cup, beating Millwall 3–0 in the final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff to lift the trophy for a record 11th time  In the 2005–06 season, Manchester United failed to qualify for the knockout phase of the UEFA Champions League for the first time in over a decade, but recovered to secure a second-place league finish and victory over Wigan Athletic in the 2006 Football League Cup final  The club regained the Premier League title in the 2006–07 season, before completing the European double in 2007–08 with a 6–5 penalty shoot-out victory over Chelsea in the 2008 UEFA Champions League final in Moscow to go with their 17th English league title  Ryan Giggs made a record 759th appearance for the club in that game, overtaking previous record holder Bobby Charlton  In December 2008, the club became the first British team to win the FIFA Club World Cup and followed this with the 2008–09 Football League Cup, and its third successive Premier League title  That summer, forward Cristiano Ronaldo was sold to Real Madrid for a world record £80 million  In 2010, Manchester United defeated Aston Villa 2–1 at Wembley to retain the League Cup, its first successful defence of a knockout cup competition After finishing as runners-up to Chelsea in the 2009–10 season, United achieved a record 19th league title in 2010–11, securing the championship with a 1–1 away draw against Blackburn Rovers on 14 May 2011  This was extended to 20 league titles in 2012–13, securing the championship with a 3–0 home win against Aston Villa on 22 April 2013 

2013–present
On 8 May 2013, Ferguson announced that he was to retire as manager at the end of the football season, but would remain at the club as a director and club ambassador  He retired as the most decorated manager in football history  The club announced the next day that Everton manager David Moyes would replace him from 1 July, having signed a six-year contract  Ryan Giggs took over as interim player-manager 10 months later, on 22 April 2014, when Moyes was sacked after a poor season in which the club failed to defend their Premier League title and failed to qualify for the UEFA Champions League for the first time since 1995–96  They also failed to qualify for the UEFA Europa League, the first time Manchester United had not qualified for a European competition since 1990  On 19 May 2014, it was confirmed that Louis van Gaal would replace Moyes as Manchester United manager on a three-year deal, with Giggs as his assistant  Malcolm Glazer, the patriarch of the family that owns the club, died on 28 May 2014 

Under Van Gaal, United won a 12th FA Cup, but a disappointing slump in the middle of his second season led to rumours of the board sounding out potential replacements  Van Gaal was ultimately sacked just two days after the cup final victory, with United having finished fifth in the league  Former Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid manager José Mourinho was appointed in his place on 27 May 2016  Mourinho signed a three-year contract, and in his first season won the FA Community Shield, EFL Cup and UEFA Europa League  Wayne Rooney scored his 250th goal for United, a stoppage-time equaliser in a league game against Stoke City in January 2017, surpassing Sir Bobby Charlton as the club's all-time top scorer  The following season, United finished second in the league – their highest league placing since 2013 – but were still 19 points behind rivals Manchester City  Mourinho also guided the club to a 19th FA Cup final, but they lost 1–0 to Chelsea  On 18 December 2018, with United in sixth place in the Premier League table, 19 points behind leaders Liverpool and 11 points outside the Champions League places, Mourinho was sacked after 144 games in charge  The following day, former United striker Ole Gunnar Solskjær was appointed as caretaker manager until the end of the season  On 28 March 2019, after winning 14 of his first 19 matches in charge, Solskjær was appointed permanent manager on a three-year deal On 18 April 2021, Manchester United announced they were joining 11 other European clubs as founding members of the European Super League, a proposed 20-team competition intended to rival the UEFA Champions League  The announcement drew a significant backlash from supporters, other clubs, media partners, sponsors, players and the UK Government, forcing the club to withdraw just two days later  The failure of the project led to the resignation of executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward, while resultant protests against Woodward and the Glazer family led to a pitch invasion ahead of a league match against Liverpool on 2 May 2021, which saw the first postponement of a Premier League game due to supporter protests in the competition's history On the pitch, United equalled their own record for the biggest win in Premier League history with a 9–0 win over Southampton on 2 February 2021, but ended the season with defeat on penalties in the UEFA Europa League final against Villarreal, going four straight seasons without a trophy  On 20 November 2021, Solskjær left his role as manager  Former midfielder Michael Carrick took charge for the next three games, before the appointment of Ralf Rangnick as interim manager until the end of the season On 21 April 2022, Erik ten Hag was appointed as the manager from the end of the 2021–22 season, signing a contract until June 2025 with the option of extending for a further year  On 23 May 2022, Mitchell van der Gaag and Steve McClaren were confirmed as Ten Hag's assistant coaches  Ten Hag won Manchester United the 2022–23 EFL Cup against Newcastle United, winning 2–0  On 5 March 2023, the club suffered their joint-heaviest defeat, losing 7–0 to rivals Liverpool at Anfield 

Crest and colours
The club crest is derived from the Manchester City Council coat of arms, although all that remains of it on the current crest is the ship in full sail  The devil stems from the club's nickname "The Red Devils" inspired from Salford Rugby Club; it was included on club programmes and scarves in the 1960s, and incorporated into the club crest in 1970, although the crest was not included on the chest of the shirt until 1971  In 1975, the red devil ("A devil facing the sinister guardant supporting with both hands a trident gules") was granted as a heraldic badge by the College of Arms to the English Football League for use by Manchester United Newton Heath's uniform in 1879, four years before the club played its first competitive match, has been documented as 'white with blue cord'  A photograph of the Newton Heath team, taken in 1892, is believed to show the players wearing red-and-white quartered jerseys and navy blue knickerbockers  Between 1894 and 1896, the players wore green and gold jerseys which were replaced in 1896 by white shirts, which were worn with navy blue shorts After the name change in 1902, the club colours were changed to red shirts, white shorts, and black socks, which has become the standard Manchester United home kit  Very few changes were made to the kit until 1922 when the club adopted white shirts bearing a deep red "V" around the neck, similar to the shirt worn in the 1909 FA Cup final  They remained part of their home kits until 1927  For a period in 1934, the cherry and white hooped change shirt became the home colours, but the following season the red shirt was recalled after the club's lowest ever league placing of 20th in the Second Division and the hooped shirt dropped back to being the change The black socks were changed to white from 1959 to 1965, where they were replaced with red socks up until 1971 with white used on occasion, when the club reverted to black  Black shorts and white socks are sometimes worn with the home strip, most often in away games, if there is a clash with the opponent's kit  For 2018–19, black shorts and red socks became the primary choice for the home kit  Since 1997–98, white socks have been the preferred choice for European games, which are typically played on weeknights, to aid with player visibility  The current home kit is a red shirt with Adidas' trademark three stripes in red on the shoulders, white shorts, and black socks The Manchester United away strip has often been a white shirt, black shorts and white socks, but there have been several exceptions  These include an all-black strip with blue and gold trimmings between 1993 and 1995, the navy blue shirt with silver horizontal pinstripes worn during the 1999–2000 season, and the 2011–12 away kit, which had a royal blue body and sleeves with hoops 
made of small midnight navy blue and black stripes, with black shorts and blue socks  An all-grey away kit worn during the 1995–96 season was dropped after just five games; in its final outing against Southampton, Alex Ferguson instructed the team to change into the third kit during half-time  The reason for dropping it being that the players claimed to have trouble finding their teammates against the crowd, United failed to win a competitive game in the kit in five attempts  In 2001, to celebrate 100 years as "Manchester United", a reversible white and gold away kit was released, although the actual match day shirts were not reversible The club's third kit is often all-blue; this was most recently the case during the 2014–15 season  Exceptions include a green-and-gold halved shirt worn between 1992 and 1994, a blue-and-white striped shirt worn during the 1994–95 and 1995–96 seasons and once in 1996–97, an all-black kit worn during the Treble-winning 1998–99 season, and a white shirt with black-and-red horizontal pinstripes worn between 2003–04 and 2005–06  From 2006–07 to 2013–14, the third kit was the previous season's away kit, albeit updated with the new club sponsor in 2006–07 and 2010–11, apart from the 2008–09 season, when an all-blue kit was launched to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1967–68 European Cup success 

Grounds
1878–1893: North Road
Newton Heath initially played on a field on North Road, close to the railway yard; the original capacity was about 12,000, but club officials deemed the facilities inadequate for a club hoping to join The Football League  Some expansion took place in 1887, and in 1891, Newton Heath used its minimal financial reserves to purchase two grandstands, each able to hold 1,000 spectators  Although attendances were not recorded for many of the earliest matches at North Road, the highest documented attendance was approximately 15,000 for a First Division match against Sunderland on 4 March 1893  A similar attendance was also recorded for a friendly match against Gorton Villa on 5 September 1889 

1893–1910: Bank Street
In June 1893, after the club was evicted from North Road by its owners, Manchester Deans and Canons, who felt it was inappropriate for the club to charge an entry fee to the ground, secretary A  H  Albut procured the use of the Bank Street ground in Clayton  It initially had no stands, by the start of the 1893–94 season, two had been built; one spanning the full length of the pitch on one side and the other behind the goal at the "Bradford end"  At the opposite end, the "Clayton end", the ground had been "built up, thousands thus being provided for"  Newton Heath's first league match at Bank Street was played against Burnley on 1 September 1893, when 10,000 people saw Alf Farman score a hat-trick, Newton Heath's only goals in a 3–2 win  The remaining stands were completed for the following league game against Nottingham Forest three weeks later  In October 1895, before the visit of Manchester City, the club purchased a 2,000-capacity stand from the Broughton Rangers rugby league club, and put up another stand on the "reserved side" (as distinct from the "popular side"); however, weather restricted the attendance for the Manchester City match to just 12,000 When the Bank Street ground was temporarily closed by bailiffs in 1902, club captain Harry Stafford raised enough money to pay for the club's next away game at Bristol City and found a temporary ground at Harpurhey for the next reserves game against Padiham  Following financial investment, new club president John Henry Davies paid £500 for the erection of a new 1,000-seat stand at Bank Street  Within four years, the stadium had cover on all four sides, as well as the ability to hold approximately 50,000 spectators, some of whom could watch from the viewing gallery atop the Main Stand 

1910–present: Old Trafford
Following Manchester United's first league title in 1908 and the FA Cup a year later, it was decided that Bank Street was too restrictive for Davies' ambition; in February 1909, six weeks before the club's first FA Cup title, Old Trafford was named as the home of Manchester United, following the purchase of land for around £60,000  Architect Archibald Leitch was given a budget of £30,000 for construction; original plans called for seating capacity of 100,000, though budget constraints forced a revision to 77,000  The building was constructed by Messrs Brameld and Smith of Manchester  The stadium's record attendance was registered on 25 March 1939, when an FA Cup semi-final between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Grimsby Town drew 76,962 spectators Bombing in the Second World War destroyed much of the stadium; the central tunnel in the South Stand was all that remained of that quarter  After the war, the club received compensation from the War Damage Commission in the amount of £22,278  While reconstruction took place, the team played its "home" games at Manchester City's Maine Road ground; Manchester United was charged £5,000 per year, plus a nominal percentage of gate receipts  Later improvements included the addition of roofs, first to the Stretford End and then to the North and East Stands  The roofs were supported by pillars that obstructed many fans' views, and they were eventually replaced with a cantilevered structure  The Stretford End was the last stand to receive a cantilevered roof, completed in time for the 1993–94 season  First used on 25 March 1957 and costing £40,000, four 180-foot (55 m) pylons were erected, each housing 54 individual floodlights  These were dismantled in 1987 and replaced by a lighting system embedded in the roof of each stand, which remains in use today The Taylor Report's requirement for an all-seater stadium lowered capacity at Old Trafford to around 44,000 by 1993  In 1995, the North Stand was redeveloped into three tiers, restoring capacity to approximately 55,000  At the end of the 1998–99 season, second tiers were added to the East and West Stands, raising capacity to around 67,000, and between July 2005 and May 2006, 8,000 more seats were added via second tiers in the north-west and north-east quadrants  Part of the new seating was used for the first time on 26 March 2006, when an attendance of 69,070 became a new Premier League record  The record was pushed steadily upwards before reaching its peak on 31 March 2007, when 76,098 spectators saw Manchester United beat Blackburn Rovers 4–1, with just 114 seats (0 15 per cent of the total capacity of 76,212) unoccupied  In 2009, reorganisation of the seating resulted in a reduction of capacity by 255 to 75,957  Manchester United has the second highest average attendance of European football clubs only behind Borussia Dortmund  In 2021 United co-chairman Joel Glazer said that "early-stage planning work" for the redevelopment of Old Trafford was underway  This followed "increasing criticism" over the lack of development of the ground since 2006 

Support
Manchester United is one of the most popular football clubs in the world, with one of the highest average home attendances in Europe  The club states that its worldwide fan base includes more than 200 officially recognised branches of the Manchester United Supporters Club (MUSC), in at least 24 countries  The club takes advantage of this support through its worldwide summer tours  Accountancy firm and sports industry consultants Deloitte estimate that Manchester United has 75 million fans worldwide  The club has the third highest social media following in the world among sports teams (after Barcelona and Real Madrid), with over 72 million Facebook followers as of July 2020  A 2014 study showed that Manchester United had the loudest fans in the Premier League Supporters are represented by two independent bodies; the Independent Manchester United Supporters' Association (IMUSA), which maintains close links to the club through the MUFC Fans Forum, and the Manchester United Supporters' Trust (MUST)  After the Glazer family's takeover in 2005, a group of fans formed a splinter club, F C  United of Manchester  The West Stand of Old Trafford – the "Stretford End" – is the home end and the traditional source of the club's most vocal support 

Rivalries
Manchester United have rivalries with Arsenal, Leeds United, Liverpool, and Manchester City, against whom they contest the Manchester derby The rivalry with Liverpool is rooted in competition between the cities during the Industrial Revolution, when Manchester was famous for its textile industry while Liverpool was a major port  The two clubs are the most successful English teams in both domestic and international competitions; and between them they have won 39 league titles, 9 European Cups, 4 UEFA Cups, 5 UEFA Super Cups, 20 FA Cups, 14 League Cups, 2 FIFA Club World Cups, 1 Intercontinental Cup and 37 FA Community Shields  Ranked the two biggest clubs in England by France Football magazine based on metrics such as fanbase and historical importance, Manchester United v Liverpool is considered to be the most famous fixture in English football and one of the biggest rivalries in the football world  No player has been transferred between the clubs since 1964  Former Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson said in 2002, "My greatest challenge was knocking Liverpool right off their fucking perch" The "Roses Rivalry" with Leeds stems from the Wars of the Roses, fought between the House of Lancaster and the House of York, with Manchester United representing Lancashire and Leeds representing Yorkshire The rivalry with Arsenal arises from the numerous times the two teams, as well as managers Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger, have battled for the Premier League title  With 33 titles between them (20 for Manchester United, 13 for Arsenal) this fixture has become known as one of the finest Premier League match-ups in history 

Global brand
Manchester United has been described as a global brand; a 2011 report by Brand Finance, valued the club's trademarks and associated intellectual property at £412 million – an increase of £39 million on the previous year, valuing it at £11 million more than the second best brand, Real Madrid – and gave the brand a strength rating of AAA (Extremely Strong)  In July 2012, Manchester United was ranked first by Forbes magazine in its list of the ten most valuable sports team brands, valuing the Manchester United brand at $2 23 billion  The club is ranked third in the Deloitte Football Money League (behind Real Madrid and Barcelona)  In January 2013, the club became the first sports team in the world to be valued at $3 billion  Forbes magazine valued the club at $3 3 billion – $1 2 billion higher than the next most valuable sports team  They were overtaken by Real Madrid for the next four years, but Manchester United returned to the top of the Forbes list in June 2017, with a valuation of $3 689 billion 

The core strength of Manchester United's global brand is often attributed to Matt Busby's rebuilding of the team and subsequent success following the Munich air disaster, which drew worldwide acclaim  The "iconic" team included Bobby Charlton and Nobby Stiles (members of England's World Cup winning team), Denis Law and George Best  The attacking style of play adopted by this team (in contrast to the defensive-minded "catenaccio" approach favoured by the leading Italian teams of the era) "captured the imagination of the English footballing public"  Busby's team also became associated with the liberalisation of Western society during the 1960s; George Best, known as the "Fifth Beatle" for his iconic haircut, was the first footballer to significantly develop an off-the-field media profile As the second English football club to float on the London Stock Exchange in 1991, the club raised significant capital, with which it further developed its commercial strategy  The club's focus on commercial and sporting success brought significant profits in an industry often characterised by chronic losses  The strength of the Manchester United brand was bolstered by intense off-the-field media attention to individual players, most notably David Beckham (who quickly developed his own global brand)  This attention often generates greater interest in on-the-field activities, and hence generates sponsorship opportunities – the value of which is driven by television exposure  During his time with the club, Beckham's popularity across Asia was integral to the club's commercial success in that part of the world Because higher league placement results in a greater share of television rights, success on the field generates greater income for the club  Since the inception of the Premier League, Manchester United has received the largest share of the revenue generated from the BSkyB broadcasting deal  Manchester United has also consistently enjoyed the highest commercial income of any English club; in 2005–06, the club's commercial arm generated £51 million, compared to £42 5 million at Chelsea, £39 3 million at Liverpool, £34 million at Arsenal and £27 9 million at Newcastle United  A key sponsorship relationship was with sportswear company Nike, who managed the club's merchandising operation as part of a £303 million 13-year partnership between 2002 and 2015  Through Manchester United Finance and the club's membership scheme, One United, those with an affinity for the club can purchase a range of branded goods and services  Additionally, Manchester United-branded media services – such as the club's dedicated television channel, MUTV – have allowed the club to expand its fan base to those beyond the reach of its Old Trafford stadium 

Sponsorship
In an initial five-year deal worth £500,000, Sharp Electronics became the club's first shirt sponsor at the beginning of the 1982–83 season, a relationship that lasted until the end of the 1999–2000 season, when Vodafone agreed a four-year, £30 million deal  Vodafone agreed to pay £36 million to extend the deal by four years, but after two seasons triggered a break clause in order to concentrate on its sponsorship of the Champions League To commence at the start of the 2006–07 season, American insurance corporation AIG agreed a four-year £56 5 million deal which in September 2006 became the most valuable in the world  At the beginning of the 2010–11 season, American reinsurance company Aon became the club's principal sponsor in a four-year deal reputed to be worth approximately £80 million, making it the most lucrative shirt sponsorship deal in football history  Manchester United announced their first training kit sponsor in August 2011, agreeing a four-year deal with DHL reported to be worth £40 million; it is believed to be the first instance of training kit sponsorship in English football  The DHL contract lasted for over a year before the club bought back the contract in October 2012, although they remained the club's official logistics partner  The contract for the training kit sponsorship was then sold to Aon in April 2013 for a deal worth £180 million over eight years, which also included purchasing the naming rights for the Trafford Training Centre The club's first kit manufacturer was Umbro, until a five-year deal was agreed with Admiral Sportswear in 1975  Adidas won the contract in 1980, before Umbro started a second spell in 1992  That sponsorship lasted for ten years, followed by Nike's record-breaking £302 9 million deal, which lasted until 2015; 3 8 million replica shirts were sold in the first 22 months with the company  In addition to Nike and Chevrolet, the club also has several lower-level "platinum" sponsors, including Aon and Budweiser On 30 July 2012, United signed a seven-year deal with American automotive corporation General Motors, which replaced Aon as the shirt sponsor from the 2014–15 season  The new $80m-a-year shirt deal is worth $559m over seven years and features the logo of General Motors brand Chevrolet  Nike announced that they would not renew their kit supply deal with Manchester United after the 2014–15 season, citing rising costs  Since the start of the 2015–16 season, Adidas has manufactured Manchester United's kit as part of a world-record 10-year deal worth a minimum of £750 million  Plumbing products manufacturer Kohler became the club's first sleeve sponsor ahead of the 2018–19 season  Manchester United and General Motors did not renew their sponsorship deal, and the club subsequently signed a five-year, £235m sponsorship deal with TeamViewer ahead of the 2021–22 season 

Ownership and finances
Originally funded by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, the club became a limited company in 1892 and sold shares to local supporters for £1 via an application form  In 1902, majority ownership passed to the four local businessmen who invested £500 to save the club from bankruptcy, including future club president John Henry Davies  After his death in 1927, the club faced bankruptcy yet again, but was saved in December 1931 by James W  Gibson, who assumed control of the club after an investment of £2,000  Gibson promoted his son, Alan, to the board in 1948, but died three years later; the Gibson family retained ownership of the club through James' wife, Lillian, but the position of chairman passed to former player Harold Hardman Promoted to the board a few days after the Munich air disaster, Louis Edwards, a friend of Matt Busby, began acquiring shares in the club; for an investment of approximately £40,000, he accumulated a 54 per cent shareholding and took control in January 1964  When Lillian Gibson died in January 1971, her shares passed to Alan Gibson who sold a percentage of his shares to Louis Edwards' son, Martin, in 1978; Martin Edwards went on to become chairman upon his father's death in 1980  Media tycoon Robert Maxwell attempted to buy the club in 1984, but did not meet Edwards' asking price  In 1989, chairman Martin Edwards attempted to sell the club to Michael Knighton for £20 million, but the sale fell through and Knighton joined the board of directors instead Manchester United was floated on the stock market in June 1991 (raising £6 7 million), and received yet another takeover bid in 1998, this time from Rupert Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting Corporation  This resulted in the formation of Shareholders United Against Murdoch – now the Manchester United Supporters' Trust – who encouraged supporters to buy shares in the club in an attempt to block any hostile takeover  The Manchester United board accepted a £623 million offer, but the takeover was blocked by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission at the final hurdle in April 1999  A few years later, a power struggle emerged between the club's manager, Alex Ferguson, and his horse-racing partners, John Magnier and J  P  McManus, who had gradually become the majority shareholders  In a dispute that stemmed from contested ownership of the horse Rock of Gibraltar, Magnier and McManus attempted to have Ferguson removed from his position as manager, and the board responded by approaching investors to attempt to reduce the Irishmen's majority In 2023, Manchester United received several bids to purchase the club  Jim Ratcliffe, who owns INEOS, and Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, a Qatari sheikh, were the only bidders who had publicly declared their interest  In March 2023, Finnish entrepreneur Thomas Zilliacus also made his interest in Manchester United public 

Glazer ownership
In May 2005, Malcolm Glazer purchased the 28 7 per cent stake held by McManus and Magnier, thus acquiring a controlling interest through his investment vehicle Red Football Ltd in a highly leveraged takeover valuing the club at approximately £800 million (then approx  $1 5 billion)  Once the purchase was complete, the club was taken off the stock exchange  Much of the takeover money was borrowed by the Glazers; the debts were transferred to the club  As a result, the club went from being debt-free to being saddled with debts of £540 million, at interest rates of between 7% to 20% In July 2006, the club announced a £660 million debt refinancing package, resulting in a 30 per cent reduction in annual interest payments to £62 million a year  In January 2010, with debts of £716 5 million ($1 17 billion), Manchester United further refinanced through a bond issue worth £504 million, enabling them to pay off most of the £509 million owed to international banks  The annual interest payable on the bonds – which were to mature on 1 February 2017 – is approximately £45 million per annum  Despite restructuring, the club's debt prompted protests from fans on 23 January 2010, at Old Trafford and the club's Trafford Training Centre  Supporter groups encouraged match-going fans to wear green and gold, the colours of Newton Heath  On 30 January, reports emerged that the Manchester United Supporters' Trust had held meetings with a group of wealthy fans, dubbed the "Red Knights", with plans to buying out the Glazers' controlling interest  The club's debts reached a high of £777 million in June 2007 In August 2011, the Glazers were believed to have approached Credit Suisse in preparation for a $1 billion (approx  £600 million) initial public offering (IPO) on the Singapore stock exchange that would value the club at more than £2 billion; however, in July 2012, the club announced plans to list its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange instead  Shares were originally set to go on sale for between $16 and $20 each, but the price was cut to $14 by the launch of the IPO on 10 August, following negative comments from Wall Street analysts and Facebook's disappointing stock market debut in May  Even after the cut, Manchester United was valued at $2 3 billion, making it the most valuable football club in the world The New York Stock Exchange allows for different shareholders to enjoy different voting rights over the club  Shares offered to the public ("Class A") had 10 times lesser voting rights than shares retained by the Glazers ("Class B")  Initially in 2012, only 10% of shares were offered to the public  As of 2019, the Glazers retain ultimate control over the club, with over 70% of shares, and even higher voting power In 2012, The Guardian estimated that the club had paid a total of over £500 million in debt interest and other fees on behalf of the Glazers, and in 2019, reported that the total sum paid by the club for such fees had risen to £1 billion  At the end of 2019, the club had a net debt of nearly £400 million 

Players
First-team squad
As of 5 July 2023Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules  Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality 

Reserves and academy
As of 5 July 2023List of under-21s and academy players with articles

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules  Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality 

Player awards
Coaching staff
Managerial history
Management
Owner: Glazer family via Red Football Shareholder Limited

Manchester United Limited
Manchester United Football Club
Honours
Manchester United is one of the most successful clubs in Europe in terms of trophies won  The club's first trophy was the Manchester Cup, which they won as Newton Heath LYR in 1886  In 1908, the club won their first league title, and won the FA Cup for the first time the following year  Since then, they have gone on to win a record 20 top-division titles – including a record 13 Premier League titles – and their total of 12 FA Cups is second only to Arsenal (14)  Those titles have meant the club has appeared a record 30 times in the FA Community Shield (formerly the FA Charity Shield), which is played at the start of each season between the winners of the league and FA Cup from the previous season; of those 30 appearances, Manchester United have won a record 21, including four times when the match was drawn and the trophy shared by the two clubs 
The club had a successful period under the management of Matt Busby, starting with the FA Cup in 1948 and culminating with becoming the first English club to win the European Cup in 1968, winning five league titles in the intervening years  The club's most successful decade, however, came in the 1990s under Alex Ferguson; five league titles, four FA Cups, one League Cup, five Charity Shields (one shared), one UEFA Champions League, one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, one UEFA Super Cup and one Intercontinental Cup  The club has won the Double (winning the Premier League and FA Cup in the same season) three times; the second in 1995–96 saw them become the first club to do so twice, and it became referred to as the "Double Double"  United became the sole British club to win the Intercontinental Cup in 1999 and are one of only three British clubs to have won the FIFA Club World Cup, in 2008  In 1999, United became the first English club to win the Treble  In 2017, United won the 2016–17 UEFA Europa League, beating Ajax in the final  In winning that title, United became the fifth club to have won the "European Treble" of European Cup/UEFA Champions League, Cup Winners' Cup, and UEFA Cup/Europa League after Juventus, Ajax, Bayern Munich and Chelsea The club's most recent trophy came in February 2023, with the 2022–23 EFL Cup 

s shared record

Doubles and Trebles
Doubles
League and FA Cup (3): 1993–94, 1995–96, 1998–99
League and UEFA Champions League (2): 1998–99, 2007–08
League and EFL Cup (1): 2008–09
EFL Cup and UEFA Europa League (1): 2016–17
Trebles
League, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League (1): 1998–99Short competitions – such as the FA Charity/Community Shield, Intercontinental Cup (now defunct), FIFA Club World Cup or UEFA Super Cup – are not generally considered to contribute towards a Double or Treble 

Manchester United Women
A team called Manchester United Supporters Club Ladies began operations in the late 1970s and was unofficially recognised as the club's senior women's team  They became founding members of the North West Women's Regional Football League in 1989  The team made an official partnership with Manchester United in 2001, becoming the club's official women's team; however, in 2005, following Malcolm Glazer's takeover, the club was disbanded as it was seen to be "unprofitable"  In 2018, Manchester United formed a new women's football team, which entered the second division of women's football in England for their debut season 

Notes
Context 2: Passage 1:
Veera Ballala II
Veera Ballala II (Kannada: ವೀರ ಬಲ್ಲಾಳ 2) (r  1173–1220 CE) was the most notable monarch of the Hoysala Empire  His successes against the Yadavas of Devagiri, the Southern Kalachuris, the Pandyas of Madurai and the waning Western Chalukya Empire, and his domination over the diminishing Cholas of Tanjore took the Hoysalas to their peak of power  The historian Chaurasia claims by the end of the 12th century, Ballala II's conquests had made the Hoysalas the most powerful dynasty of the Deccan  According to historian Derrett, Ballala II was "the most outstanding among Hoysala kings", and historian William Coelho in comparing Ballala II to King Vishnuvardhana writes, "he vied in glory with his grandfather" His court was adorned with some of the most notable of medieval Kannada language poets including the Jain poets Janna and Nemichandra, and the Brahman poet Rudrabhatta  According to the historians Chopra et al , during his rule, the Hoysala kingdom consolidated into an independent empire commencing an age of "Hoysala imperialism"  His architectural legacy includes among numerous ornate temples, the Kedareshwara temple, the Veera Narayana temple and the Amrutesvara temple  He was ably supported in war and in administrative matters by his son, prince Vira Narasimha II, and crowned queen Umadevi  His other queen Cholamahadevi was a Chola princes  His daughter Somaladevi was given in marriage to the Chola monarch Kulothunga Chola III 

Wars against the neighbouring kingdoms
Ballala II's ascendancy to the Hoysala throne in c  1173 was preceded by his successful rebellion against his weak father Narasimha I with the help of some malnad chiefs, such as the Chengalvas and the Kongalvas  He later ensured the same chiefs' could not rise against him  In the late 12th century, the weakening Chalukya throne became the bone of contention between the main vassals, the Yadavas, the Hoysalas and the Kalachuris  Around c 1168, the Kalachuri King Bijjala II had gained control of the Chalukyan capital Basavakalyan (then called Kalyani, in modern Bidar district of Karnataka state)  According to historian Kamath, in c 1171, an ambitious Ballala tasted first victory against Pandya king Kavadeva of the Uchchangi family  This was followed by the annexation of Hangal in c 1178  But an attempt by him to invade Belvola-300 in c 1179 led to his defeat by Kalachuri commander Sankama who seized Hangal  According to Chopra et al , in c 1179, a Kalachuri invasion into the Hoysala territory resulted in a truce with Ballala II agreeing to accept nominal subordination and to help the Kalachuri in their designs against the Chalukyas  However, by c 1183, the Kalachuris themselves were in serious decline due to the inept rule of the sons of Bijjala II  The last Chalukya scion, Someshvara IV, was back in control of his capital Basavakalyan with help from the Kalachuri commander Brahma 
The real contention now, for the territories in the Krishna-Tungabhadra doab region was between the Yadava King Bhillama V and the Hoysala monarch Ballala II  By c 1189, Basavakalyana had fallen to Bhillama V who nevertheless failed to gain recognition from Chalukya vassals such as the Rattas, the Kadambas of Banavasi and the Shilahara  Taking advantage of this uncertainty, Ballala II led several expeditions to Banavasi against the exiled Chalukya King Someshvara VI and defeated him by c 1190  In c 1191, the Hoysala monarch gained the upper hand over Yadava Bhillama V in the critical battles of Soratur and Lakkundi (in the modern Gadag district) where he appears to have spent much time consolidating his gains  Thus, Ballala II was able to push the northern boundaries of the Hoysala empire up to the Malaprabha river and Krishna rivers  By c 1192, Ballala II had crowned himself the emperor over the entire modern Karnataka region  A record of his dated c 1196 claims him victorious over several minor ruling families including those of Banavasi, Hangal, Halashi, Nolambavadi (Nolamba dynasty), Bagalkot, and Gulbarga (Yelburgi) indicating he had complete control over the rich Tungabhadra-Krishna river region  After c 1212, he lost all these territories north of the Tungabhadra river to Yadava king Singhana II 

Relationship with Cholas
Around c 1216, Maravarman Sundara Pandya ascended the throne at Madurai  To seek revenge for the humiliation of his elder brother Jatavarman Kulashekara by the Chola monarch Kulothunga III, he invaded the Chola territory and drove Kulothunga into exile  Kulothunga III sought the help of the Hoysalas  Ballala II promptly sent his forces under the command of prince Narasimha II who succeeded in repulsing the Pandya and re-establishing the Chola kingdom  With this victory, Ballala II not only assumed imperial titles such as Cholarajyapratishtacharya ("Establisher of the Chola kingdom"), Hoysala Chakravarti ("Hoysala emperor") and Dakshina Chakravarti ("Emperor of the south"), he also brought under his direct control parts of the rich Kaveri plains around Srirangam (central Tamil Nadu)  A Hoysala army was left standing in Kanchi to pursue hostilities with the Telugu Chodas and their overlords, the Kakatiya dynasty  In words of historian John Keay, "Gloriously if briefly the Hoysalas were paramount throughout most of the Kannada speaking Deccan, and could pose a arbiters in the lusher lands below the Eastern Ghats" 

Patron of art and architecture
Veera Ballala II was a great patron of Kannada literature  Janna, one of the most influential Kannada poets of the 13th century, graced his court and was honored with the title Kavichakravarthi ("Emperor among poets")  His most noteworthy writing and magnum opus, the Yashodhara Charitre (c 1209) deals with Jain tenets  Nemichandra was court poet to both Ballala II and the Shilahara King Lakshmana of Kholapur  He wrote Lilavati Prabandha (about c 1170), the earliest available romantic true fiction in Kannada, and an unfinished Jain epic called Neminathapurana at the instance of Ballala II's minister  Rudrabhatta, a noteworthy Brahman writer of the late 12th century was patronized by the king and one of his ministers  He composed the Jagannatha Vijaya in c 1180, the earliest available Vaishnava epic in the Kannada language Ballala II's rule saw the proliferation of the temple construction adhering to the Vesara architecture, a style first made popular by the Western Chalukyas  Some of the best known temples built during his rule were the Kedareshwara temple at Halebidu, the Veera Narayana temple at Belavadi, the Amrutesvara Temple at Amruthapura and the twin ensemble of the Chennakeshava and Nageshvara temples at Mosale Ballala II donated Meruhalli village and other lands in 1174 CE for providing food to Jain monks  He further gifted two villages to Vajranandi-Siddhantadeva for the same purpose  Nanjedevaragudda stone inscription of 1192 CE describes the donations by Hoysala rulers and subjects for Jain monks at Abhinava Shantideva temple at Somepur, Hassan district 
Passage 2:
George VI
George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death on 6 February 1952  He was also the last Emperor of India from 1936 until the British Raj was dissolved in August 1947, and the first Head of the Commonwealth following the London Declaration of 1949 
The future George VI was born in the reign of his great-grandmother Victoria; he was named Albert at birth after his great-grandfather Albert, Prince Consort, and was known as "Bertie" to his family and close friends  His father ascended the throne as George V in 1910  As the second son of the king, Albert was not expected to inherit the throne  He spent his early life in the shadow of his elder brother, Prince Edward, the heir apparent  Albert attended naval college as a teenager and served in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force during the First World War  In 1920, he was made Duke of York  He married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923, and they had two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret  In the mid-1920s, he engaged speech therapist Lionel Logue to treat his stutter, which he learned to manage to some degree  His elder brother ascended the throne as Edward VIII after their father died in 1936, but Edward abdicated later that year to marry the twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson  As heir presumptive to Edward VIII, Albert thereby became the third monarch of the House of Windsor, taking the regnal name George VI 
In September 1939, the British Empire and most Commonwealth countries—but not Ireland—declared war on Nazi Germany  War with the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Japan followed in 1940 and 1941, respectively  George VI was seen as sharing the hardships of the common people and his popularity soared  Buckingham Palace was bombed during the Blitz while the King and Queen were there, and his younger brother the Duke of Kent was killed on active service  George became known as a symbol of British determination to win the war  Britain and its allies were victorious in 1945, but the British Empire declined  Ireland had largely broken away, followed by the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947  George relinquished the title of Emperor of India in June 1948 and instead adopted the new title of Head of the Commonwealth  He was beset by smoking-related health problems in the later years of his reign and died at Sandringham House, aged 56, of a coronary thrombosis in 1952  He was succeeded by his elder daughter, Elizabeth II 

Early life
Albert was born at York Cottage, on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria  His father was Prince George, Duke of York (later King George V), the second and only surviving son of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra)  His mother, the Duchess of York (later Queen Mary), was the eldest child and only daughter of Francis, Duke of Teck, and Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck  His birthday, 14 December 1895, was the 34th anniversary of the death of his great-grandfather Albert, Prince Consort  Uncertain of how the Prince Consort's widow, Queen Victoria, would take the news of the birth, the Prince of Wales wrote to the Duke of York that the Queen had been "rather distressed"  Two days later, he wrote again: "I really think it would gratify her if you yourself proposed the name Albert to her "The Queen was mollified by the proposal to name the new baby Albert, and wrote to the Duchess of York: "I am all impatience to see the new one, born on such a sad day but rather more dear to me, especially as he will be called by that dear name which is a byword for all that is great and good " Consequently, he was baptised "Albert Frederick Arthur George" at St Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham on 17 February 1896  Formally he was His Highness Prince Albert of York; within the royal family he was known informally as "Bertie"  The Duchess of Teck did not like the first name her grandson had been given, and she wrote prophetically that she hoped the last name "may supplant the less favoured one"  Albert was fourth in line to the throne at birth, after his grandfather, father and elder brother, Edward 
Albert was ill often and was described as "easily frightened and somewhat prone to tears"  His parents were generally removed from their children's day-to-day upbringing, as was the norm in aristocratic families of that era  He had a stutter that lasted for many years  Although naturally left-handed, he was forced to write with his right hand, as was common practice at the time  He had chronic stomach problems as well as knock knees, for which he was forced to wear painful corrective splints Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901, and the Prince of Wales succeeded her as King Edward VII  Prince Albert moved up to third in line to the throne, after his father and elder brother 

Military career and education
Beginning in 1909, Albert attended the Royal Naval College, Osborne, as a naval cadet  In 1911 he came bottom of the class in the final examination, but despite this he progressed to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth  When his grandfather Edward VII died in 1910, his father became King George V  Prince Edward became Prince of Wales, with Albert second in line to the throne Albert spent the first six months of 1913 on the training ship HMS Cumberland in the West Indies and on the east coast of Canada  He was rated as a midshipman aboard HMS Collingwood on 15 September 1913  He spent three months in the Mediterranean, but never overcame his seasickness  Three weeks after the outbreak of World War I he was medically evacuated from the ship to Aberdeen, where his appendix was removed by Sir John Marnoch  He was mentioned in dispatches for his actions as a turret officer aboard Collingwood in the Battle of Jutland (31 May – 1 June 1916), the great naval battle of the war  He did not see further combat, largely because of ill health caused by a duodenal ulcer, for which he had an operation in November 1917 In February 1918 Albert was appointed Officer in Charge of Boys at the Royal Naval Air Service's training establishment at Cranwell  With the establishment of the Royal Air Force Albert transferred from the Royal Navy to the Royal Air Force  He served as Officer Commanding Number 4 Squadron of the Boys' Wing at Cranwell until August 1918, before reporting for duty on the staff of the RAF's Cadet Brigade at St Leonards-on-Sea and then at Shorncliffe  He completed a fortnight's training and took command of a squadron on the Cadet Wing  He was the first member of the British royal family to be certified as a fully qualified pilot Albert wanted to serve on the Continent while the war was still in progress and welcomed a posting to General Trenchard's staff in France  On 23 October, he flew across the Channel to Autigny  For the closing weeks of the war, he served on the staff of the RAF's Independent Air Force at its headquarters in Nancy, France  Following the disbanding of the Independent Air Force in November 1918, he remained on the Continent for two months as an RAF staff officer until posted back to Britain  He accompanied King Albert I of Belgium on his triumphal re-entry into Brussels on 22 November  Prince Albert qualified as an RAF pilot on 31 July 1919 and was promoted to squadron leader the following day In October 1919, Albert went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied history, economics and civics for a year, with the historian R  V  Laurence as his "official mentor"  On 4 June 1920 his father created him Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killarney  He began to take on more royal duties  He represented his father and toured coal mines, factories, and railyards  Through such visits he acquired the nickname of the "Industrial Prince"  His stutter, and his embarrassment over it, together with a tendency to shyness, caused him to appear less confident in public than his older brother, Edward  However, he was physically active and enjoyed playing tennis  He played at Wimbledon in the Men's Doubles with Louis Greig in 1926, losing in the first round  He developed an interest in working conditions, and was president of the Industrial Welfare Society  His series of annual summer camps for boys between 1921 and 1939 brought together boys from different social backgrounds 

Marriage
In a time when royalty were expected to marry fellow royalty, it was unusual that Albert had a great deal of freedom in choosing a prospective wife  An infatuation with the already-married Australian socialite Lady Loughborough came to an end in April 1920 when the King, with the promise of the dukedom of York, persuaded Albert to stop seeing her  That year, he met for the first time since childhood Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the youngest daughter of the Earl and Countess of Strathmore  He became determined to marry her  Elizabeth rejected his proposal twice, in 1921 and 1922, reportedly because she was reluctant to make the sacrifices necessary to become a member of the royal family  In the words of Lady Strathmore, Albert would be "made or marred" by his choice of wife  After a protracted courtship, Elizabeth agreed to marry him Albert and Elizabeth were married on 26 April 1923 in Westminster Abbey  Albert's marriage to someone not of royal birth was considered a modernising gesture  The newly formed British Broadcasting Company wished to record and broadcast the event on radio, but the Abbey Chapter vetoed the idea (although the Dean, Herbert Edward Ryle, was in favour) 

From December 1924 to April 1925, the Duke and Duchess toured Kenya, Uganda, and the Sudan, travelling via the Suez Canal and Aden  During the trip, they both went big-game hunting Because of his stutter, Albert dreaded public speaking  After his closing speech at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley on 31 October 1925, one which was an ordeal for both him and his listeners, he began to see Lionel Logue, an Australian-born speech therapist  The Duke and Logue practised breathing exercises, and the Duchess rehearsed with him patiently  Subsequently, he was able to speak with less hesitation  With his delivery improved, Albert opened the new Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, during a tour of the empire with the Duchess in 1927  Their journey by sea to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji took them via Jamaica, where Albert played doubles tennis partnered with a black man, Bertrand Clark, which was unusual at the time and taken locally as a display of equality between races The Duke and Duchess had two children: Elizabeth (called "Lilibet" by the family, and the future Elizabeth II) who was born in 1926, and Margaret who was born in 1930  The close family lived at White Lodge, Richmond Park, and then at 145 Piccadilly, rather than one of the royal palaces  In 1931, the Canadian prime minister, R  B  Bennett, considered Albert for Governor General of Canada—a proposal that King George V rejected on the advice of the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, J  H  Thomas 

Reign
Reluctant king
King George V had severe reservations about Prince Edward, saying "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months" and "I pray God that my eldest son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne " On 20 January 1936, George V died and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII  In the Vigil of the Princes, Prince Albert and his three brothers (the new king, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and Prince George, Duke of Kent) took a shift standing guard over their father's body as it lay in state, in a closed casket, in Westminster Hall 
As Edward was unmarried and had no children, Albert was the heir presumptive to the throne  Less than a year later, on 11 December 1936, Edward abdicated in order to marry Wallis Simpson, who was divorced from her first husband and divorcing her second  Edward had been advised by British prime minister Stanley Baldwin that he could not remain king and marry a divorced woman with two living ex-husbands  He abdicated and Albert, though he had been reluctant to accept the throne, became king  The day before the abdication, Albert went to London to see his mother, Queen Mary  He wrote in his diary, "When I told her what had happened, I broke down and sobbed like a child "On the day of Edward's abdication, the Oireachtas, the parliament of the Irish Free State, removed all direct mention of the monarch from the Irish constitution  The next day, it passed the External Relations Act, which gave the monarch limited authority (strictly on the advice of the government) to appoint diplomatic representatives for Ireland and to be involved in the making of foreign treaties  The two acts made the Irish Free State a republic in essence without removing its links to the Commonwealth Across Britain, gossip spread that Albert was physically and psychologically incapable of being king  No evidence has been found to support the contemporaneous rumour that the government considered bypassing him, his children and his brother Prince Henry, in favour of their younger brother Prince George, Duke of Kent  This seems to have been suggested on the grounds that Prince George was at that time the only brother with a son 

Early reign
Albert assumed the regnal name "George VI" to emphasise continuity with his father and restore confidence in the monarchy  The beginning of George VI's reign was taken up by questions surrounding his predecessor and brother, whose titles, style and position were uncertain  He had been introduced as "His Royal Highness Prince Edward" for the abdication broadcast, but George VI felt that by abdicating and renouncing the succession, Edward had lost the right to bear royal titles, including "Royal Highness"  In settling the issue, George's first act as king was to confer upon his brother the title "Duke of Windsor" with the style "Royal Highness", but the letters patent creating the dukedom prevented any wife or children from bearing royal styles  George VI was forced to buy from Edward the royal residences of Balmoral Castle and Sandringham House, as these were private properties and did not pass to him automatically  Three days after his accession, on his 41st birthday, he invested his wife, the new queen consort, with the Order of the Garter 

George VI's coronation at Westminster Abbey took place on 12 May 1937, the date previously intended for Edward's coronation  In a break with tradition, his mother Queen Mary attended the ceremony in a show of support for her son  There was no Durbar held in Delhi for George VI, as had occurred for his father, as the cost would have been a burden to the Government of India  Rising Indian nationalism made the welcome that the royal party would have received likely to be muted at best, and a prolonged absence from Britain would have been undesirable in the tense period before the Second World War  Two overseas tours were undertaken, to France and to North America, both of which promised greater strategic advantages in the event of war The growing likelihood of war in Europe dominated the early reign of George VI  The King was constitutionally bound to support British prime minister Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler  When the King and Queen greeted Chamberlain on his return from negotiating the Munich Agreement in 1938, they invited him to appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace with them  This public association of the monarchy with a politician was exceptional, as balcony appearances were traditionally restricted to the royal family  While broadly popular among the general public, Chamberlain's policy towards Hitler was the subject of some opposition in the House of Commons, which led historian John Grigg to describe George's behaviour in associating himself so prominently with a politician as "the most unconstitutional act by a British sovereign in the present century" 

In May and June 1939, the King and Queen toured Canada and the United States; it was the first visit of a reigning British monarch to North America, although George had been to Canada prior to his accession  From Ottawa, George and Elizabeth were accompanied by Canadian prime minister Mackenzie King, to present themselves in North America as King and Queen of Canada  Both Mackenzie King and the Canadian governor general, Lord Tweedsmuir, hoped that George's presence in Canada would demonstrate the principles of the Statute of Westminster 1931, which gave full sovereignty to the British Dominions  On 19 May, George personally accepted and approved the Letter of Credence of the new U S  ambassador to Canada, Daniel Calhoun Roper; gave royal assent to nine parliamentary bills; and ratified two   international treaties with the Great Seal of Canada  The official royal tour historian, Gustave Lanctot, wrote "the Statute of Westminster had assumed full reality" and George gave a speech emphasising "the free and equal association of the nations of the Commonwealth" The trip was intended to soften the strong isolationist tendencies among the North American public with regard to the developing tensions in Europe  Although the aim of the tour was mainly political, to shore up Atlantic support for the United Kingdom in any future war, the King and Queen were enthusiastically received by the public  The fear that George would be compared unfavourably to his predecessor was dispelled  They visited the 1939 New York World's Fair and stayed with President Franklin D  Roosevelt at the White House and at his private estate at Hyde Park, New York  A strong bond of friendship was forged between Roosevelt and the royal couple during the tour, which had major significance in the relations between the United States and the United Kingdom through the ensuing war years 

Second World War
Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the United Kingdom and the self-governing Dominions other than Ireland declared war on Nazi Germany  The King and Queen resolved to stay in London, despite German bombing raids  They officially stayed in Buckingham Palace throughout the war, although they usually spent nights at Windsor Castle  The first night of the Blitz on London, on 7 September 1940, killed about one thousand civilians, mostly in the East End  On 13 September, the couple narrowly avoided death when two German bombs exploded in a courtyard at Buckingham Palace while they were there  In defiance, Elizabeth declared: "I am glad we have been bombed  It makes me feel we can look the East End in the face " The royal family were portrayed as sharing the same dangers and deprivations as the rest of the country  They were subject to British rationing restrictions, and U S  First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt remarked on the rationed food served and the limited bathwater that was permitted during a stay at the unheated and boarded-up Palace  In August 1942, the King's brother, the Duke of Kent, was killed on active service 

In 1940, Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister, though personally George would have preferred to appoint Lord Halifax  After the King's initial dismay over Churchill's appointment of Lord Beaverbrook to the Cabinet, he and Churchill developed "the closest personal relationship in modern British history between a monarch and a Prime Minister"  Every Tuesday for four and a half years from September 1940, the two men met privately for lunch to discuss the war in secret and with frankness  George related much of what the two discussed in his diary, which is the only extant first-hand account of these conversations Throughout the war, George and Elizabeth provided morale-boosting visits throughout the United Kingdom, visiting bomb sites, munitions factories, and troops  George visited military forces abroad in France in December 1939, North Africa and Malta in June 1943, Normandy in June 1944, southern Italy in July 1944, and the Low Countries in October 1944  Their high public profile and apparently indefatigable determination secured their place as symbols of national resistance  At a social function in 1944, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, revealed that every time he met Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, he thought Montgomery was after his job  George replied: "You should worry, when I meet him, I always think he's after mine!"In 1945, crowds shouted "We want the King!" in front of Buckingham Palace during the Victory in Europe Day celebrations  In an echo of Chamberlain's appearance, the King invited Churchill to appear with the royal family on the balcony to public acclaim  In January 1946, George addressed the United Nations at its first assembly, which was held in London, and reaffirmed "our faith in the equal rights of men and women and of nations great and small" 

Empire to Commonwealth
George VI's reign saw the acceleration of the dissolution of the British Empire  The Statute of Westminster 1931 had already acknowledged the evolution of the Dominions into separate sovereign states  The process of transformation from an empire to a voluntary association of independent states, known as the Commonwealth, gathered pace after the Second World War  During the ministry of Clement Attlee, British India became the two independent Dominions of India and Pakistan in August 1947  George relinquished the title of Emperor of India, and became King of India and King of Pakistan instead  In late April 1949, the Commonwealth leaders issued the London Declaration, which laid the foundation of the modern Commonwealth and recognised George as Head of the Commonwealth  In January 1950, he ceased to be King of India when it became a republic  He remained King of Pakistan until his death  Other countries left the Commonwealth, such as Burma in January 1948, Palestine (divided between Israel and the Arab states) in May 1948 and the Republic of Ireland in 1949 In 1947, George and his family toured southern Africa  The prime minister of the Union of South Africa, Jan Smuts, was facing an election and hoped to make political capital out of the visit  George was appalled, however, when instructed by the South African government to shake hands only with whites, and referred to his South African bodyguards as "the Gestapo"  Despite the tour, Smuts lost the election the following year, and the new government instituted a strict policy of racial segregation 

Illness and death
The stress of the war had taken its toll on George's health, made worse by his heavy smoking, and subsequent development of lung cancer among other ailments, including arteriosclerosis and Buerger's disease  A planned tour of Australia and New Zealand was postponed after George developed an arterial blockage in his right leg, which threatened the loss of the leg and was treated with a right lumbar sympathectomy in March 1949  His elder daughter and heir presumptive, Elizabeth, took on more royal duties as her father's health deteriorated  The delayed tour was re-organised, with Princess Elizabeth and her husband, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, taking the place of the King and Queen 
George was well enough to open the Festival of Britain in May 1951, but on 4 June it was announced that he would need immediate and complete rest for the next four weeks, despite the arrival of Haakon VII of Norway the following afternoon for an official visit  On 23 September 1951, he underwent a surgical operation where his entire left lung was removed by Clement Price Thomas after a malignant tumour was found  In October 1951, Elizabeth and Philip went on a month-long tour of Canada; the trip had been delayed for a week due to George's illness  At the State Opening of Parliament in November, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Simonds, read the King's speech from the throne  The King's Christmas broadcast of 1951 was recorded in sections, and then edited together On 31 January 1952, despite advice from those close to him, George went to London Airport to see Elizabeth and Philip off on their tour to Australia via Kenya  It was his last public appearance  Six days later, at 07:30 GMT on the morning of 6 February, he was found dead in bed at Sandringham House in Norfolk  He had died in the night from a coronary thrombosis at the age of 56  His daughter flew back to Britain from Kenya as Queen Elizabeth II From 9 February George's coffin rested in St Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham, before lying in state at Westminster Hall from 11 February  His funeral took place at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on the 15th  He was interred initially in the Royal Vault until he was transferred to the King George VI Memorial Chapel inside St George's on 26 March 1969  In 2002, fifty years after his death, the remains of his widow, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and the ashes of his younger daughter, Princess Margaret, who both died that year, were interred in the chapel alongside him  In 2022, the remains of Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, were also interred in the chapel 

Legacy
In the words of Labour Member of Parliament (MP) George Hardie, the abdication crisis of 1936 did "more for republicanism than fifty years of propaganda"  George VI wrote to his brother Edward that in the aftermath of the abdication he had reluctantly assumed "a rocking throne" and tried "to make it steady again"  He became king at a point when public faith in the monarchy was at a low ebb  During his reign, his people endured the hardships of war, and imperial power was eroded  However, as a dutiful family man and by showing personal courage, he succeeded in restoring the popularity of the monarchy The George Cross and the George Medal were founded at the King's suggestion during the Second World War to recognise acts of exceptional civilian bravery  He bestowed the George Cross on the entire "island fortress of Malta" in 1943  He was posthumously awarded the Order of Liberation by the French government in 1960, one of only two people (the other being Churchill in 1958) to be awarded the medal after 1946 Colin Firth won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as George VI in the 2010 film The King's Speech 

Titles, honours and arms
As Duke of York, Albert bore the royal arms of the United Kingdom differenced with a label of three points argent, the centre point bearing an anchor azure—a difference earlier awarded to his father, George V, when he was Duke of York, and then later awarded to his grandson Prince Andrew, Duke of York  As king, he bore the royal arms undifferenced 

Issue
Ancestry
Notes
Passage 3:
The King's Speech
The King's Speech is a 2010 historical drama film directed by Tom Hooper and written by David Seidler  Colin Firth plays the future King George VI who, to cope with a stammer, sees Lionel Logue, an Australian speech and language therapist played by Geoffrey Rush  The men become friends as they work together, and after his brother abdicates the throne, the new king relies on Logue to help him make his first wartime radio broadcast upon Britain's declaration of war on Germany in 1939 
Seidler read about George VI's life after learning to manage a stuttering condition he developed during his own youth  He started writing about the relationship between the therapist and his royal patient as early as the 1980s, but at the request of the King's widow, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, postponed work until her death in 2002  He later rewrote his screenplay for the stage to focus on the essential relationship between the two protagonists  Nine weeks before filming began, the filmmakers learned of the existence of notes written by Logue that were being used by his grandson Mark and Peter Conradi as the basis of a book, and were granted permission to incorporate material from the notes and book into the script 
Principal photography took place in London and around Britain from November 2009 to January 2010  Hard light was used to give the story a greater resonance and wider-than-normal lenses were employed to recreate the Duke of York's feelings of constriction  A third technique Hooper employed was the off-centre framing of characters 
The King's Speech was a major box office and critical success  It was widely praised by film critics for its visual style, art direction, screenplay, directing, score, and acting  Other commentators discussed the film's representation of historical detail, especially the reversal of Winston Churchill's opposition to abdication  The film received many awards and nominations, particularly for Colin Firth's performance, which resulted in his first Academy Award for Best Actor  At the 83rd Academy Awards, The King's Speech received 12 Oscar nominations, more than any other film in that year, and subsequently won four, including Best Picture  Censors initially gave it adult ratings due to profanity, though these were later revised downwards after criticism by the makers and distributors in the UK and some instances of swearing were muted in the US
Context 3: Passage 1:
Ivanoff Head
Ivanoff Head (66°53′S 109°7′E) is a small rocky headland, or probable island, which lies along the coast and is partly overlain by continental ice, situated 4 miles (6 4 km) west of the Hatch Islands at the head of Vincennes Bay, Antarctica  The feature was first mapped from aerial photographs taken by U S  Navy Operation Highjump, 1946–47, and was named "Brooks Island" by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names in 1956  The name Ivanoff Head, inadvertently applied by Australia in 1961, has succeeded the earlier name in general use and is now recommended  Helicopter landings were made here by Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions from the Magga Dan in February 1960  The feature was used as a rescue base when a helicopter crashed nearby, and was named after Captain P  Ivanoff, the pilot of the crashed helicopter 

See also
Brooks Point
Passage 2:
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban   (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I  Bacon led the advancement of both natural philosophy and the scientific method and his works remained influential even in the late stages of the Scientific Revolution Bacon has been called the father of empiricism  He argued for the possibility of scientific knowledge based only upon inductive reasoning and careful observation of events in nature  He believed that science could be achieved by the use of a sceptical and methodical approach whereby scientists aim to avoid misleading themselves  Although his most specific proposals about such a method, the Baconian method, did not have long-lasting influence, the general idea of the importance and possibility of a sceptical methodology makes Bacon one of the later founders of the scientific method  His portion of the method based in scepticism was a new rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, whose practical details are still central to debates on science and methodology  He is famous for his role in the scientific revolution, begun during the Middle Ages, promoting scientific experimentation as a way of glorifying God and fulfilling scripture 
Bacon was a patron of libraries and developed a system for cataloguing books under three categories – history, poetry, and philosophy –  which could further be divided into specific subjects and subheadings  About books he wrote, "Some books are to be tasted; others swallowed; and some few to be chewed and digested " The Shakespearean authorship thesis, which was first proposed in the mid-19th century, contends that Bacon wrote at least some and possibly all of the plays conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare Bacon was educated at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, where he rigorously followed the medieval curriculum, which was presented largely in Latin  He was the first recipient of the Queen's counsel designation, conferred in 1597 when Elizabeth I reserved him as her legal advisor  After the accession of James I in 1603, Bacon was knighted, then created Baron Verulam in 1618 and Viscount St Alban in 1621  He had no heirs and so both titles became extinct on his death of pneumonia in 1626 at the age of 65  He is buried at St Michael's Church, St Albans, Hertfordshire 

Biography
Early life and education
Francis Bacon was born on 22 January 1561 at York House near Strand in London, the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon (Lord Keeper of the Great Seal) by his second wife, Anne (Cooke) Bacon, the daughter of the noted Renaissance humanist Anthony Cooke  His mother's sister was married to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, making Burghley Bacon's uncle Biographers believe that Bacon was educated at home in his early years owing to poor health, which would plague him throughout his life  He received tuition from John Walsall, a graduate of Oxford with a strong leaning toward Puritanism  He attended Trinity College at the University of Cambridge on 5 April 1573 at the age of 12, living there for three years along with his older brother Anthony Bacon under the personal tutelage of Dr John Whitgift, future Archbishop of Canterbury  Bacon's education was conducted largely in Latin and followed the medieval curriculum  It was at Cambridge that Bacon first met Queen Elizabeth, who was impressed by his precocious intellect, and was accustomed to calling him "The young lord keeper" His studies brought him to the belief that the methods and results of science as then practised were erroneous  His reverence for Aristotle conflicted with his rejection of Aristotelian philosophy, which seemed to him barren, argumentative and wrong in its objectives 
On 27 June 1576, he and Anthony entered de societate magistrorum at Gray's Inn  A few months later, Francis went abroad with Sir Amias Paulet, the English ambassador at Paris, while Anthony continued his studies at home  The state of government and society in France under Henry III afforded him valuable political instruction  For the next three years he visited Blois, Poitiers, Tours, Italy, and Spain  There is no evidence that he studied at the University of Poitiers  During his travels, Bacon studied language, statecraft, and civil law while performing routine diplomatic tasks  On at least one occasion he delivered diplomatic letters to England for Walsingham, Burghley, Leicester, and for the queen The sudden death of his father in February 1579 prompted Bacon to return to England  Sir Nicholas had laid up a considerable sum of money to purchase an estate for his youngest son, but he died before doing so, and Francis was left with only a fifth of that money  Having borrowed money, Bacon got into debt  To support himself, he took up his residence in law at Gray's Inn in 1579, his income being supplemented by a grant from his mother Lady Anne of the manor of Marks near Romford in Essex, which generated a rent of £46 

Parliamentarian
Bacon stated that he had three goals: to uncover truth, to serve his country, and to serve his church  He sought to achieve these goals by seeking a prestigious post  In 1580, through his uncle, Lord Burghley, he applied for a post at court that might enable him to pursue a life of learning, but his application failed  For two years he worked quietly at Gray's Inn, until he was admitted as an outer barrister in 1582 His parliamentary career began when he was elected MP for Bossiney, Cornwall, in a by-election in 1581  In 1584 he took his seat in Parliament for Melcombe in Dorset, and in 1586 for Taunton  At this time, he began to write on the condition of parties in the church, as well as on the topic of philosophical reform in the lost tract Temporis Partus Maximus  Yet he failed to gain a position that he thought would lead him to success  He showed signs of sympathy to Puritanism, attending the sermons of the Puritan chaplain of Gray's Inn and accompanying his mother to the Temple Church to hear Walter Travers  This led to the publication of his earliest surviving tract, which criticized the English church's suppression of the Puritan clergy  In the Parliament of 1586, he openly urged execution for the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots About this time, he again approached his powerful uncle for help; this move was followed by his rapid progress at the bar  He became a bencher in 1586 and was elected a Reader in 1587, delivering his first set of lectures in Lent the following year  In 1589, he received the valuable appointment of reversion to the Clerkship of the Star Chamber, although he did not formally take office until 1608; the post was worth £1,600 a year In 1588 he became MP for Liverpool and then for Middlesex in 1593  He later sat three times for Ipswich (1597, 1601, 1604) and once for Cambridge University (1614) He became known as a liberal-minded reformer, eager to amend and simplify the law  Though a friend of the crown, he opposed feudal privileges and dictatorial powers  He spoke against religious persecution  He struck at the House of Lords in its usurpation of the Money Bills  He advocated for the union of England and Scotland, which made him a significant influence toward the consolidation of the United Kingdom; and he later would advocate for the integration of Ireland into the Union  Closer constitutional ties, he believed, would bring greater peace and strength to these countries 

Final years of the Queen's reign
Bacon soon became acquainted with Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth's favourite  By 1591 he acted as the earl's confidential adviser  In 1592, he was commissioned to write a tract in response to the Jesuit Robert Parson's anti-government polemic, which he titled Certain Observations Made upon a Libel, identifying England with the ideals of democratic Athens against the belligerence of Spain  Bacon took his third parliamentary seat for Middlesex when in February 1593 Elizabeth summoned Parliament to investigate a Roman Catholic plot against her  Bacon's opposition to a bill that would levy triple subsidies in half the usual time offended the Queen: opponents accused him of seeking popularity, and for a time the Court excluded him from favour When the office of Attorney General fell vacant in 1594, Lord Essex's influence was not enough to secure the position for Bacon and it was given to Sir Edward Coke  Likewise, Bacon failed to secure the lesser office of Solicitor General in 1595, the Queen pointedly snubbing him by appointing Sir Thomas Fleming instead  To console him for these disappointments, Essex presented him with a property at Twickenham, which Bacon subsequently sold for £1,800 In 1597 Bacon became the first Queen's Counsel designate, when Queen Elizabeth reserved him as her legal counsel  In 1597, he was also given a patent, giving him precedence at the Bar  Despite his designations, he was unable to gain the status and notoriety of others  In a plan to revive his position he unsuccessfully courted the wealthy young widow Lady Elizabeth Hatton  His courtship failed after she broke off their relationship upon accepting marriage to Sir Edward Coke, a further spark of enmity between the men  In 1598 Bacon was arrested for debt  Afterward, however, his standing in the Queen's eyes improved  Gradually, Bacon earned the standing of one of the learned counsels  His relationship with the Queen further improved when he severed ties with Essex—a shrewd move, as Essex would be executed for treason in 1601 With others, Bacon was appointed to investigate the charges against Essex  A number of Essex's followers confessed that Essex had planned a rebellion against the Queen  Bacon was subsequently a part of the legal team headed by the Attorney General Sir Edward Coke at Essex's treason trial  After the execution, the Queen ordered Bacon to write the official government account of the trial, which was later published as A DECLARATION of the Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert late Earle of Essex and his Complices, against her Majestie and her Kingdoms     after Bacon's first draft was heavily edited by the Queen and her ministers According to his personal secretary and chaplain, William Rawley, as a judge Bacon was always tender-hearted, "looking upon the examples with the eye of severity, but upon the person with the eye of pity and compassion"  And also that "he was free from malice", "no revenger of injuries", and "no defamer of any man" 

James I comes to the throne
The succession of James I brought Bacon into greater favour  He was knighted in 1603  In another shrewd move, Bacon wrote his Apologies in defense of his proceedings in the case of Essex, as Essex had favoured James to succeed to the throne  The following year, during the course of the uneventful first parliament session, Bacon married Alice Barnham  In June 1607, he was at last rewarded with the office of solicitor general and, in 1608, he began working as the Clerkship of the Star Chamber  Despite a generous income, old debts still could not be paid  He sought further promotion and wealth by supporting King James and his arbitrary policies  In 1610, the fourth session of James's first parliament met  Despite Bacon's advice to him, James and the Commons found themselves at odds over royal prerogatives and the king's embarrassing extravagance  The House was finally dissolved in February 1611  Throughout this period Bacon managed to stay in the favor of the king while retaining the confidence of the Commons 
In 1613, Bacon was finally appointed attorney general, after advising the king to shuffle judicial appointments  As attorney general, Bacon, by his zealous efforts—which included torture—to obtain the conviction of Edmund Peacham for treason, raised legal controversies of high constitutional importance; and successfully prosecuted Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, and his wife, Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset, for murder in 1616  The so-called Prince's Parliament of April 1614 objected to Bacon's presence in the seat for Cambridge and to the various royal plans that Bacon had supported  Although he was allowed to stay, parliament passed a law that forbade the attorney general to sit in parliament  His influence over the king had evidently inspired resentment or apprehension in many of his peers  Bacon, however, continued to receive the King's favour, which led to his appointment in March 1617 as temporary Regent of England (for a period of a month), and in 1618 as Lord Chancellor  On 12 July 1618 the king created Bacon Baron Verulam, of Verulam, in the Peerage of England; he then became known as Francis, Lord Verulam Bacon continued to use his influence with the king to mediate between the throne and Parliament, and in this capacity he was further elevated in the same peerage, as Viscount St Alban, on 27 January 1621 

Lord Chancellor and public disgrace
Bacon's public career ended in disgrace in 1621  After he fell into debt, a parliamentary committee on the administration of the law charged him with 23 separate counts of corruption  His lifelong enemy, Sir Edward Coke, who had instigated these accusations, was one of those appointed to prepare the charges against the chancellor  To the lords, who sent a committee to enquire whether a confession was really his, he replied, "My lords, it is my act, my hand, and my heart; I beseech your lordships to be merciful to a broken reed " He was sentenced to a fine of £40,000 and committed to the Tower of London at the king's pleasure; the imprisonment lasted only a few days and the fine was remitted by the king  More seriously, parliament declared Bacon incapable of holding future office or sitting in parliament  He narrowly escaped undergoing degradation, which would have stripped him of his titles of nobility  Subsequently, the disgraced viscount devoted himself to study and writing 
There seems little doubt that Bacon had accepted gifts from litigants, but this was an accepted custom of the time and not necessarily evidence of deeply corrupt behaviour  While acknowledging that his conduct had been lax, he countered that he had never allowed gifts to influence his judgement and, indeed, he had on occasion given a verdict against those who had paid him  He even had an interview with King James in which he assured:

The law of nature teaches me to speak in my own defence: With respect to this charge of bribery I am as innocent as any man born on St  Innocents Day  I never had a bribe or reward in my eye or thought when pronouncing judgment or order    I am ready to make an oblation of myself to the King
He also wrote the following to Buckingham:

My mind is calm, for my fortune is not my felicity  I know I have clean hands and a clean heart, and I hope a clean house for friends or servants; but Job himself, or whoever was the justest judge, by such hunting for matters against him as hath been used against me, may for a time seem foul, especially in a time when greatness is the mark and accusation is the game  
As the conduct of accepting gifts was ubiquitous and common practice, and the Commons was zealously inquiring into judicial corruption and malfeasance, it has been suggested that Bacon served as a scapegoat to divert attention from Buckingham's own ill practice and alleged corruption The true reason for his acknowledgement of guilt is the subject of debate, but some authors speculate that it may have been prompted by his sickness, or by a view that through his fame and the greatness of his office he would be spared harsh punishment  He may even have been blackmailed, with a threat to charge him with sodomy, into confession The British jurist Basil Montagu wrote in Bacon's defense, concerning the episode of his public disgrace:

Bacon has been accused of servility, of dissimulation, of various base motives, and their filthy brood of base actions, all unworthy of his high birth, and incompatible with his great wisdom, and the estimation in which he was held by the noblest spirits of the age  It is true that there were men in his own time, and will be men in all times, who are better pleased to count spots in the sun than to rejoice in its glorious brightness  Such men have openly libelled him, like Dewes and Weldon, whose falsehoods were detected as soon as uttered, or have fastened upon certain ceremonious compliments and dedications, the fashion of his day, as a sample of his servility, passing over his noble letters to the Queen, his lofty contempt for the Lord Keeper Puckering, his open dealing with Sir Robert Cecil, and with others, who, powerful when he was nothing, might have blighted his opening fortunes for ever, forgetting his advocacy of the rights of the people in the face of the court, and the true and honest counsels, always given by him, in times of great difficulty, both to Elizabeth and her successor  When was a "base sycophant" loved and honoured by piety such as that of Herbert, Tennison, and Rawley, by noble spirits like Hobbes, Ben Jonson, and Selden, or followed to the grave, and beyond it, with devoted affection such as that of Sir Thomas Meautys 

Personal life
Religious beliefs
Bacon was a devout Anglican  He believed that philosophy and the natural world must be studied inductively, but argued that we can only study arguments for the existence of God  Information about God's attributes (such as nature, action, and purposes) can only come from special revelation  Bacon also held that knowledge was cumulative, that study encompassed more than a simple preservation of the past  "Knowledge is the rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate," he wrote  In his Essays, he affirms that "a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion "Bacon's idea of idols of the mind may have self-consciously represented an attempt to Christianize science at the same time as developing a new, reliable scientific method; Bacon gave worship of Neptune as an example of the idola tribus fallacy, hinting at the religious dimensions of his critique of the idols Bacon was against the splintering within Christianity, believing that it would ultimately lead to the creation of atheism as a dominant worldview, as indicated with his quote that "The causes of atheism are: divisions in religion, if they be many; for any one main division, addeth zeal to both sides; but many divisions introduce atheism  Another is, scandal of priests; when it is come to that which St  Bernard saith "One cannot now say the priest is as the people, for the truth is that the people are not so bad as the priest"  A third is, custom of profane scoffing in holy matters; which doth by little and little deface the reverence of religion  And lastly, learned times, specially with peace and prosperity; for troubles and adversities do more bow men's minds to religion "

Architectural projects
Bacon built Verulam House to his own designs 

Marriage to Alice Barnham
When he was 36, Bacon courted Elizabeth Hatton, a young widow of 20  Reportedly, she broke off their relationship upon accepting marriage to a wealthier man, Bacon's rival, Sir Edward Coke  Years later, Bacon still wrote of his regret that the marriage to Hatton had not taken place At the age of 45, Bacon married Alice Barnham, the 13-year-old daughter of a well-connected London alderman and MP  Bacon wrote two sonnets proclaiming his love for Alice  The first was written during his courtship and the second on his wedding day, 10 May 1606  When Bacon was appointed lord chancellor, "by special Warrant of the King", Lady Bacon was given precedence over all other Court ladies  Bacon's personal secretary and chaplain, William Rawley, wrote in his biography of Bacon that his marriage was one of "much conjugal love and respect", mentioning a robe of honour that he gave to Alice and which "she wore unto her dying day, being twenty years and more after his death" However, an increasing number of reports circulated about friction in the marriage, with speculation that this may have been due to Alice's making do with less money than she had once been accustomed to  It was said that she was strongly interested in fame and fortune, and when household finances dwindled, she complained bitterly  Bunten wrote in her Life of Alice Barnham  that, upon their descent into debt, she went on trips to ask for financial favours and assistance from their circle of friends  Bacon disinherited her upon discovering her secret romantic relationship with Sir John Underhill, rewriting his will (which had generously planned to leave her lands, goods, and income) and revoking her entirely as a beneficiary 

Sexuality
Several authors believe that, despite his marriage, Bacon was primarily attracted to men  Forker, for example, has explored the "historically documentable sexual preferences" of both Francis Bacon and King James I and concluded they were both oriented to "masculine love", a contemporary term that "seems to have been used exclusively to refer to the sexual preference of men for members of their own gender "The well-connected antiquary John Aubrey noted in his Brief Lives concerning Bacon, "He was a Pederast  His Ganimeds and Favourites tooke Bribes"  ("Pederast" in Renaissance diction meant generally "homosexual" rather than specifically a lover of minors; "ganimed" derives from the mythical prince abducted by Zeus to be his cup-bearer and bed warmer )
The Jacobean antiquarian Sir Simonds D'Ewes (Bacon's fellow Member of Parliament) implied there had been a question of bringing him to trial for buggery, which his brother Anthony Bacon had also been charged with



ground_truth: 1 December 2010

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Who played the monarch at the end of WW2 in The King's Speech?

The following are given passages.
Context 2:  On a budget of £8 million, it earned over £250 million internationally 

Plot
At the official closing of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium, Prince Albert, Duke of York, the second son of King George V, addresses the crowd with a strong stammer  His search for treatment has been discouraging, but his wife, Elizabeth, persuades him to see the Australian-born Lionel Logue, a non-medically trained Harley Street speech defects therapist  "Bertie", as he is called by his family, believes the first session is not going well, but Lionel, who insists that all his patients address him as such, has his potential client recite Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy while hearing classical music played on a pair of headphones  Bertie is frustrated at the experiment but Lionel gives him the acetate recording that he has made of the reading as a souvenir 
After Bertie's father, King George V, broadcasts his 1934 Royal Christmas Message, he explains to Bertie that the wireless will play a significant part in the role of the royal family, allowing them to enter the homes of the people, and that Bertie's brother's neglect of his responsibilities make training in it necessary  The attempt at reading the message himself is a failure, but that night Bertie plays the recording Lionel gave him and is astonished at the lack of stutter there  He therefore returns for daily treatments to overcome the physical and psychological roots of his speaking difficulty 
George V dies in 1936, and his eldest son David ascends the throne as King Edward VIII  A constitutional crisis arises with the new king over a prospective marriage with the twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson  Edward, as the supreme governor of the Church of England, cannot marry her, even if she receives her second divorce, since both her previous husbands are alive 
At an unscheduled session, Bertie expresses his frustration that, while his speech has improved when speaking to most people, he still stammers when talking to David, at the same time revealing the extent of Edward VIII's folly with Simpson  When Lionel insists that Bertie himself could make a good king, Bertie accuses Lionel of speaking treason and quits Lionel in anger  Bertie must now face the Accession Council without any assistance 
Bertie and Lionel only come together again after King Edward decides to abdicate in order to marry  Bertie, urged ahead by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, ascends the throne as King George VI and visits Lionel's home with his wife before their coronation, much to the surprise of Mrs  Logue when she comes upon Queen Elizabeth having tea at her dining room table  This is the first time that she learns who her husband's patient has been 
Bertie and Lionel's relationship is questioned by the King's advisors during the preparations for his coronation in Westminster Abbey  The archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Gordon Lang, brings to light that George never asked for advice from his advisors about his treatment and that Lionel has never had formal training   Lionel explains to an outraged Bertie that at the time he started with speech defects there were no formal qualifications and that the only known help that was available for returning Great War shell-shocked Australian soldiers was from personal experience  Bertie remains unconvinced until provoked to protest at Lionel's disrespect for King Edward's Chair and the Stone of Scone  Only at this pivotal moment, after realising he has just expressed himself without impairment, is Bertie able to rehearse with Lionel and complete the ceremony 
As the new king, Bertie is in a crisis when he must broadcast to Britain and the Empire following the declaration of war on Nazi Germany in 1939  Lionel is summoned to Buckingham Palace to prepare the king for his speech  Knowing the challenge that lies before him, Lang, Winston Churchill, and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain are present to offer support  The King and Logue are then left in the broadcasting room  He delivers his speech with Logue conducting him, but by the end he is speaking freely  Preparing to leave the room for the congratulations of those present, Logue mentions to the King that he still has difficulty enunciating w and the King jokes back, "I had to throw in a few so they'd know it was me "
As the Royal Family step onto the palace balcony and are applauded by the crowd, a title card explains that Logue, who received the Royal Victorian Order for service to the Crown, was always present at King George VI's speeches during the war and that they remained friends until the King's death from lung cancer in 1952 

Cast
Colin Firth as King George VI
Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue
Helena Bonham Carter as Queen Elizabeth
Guy Pearce as King Edward VIII
Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill
Derek Jacobi as Cosmo Gordon Lang
Jennifer Ehle as Myrtle Logue
Michael Gambon as King George V
Freya Wilson as Princess Elizabeth
Ramona Marquez as Princess Margaret
Patrick Ryecart as Lord Wigram
Simon Chandler as Lord Dawson of Penn
Claire Bloom as Queen Mary
Orlando Wells as Prince George, Duke of Kent
Tim Downie as Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester
Eve Best as Wallis Simpson
Anthony Andrews as Stanley Baldwin
Andrew Havill as Robert Wood

Production
Development
As a child, David Seidler developed a stammer, which he believes was caused by the emotional trauma of World War II and the murder of his grandparents during the Holocaust  King George VI's success in overcoming his stammer inspired the young Seidler, "Here was a stutterer who was a king and had to give radio speeches where everyone was listening to every syllable he uttered, and yet did so with passion and intensity " When Seidler became an adult, he resolved to write about King George VI  During the late 1970s and 1980s he voraciously researched the King, but found a dearth of information on Logue  Eventually Seidler contacted Valentine Logue, who agreed to discuss his father and make his notebooks available if the Queen Mother gave her permission  She asked him not to do so in her lifetime, and Seidler halted the project 

The Queen Mother died in 2002  Three years later, Seidler returned to the story during a bout of creative work inspired by a recovery from cancer  His research, including a chance encounter with an uncle whom Logue had treated, indicated he used mechanical breathing exercises combined with psychological counselling to probe the underlying causes of the condition  Thus prepared, Seidler imagined the sessions  He showed the finished screenplay to his wife, who liked it, but pronounced it too "seduced by cinematic technique"  She suggested he rewrite it as a stage play to focus on the essential relationship between the King and Logue  After he had completed it, he sent it to a few friends who worked in theatre in London and New York for feedback In 2005, Joan Lane of Wilde Thyme, a production company in London, received the script  Lane started talking with Simon Egan and Gareth Unwin of Bedlam Productions, and they invited Seidler to London to rewrite the play again, this time for the screen  Together, Lane and Bedlam Productions organised a reading of the play in Pleasance Theatre, a small house in north London, to a group of Australian expatriates, among whom was Tom Hooper's mother  She called her son and said, "I've found your next project" Instead of trying to contact his agent, Lane asked an Australian staff member to hand-deliver the script to Geoffrey Rush's house, not far away from hers in Melbourne  Unwin reports that he received a four-page e-mail from Rush's manager admonishing them for the breach of etiquette, but ending with an invitation to discuss the project further  Iain Canning from See-Saw Films became involved and, in Gareth Unwin's words: "We worked with ex-chair of BAFTA Richard Price, and started turning this story about two grumpy men sitting in a room into something bigger " Hooper liked the story, but thought that the original ending needed to be changed to reflect events more closely: "Originally, it had a Hollywood ending     If you hear the real speech, he's clearly coping with his stammer  But it's not a perfect performance  He's managing it "

The production team learned – some nine weeks prior to the start of filming – of a diary containing Logue's original notes on his treatment of the Duke, which was in the process of being turned into a non-fiction book by Logue's grandson Mark and journalist Peter Conradi, titled The King's Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy  Striking an agreement with the authors, they then went back and re-worked the script to reflect what was in the notes and the book  Some lines, such as at the climax, when Logue smiles and says, "You still stammered on the W" to the King, who replies, "I had to throw in a few so they would know it was me" were direct quotations from Logue's notes  Changes from the script to reflect the historical record included Michael Gambon improvising the ramblings of George V as he signed away authority, and the decision in the opening scene to dress the Duke in an overcoat rather than regal finery Seidler thought Paul Bettany would be a good choice to play King George VI, while Hooper preferred Hugh Grant, though both actors declined the offer  Once they met with Firth and heard him read for the part, Seidler and Hooper were convinced of his suitability for the role The UK Film Council awarded the production £1 million in June 2009  Filming began in December 2009, and lasted 39 days  Most was shot in the three weeks before Christmas because Rush would be performing in a play in January  The schedule was further complicated by Bonham Carter's availability: she worked on Harry Potter during the week, so her scenes had to be filmed during the weekend 

Location and design
The film depicted both regal opulence and scruffy, depression-era London  On 25 November 2009 the crew took over the Pullens buildings in Southwark and gave it the appearance of a street from 1930s London  Large advertisements for (among other things) Bovril and fascism were added to walls, and grit and grime to streets and buildings  To reproduce London smog of the time – thick enough that cars might need guidance from someone walking ahead – so much artificial smoke was used that fire alarms were triggered On 26 November, a week's filming with Firth, Rush, and Jacobi began at Ely Cathedral, the location used for Westminster Abbey  The production had asked for permission to film in the Abbey but were denied due to the demands of tourism  Though Lincoln Cathedral is architecturally a closer match to the Abbey, they preferred Ely, a favoured filming location  Its size allowed them to build sets showing not just the coronation, but the preparations before it Lancaster House, an opulent government-owned period house in London, was rented (at £20,000 per day) for interior scenes of Buckingham Palace  The 1936 Accession Council at St  James's Palace, where George VI swore an oath, was filmed in the Livery Hall of Drapers' Hall  The room, ornate and vast, met the occasion: the daunting nature of the new King's responsibilities was shown by surrounding him with rich detail, flags and royal portraiture The crew investigated Logue's former consultation rooms, but they were too small to film in  Instead, they found a high, vaulted room not far away in 33 Portland Place  Eve Stewart, the production designer, liked the mottled, peeling wallpaper there so much that she recreated the effect throughout the entire room  In his DVD commentary, Hooper said he liked Portland Place as a set because it felt "lived in", unlike other period houses in London  The scenes of the Duke of York at home with his family were also filmed here; showing the Prince living in a townhouse "subverted" expectations of a royal drama 

The opening scene, set at the closing ceremony of the 1925 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium, was filmed on location at Elland Road, home of Leeds United, and Odsal Stadium, home of Bradford RLFC  Elland Road was used for the speech elements of the prince stammering his way through his first public address, and Odsal Stadium was selected because of the resemblance of its curved ends to Wembley Stadium in 1925  The crew had access to the stadium only at 10 pm, after a football game  They filled the terraces with inflatable dummies and over 250 extras dressed in period costumes  Live actors were interspersed to give the impression of a crowd  Additional people, as well as more ranks of soldiers on the pitch, were added in post-production with visual effects Other locations include Cumberland Lodge, Harley Street, Knebworth, Hatfield House, the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, Queen Street Mill Textile Museum in Burnley, and Battersea Power Station, which doubled as a BBC wireless control room  The final cut of the film was completed on 31 August 2010 

Dialogue
In developing his portrayal of George VI's stammer, Firth worked with Neil Swain, the voice coach for the film  His sister, Kate Firth, also a professional voice coach to actors, proposed exercises the King might have done with Logue, and made suggestions on how to imagine Logue's mix of physical and psychological coaching for the film In addition, Firth watched archive footage of the King speaking  In an interview with Allan Tyrer published by the British Stammering Association, Swain said: "[It] was very interesting while we were working on the film just to think tonally how far we could go and should go with the strength of George's stammer  I think a less courageous director than Tom [Hooper] – and indeed a less courageous actor than Colin [Firth] – might have felt the need to slightly sanitise the degree and authenticity of that stammer, and I'm really really pleased that neither of them did " In May 2011 Firth said he was finding traces of the stammer difficult to eliminate: "You can probably hear even from this interview, there are moments when it's quite infectious  You find yourself doing it and if I start thinking about it the worse it gets  If nothing else it's an insight into what it feels like "

Music
The film's original music is composed by Alexandre Desplat, which consisted of a sparse arrangement of strings and piano  The London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Terry Davies, limited orchestral score by only adding oboe and harp in one cut, to convey the character of the king, while also using single note to represent the stickiness of the King's speech  Old microphones extracted from the EMI archives, specially made for the royal family, had been used to record the score, to create a dated sound The use of the 2nd movement (Allegretto) of Beethoven's 7th Symphony, played during the broadcast of the 1939 radio speech from the film's climax, was played as a temp track added by editor Tariq Anwar  Desplat did not want to change the track and defended Anwar's suggestion, as the theme has a universal quality  Hooper further remarked that the stature of the piece helps elevate the status of the speech to a public event  The score album also featured Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Marriage of Figaro overture  The score was nominated for several awards, including Best Original Score at the Oscars, Golden Globes, and BAFTAs, winning the latter award  The score also won a Grammy at the 54th Grammy Awards 

Visual style
Hooper employed a number of cinematic techniques to evoke the King's feelings of constriction  He and cinematographer Danny Cohen used wider than normal lenses to photograph the film, typically 14mm, 18mm, 21mm, 25mm and 27mm, where the subtle distortion of the picture helps to convey the King's discomfort  For instance, the subjective point of view shot during the Empire exhibition speech used a close up of the microphone with a wider lens, similar to the filming technique used for one of the Duke's early consultations with a physician  In The New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote that the feeling of entrapment inside the King's head was rendered overly literal with what she believed to be a fisheye lens, though in these scenes the wider lenses were used  Hooper also discussed using the 18mm lens, one he likes "because it puts human beings in their context" Roger Ebert noted that the majority of the film was shot indoors, where oblong sets, corridors, and small spaces manifest constriction and tightness, in contrast to the usual emphasis on sweep and majesty in historical dramas  Hooper used wide shots to capture the actors' body language, particularly that of Geoffrey Rush, who trained at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris and "is consequently brilliant in the way he carries his body"  Hooper widened his scope first to capture Rush's gestures, then full body movements and silhouettes  The approach carried over to Firth as well  In the first consultation scene, the Duke is squeezed against the end of a long couch framed against a large wall, "as if to use the arm of the sofa as a kind of friend, as a security blanket?" Martin Filler praised the "low-wattage" cinematography of Danny Cohen's, as making everything look like it has been "steeped in strong tea" At other times, the camera was positioned very close to the actors to catch the emotion in their faces: "If you put a lens 6 inches from somebody's face, you get more emotion than if you're on a long lens 20 feet away," Cohen said in an interview  Hooper sought a second subtlety while filming the first consultation room scene between the two men, having placed the camera 18 inches from Colin Firth's face: "I wanted the nervousness of the first day to percolate into his performances," he said Historical dramas traditionally tend to use "soft light", but Hooper wanted to use a harsher glare, which gives a more contemporary feel, and thus a greater emotional resonance  To achieve the effect, the lighting team erected huge blackout tents over the Georgian buildings and used large lights filtered through Egyptian cotton 

Historical accuracy
Several events in the film did not happen, or were exaggerated  The visual blog Information is Beautiful deduced that, while taking creative licence into account, the film was 74 4% accurate when compared to real-life events, summarising: "Some nips and tucks of the historical record, but mostly an accurate retelling of a unique friendship" 

Relationship with Lionel Logue
The filmmakers not only tightened the chronology of the events to just a few years but even shifted the timeline of treatment  The Duke of York actually began working with Logue in October 1926, ten years before the abdication crisis, and the improvement in his speech was apparent in months rather than years as suggested by the film  When he was dispatched to Australia to open their new Parliament House in Canberra in 1927, the Duke gave numerous speeches during the journey and performed well despite Logue not accompanying him on the trip  He wrote to Logue from the Caribbean, "You remember my fear of 'The King'  I give it every evening at dinner on board  This does not worry me any more " Of his speech opening Parliament it was observed that he spoke "resonantly and without stuttering" Robert Logue, a grandson of Lionel, doubted the film's depiction of the speech therapist, stating "I don't think he ever swore in front of the King and he certainly never called him 'Bertie'"  Andrew Roberts, an English historian, states that the severity of the King's stammer was exaggerated and the characters of Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, and George V made more antagonistic than they really were, to increase the dramatic effect 

Politics
Christopher Hitchens and Isaac Chotiner have criticised the film for failing to indict the appeasement of the era or to portray Edward VIII's sympathetic attitude to Nazi Germany   The Guardian also corrected the portrayal of Stanley Baldwin as having resigned due to his refusal to order Britain's re-armament, when he in fact stepped down as "a national hero, exhausted by more than a decade at the top"  Stanley's grandson, Earl Baldwin, was particularly unhappy with this film due to its factual distortions and portrayal of his grandfather as a dithering fool who misunderstood Hitler's intentions Hugo Vickers, an adviser on the film, agreed that the alteration of historical details to preserve the essence of the dramatic story was sometimes necessary  The high-ranking officials, for instance, would not have been present when the King made his speech, nor would Churchill have been involved at any level, "but the average viewer knows who Churchill is; he doesn't know who Lord Halifax and Sir Samuel Hoare are "Hitchens and Chotiner also challenged the film's portrayal of Winston Churchill's role in the abdication crisis  It is well established that Churchill encouraged Edward VIII to resist pressure to abdicate, whereas he is portrayed in the film as supportive of the Duke of York and not opposed to the abdication  Hitchens attributes this treatment to the "cult" surrounding Churchill's legacy  In a smart, well-made film "would the true story not have been fractionally more interesting for the audience?", he wondered 

Realism
Martin Filler acknowledged that the film legitimately used artistic licence to make valid dramatic points, such as in the probably imagined scene when George V lectures his son on the importance of broadcasting  Filler cautions that George VI would never have tolerated Logue addressing him casually, nor swearing, and the King almost certainly would have understood a newsreel of Hitler speaking in German  Filler makes the larger point that both the King and his wife were, in reality, lukewarm towards Churchill because of the latter's support for his brother during the abdication crisis Commenting on the film's final scene on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, Andrew Roberts has written, "The scene is fairly absurd from a historical point of view – Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill were not present and there were no cheering crowds outside Buckingham Palace " However, Roberts praises the film overall as a sympathetic portrayal of the King's "quiet, unassuming heroism [   ] The portrayals by Firth and Bonham Carter are sympathetic and acute, and the movie's occasional factual bêtises should not detract from that "

Release
Cinema release
The film had its world première on 6 September 2010 at the Telluride Film Festival in the United States  It was screened at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, on Firth's 50th birthday, where it received a standing ovation and won the People's Choice Award  The cinema release poster was re-designed to show an extreme close-up of Firth's jaw and a microphone after Hooper criticised the first design as a "train smash"  Tim Appelo called the original, air-brushed effort, which showed the three leads, "shockingly awful" though the new one "really is worthwhile" The film was distributed by Transmission Films in Australia and by Momentum Pictures in the United Kingdom  The Weinstein Company distributed it in North America, Germany, Benelux, Scandinavia, China, Hong Kong, and Latin America  The film was released in France on 2 February 2011 by Wild Bunch under the title Le discours d'un roi 

Ratings controversy
The film was initially given a 15 certificate by the British Board of Film Classification, due to a minute-long scene where Logue encourages the King to swear, which he could do without stuttering  At the London Film Festival, Hooper criticised the decision, questioning how the board could certify the film "15" for bad language but allow films such as Salt (2010) and Casino Royale (2006) to have "12A" ratings, despite their graphic torture scenes  Following Hooper's criticism, the board lowered the rating to "12A", allowing children under 12 years of age to see the film if they are accompanied by an adult  Hooper levelled the same criticism at the Motion Picture Association of America, which gave the film an "R" rating, preventing anyone under the age of 17 from seeing the film without an adult  In his review, Roger Ebert criticised the "R" rating, calling it "utterly inexplicable", and wrote, "This is an excellent film for teenagers "In January 2011 Harvey Weinstein, the executive producer and distributor, said he was considering having the film re-edited to remove some profanity, so that it would receive a lower classification and reach a larger audience  Hooper refused to cut the film, though he considered covering the swear words with bleeps  Helena Bonham Carter also defended the film, saying, "[The film] is not violent  It's full of humanity and wit  [It's] for people not with just a speech impairment, but who have got confidence [doubts] " After receiving his Academy Award, Colin Firth noted that he does not support re-editing the film; while he does not condone the use of profanity, he maintains that its use was not offensive in this context  "The scene serves a purpose", Firth states  An alternative version, with some of the profanities muted out, was classified as "PG-13" in the United States; this version was released to cinemas on 1 April 2011, replacing the R-rated one  The PG-13 version of this film is not available on DVD and Blu-ray 

Reception
Box office
In Great Britain and Ireland, the film was the highest earning film on its opening weekend  It took in £3,510,000 from 395 cinemas  The Guardian said that it was one of the biggest takes in recent memory, and compared it to Slumdog Millionaire (2008), which, two years earlier, earned £1 5 million less  The King's Speech continued a "stunning three weeks" atop the UK Box office, and earned over £3 million for four consecutive weekends, the first film to do so since Toy Story 3 (2010)  After five weeks on UK release, it was hailed as the most successful independent British film ever In the United States The King's Speech opened with $355,450 (£220,000) in four cinemas  It holds the record for the highest per-cinema gross of 2010  It was widened to 700 screens on Christmas Day and 1,543 screens on 14 January 2011  It eventually made $138 million in North America overall In Australia The King's Speech made more than A$6,281,686 (£4 million) in the first two weeks, according to figures collected by the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia  The executive director of Palace Cinemas, Benjamin Zeccola, said customer feedback on the film was spectacular  "It's our No 1 for all the period, all throughout the country      I think this is more successful than Slumdog Millionaire and a more uplifting film  It's a good example of a film that started out in the independent cinemas and then spread to the mainstream cinemas "Of the film's net profit, estimated to amount to $30–40 million (£20–25 million) from the cinema release alone, roughly 20% was to be split between Geoffrey Rush (as executive producer), Tom Hooper and Colin Firth, who were to receive their bonuses before the other stakeholders  The remaining profit was to be split equally between the producers and the equity investors  The UK Film Council invested £1 million of public funds from the United Kingdom lottery into the film  In March 2011 Variety estimated that the return could be between fifteen and twenty times that  The Council's merger into the British Film Institute means that the profits were to be returned to that body 

Critical response
The King's Speech has received widespread critical acclaim, with Firth's performance receiving universal praise  Bonham Carter and Rush were also widely praised with both going on to win BAFTAs and receiving Academy Award nominations  Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 94% based on reviews from 297 critics; the film's average rating was calculated as 8 60/10  The website's critical consensus reads: "Colin Firth gives a masterful performance in The King's Speech, a predictable but stylishly produced and rousing period drama " Metacritic gave the film a weighted score of 88/100, based on 41 critical reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim"  CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a rare "A+" grade  Empire gave the film five stars out of five, commenting, "You'll be lost for words " Lisa Kennedy of The Denver Post gave the film full marks for its humane qualities and craftsmanship: "It is an intelligent, winning drama fit for a king – and the rest of us", she said  Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film a full four stars, commenting that "what we have here is a superior historical drama and a powerful personal one " Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave four stars out of five, stating, "Tom Hooper's richly enjoyable and handsomely produced movie     is a massively confident crowd-pleaser "Manohla Dargis, whilst generally ambivalent towards the film, called the lead performances one of its principal attractions  "With their volume turned up, the appealing, impeccably professional Mr  Firth and Mr  Rush rise to the acting occasion by twinkling and growling as their characters warily circle each other before settling into the therapeutic swing of things and unknowingly preparing for the big speech that partly gives the film its title," she wrote  The Daily Telegraph called Guy Pearce's performance as Edward VIII "formidable     with glamour, charisma and utter self-absorption"  Empire said he played the role well as "a flash harry flinty enough to shed a nation for a wife " The New York Times thought he was able to create "a thorny tangle of complications in only a few abbreviated scenes"  Hooper praised the actor in the DVD commentary, saying he "nailed" the 1930s royal accent  Richard Corliss of Time magazine named Colin Firth's performance one of the Top 10 Movie Performances of 2010 

Allociné, a French cinema website, gave the film an average of four out of five stars, based on a survey of 21 reviews  Le Monde, which characterised the film as the "latest manifestation of British narcissism" and summarised it as "We are ugly and boring, but, By Jove!, we are right!", nevertheless admired the performances of Firth, Rush, and Bonham Carter  It said that, though the film swept British appeasement under the carpet, it was still enjoyable Slovenian Marxist philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek has incorporated the film into his critique of ideology by describing it as "reactionary," interpreting the king's stutter as evidence that he "displays a minimum of common sense, experiencing the stupidity of seriously accepting that one is king by divine will" and claiming that "the task of the Australian voice-coach is to render him stupid enough to accept his being a king as his natural property " Žižek thus interprets the king's stutter as a case of what is referred to in Lacanian psychoanalysis as "symbolic castration "Queen Elizabeth II, the daughter and successor of King George VI, was sent two copies of the film before Christmas 2010  The Sun newspaper reported she had watched the film in a private screening at Sandringham House  A palace source described her reaction as being "touched by a moving portrayal of her father"  Seidler called the reports "the highest honour" the film could receive 

Depiction of stuttering
The British Stammering Association welcomed the release of The King's Speech, congratulating the film makers on their "realistic depiction of the frustration and the fear of speaking faced by people who stammer on a daily basis " It said that "Colin Firth's portrayal of the King's stammer in particular strikes us as very authentic and accurate " The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists welcomed the film, and launched their "Giving Voice" campaign around the time of its commercial release Disfluency advocate Jonah Lehrer called the film "an inspiring tale" and praised its portrayal of the troubles suffered by Firth's character 
 However, Lehrer and other advocates criticized the film's depiction of stuttering as a result of emotional repression and childhood trauma  The treatment performed by Rush's character also drew criticism  Lehrer did admit it was a necessary artistic license: "[the film] would have been a rather tedious piece of entertainment if the climactic scene involved Logue telling the monarch that his primary motor cortex was to blame "Science journalist Jeremy Hsu wrote that the film "mainly succeeds by tackling the social stigma that surrounds stuttering " However, similar to Lehrer, he disapproved that it perpetuated myths about the condition, namely its relationship with childhood trauma and overly strict parenting Columnist Jane Ahlin praised the film as it "brings out of the shadows a common problem figuring into the lives of children and adults from every culture around the world " At the same time, she stated, "heartwarming though the movie The King's Speech is, as someone who married a stutterer and is the mother of a stutterer, I'm not sure it does anything to put myths about stuttering to rest " She criticized the depiction of family and social dynamics as causes of the condition, as well as the portrayal of stutterering as connected to emotional or psychological problems 

Awards and nominations
At the 83rd Academy Awards, The King's Speech won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director (Hooper), Best Actor (Firth), and Best Original Screenplay (Seidler)  The film had received 12 Oscar nominations, more than any other film in that year  Besides the four categories it won, the film received nominations for Best Cinematography (Danny Cohen) and two for the supporting actors (Bonham Carter and Rush), as well as two for its mise-en-scène: Art Direction and Costumes At the 64th British Academy Film Awards, it won seven awards, including Best Film, Outstanding British Film, Best Actor for Firth, Best Supporting Actor for Rush, Best Supporting Actress for Bonham Carter, Best Original Screenplay for Seidler, and Best Music for Alexandre Desplat  The film had been nominated for 14 BAFTAs, more than any other film  At the 68th Golden Globe Awards, Firth won for Best Actor   The film won no other Golden Globes, despite earning seven nominations, more than any other film At the 17th Screen Actors Guild Awards, Firth won the Best Actor award and the entire cast won Best Ensemble, meaning Firth went home with two acting awards in one evening  Hooper won the Directors Guild of America Awards 2010 for Best Director  The film won the Darryl F  Zanuck Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture at the Producers Guild of America Awards 2010 The King's Speech won the People's Choice Award at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, Best British Independent Film at the 2010 British Independent Film Awards, and the 2011 Goya Award for Best European Film from the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España (Spanish Academy of Cinematic Art and Science) 

See also
Bertie & Elizabeth (2002), a television film which also addresses the stammering of the king (played by James Wilby)  It was a co-production of PBS (Masterpiece Theatre) and Carlton Television 
Passage 4:
H  Vernon Watson
H  Vernon Watson (1886–1952), better known under his stage name Nosmo King, was a popular English variety artist  He was touring the music halls before World War I, but he remained relatively obscure until the 1920s, when he went by Nosmo King  He was the father of actor Jack Watson 

Early years
Coming from a rural background near Peterborough, Watson showed a leaning towards things theatrical and it was evident that he had a rare talent for mimicry  In 1911, he turned professional, using his real name, doing impressions of the leading comedians of the day 
Then, when Frank Tinney, the American black-faced comedian, came to the UK, Watson added an impression of him to his repertoire  He noticed that this impression gained him great applause, and when Tinney returned to the United States, Watson gave thought to a different style of act based on a black-faced personality 

Fame
Opportunity for this came about in the early 1930s in Leeds, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, which boasted two variety theatres, run by two rival organisations  The Great Depression was beginning to bite, and on hearing that the rival theatre had lost its comic, he determined to double his income by doing both shows (four performances a night), travelling between the two theatres by taxi, disguising himself by blacking up 
Watson had the black-face study ready, but was stuck for a name  Then inspiration came to his aid  The scene dock doors backstage were partly open and the two halves read "No Smo" & "king"  That was it  From then on, the character would be Nosmo King 
Nosmo King became a huge star and a household name  The stage act of Nosmo King & Hubert developed when his son Jack Watson joined him as straight man directly from school  Vernon Watson made his last bow and he was to be Nosmo for good when his speciality became long comic monologues 
During a later interview, he made two remarkable confessions  Someone pointed out that a cigar-smoking figure was hardly compatible with the name and suggested he gave up  This he found remarkably difficult, but he eventually accomplished it with the aid of snuff  The second confession was that he had never at any time set eyes on Frank Tinney 
During World War II, Nosmo King reverted to going solo, the reason being that his son, playing "Hubert," had joined up 
The end came for Nosmo King early in 1952 when Watson died in his sleep in his Chelsea flat 
He is buried in Thorney Cemetery near Peterborough, with "Nosmo King" on his headstone 

Acts
One of Nosmo's act starters was when a young pageboy would come over to him carrying his luggage  Once he had handed it to Nosmo, Nosmo would say to him "how much do I owe you" and the boy would say "2 nicker" (a colloquialism for two pounds) whilst making a V sign at him  Nosmo took this as an insult and would slap the boy across the face, then the boy would slap Nosmo across his face in return 

See also
Paul Shannon, a Pittsburgh radio announcer, also used the name 'Nosmo King' for a character 
Nosmo King was the name of a 1994 album by jazz guitarist John Abercrombie and Andy LaVerne 
See also English singer Jonathan King who appeared on Top of the Pops in the early 1970s as Nosmo King  When he was asked about the name, he said it was a pun which I didn't get at the time as I was very young  He also implied that he had come up with the name himself 
Context 3: In his Autobiography and Correspondence, in the diary entry for 3 May 1621, the date of Bacon's censure by Parliament, D'Ewes describes Bacon's love for his Welsh serving-men, in particular Godrick, a "very effeminate-faced youth" whom he calls "his catamite and bedfellow" This conclusion has been disputed by others, who point to lack of consistent evidence, and consider the sources to be more open to interpretation  Publicly, at least, Bacon distanced himself from the idea of homosexuality  In his New Atlantis, he described his utopian island as being "the chastest nation under heaven", and "as for masculine love, they have no touch of it" 

Death
On 9 April 1626, Bacon died of pneumonia while at Arundel mansion at Highgate outside London  An influential account of the circumstances of his death was given by John Aubrey's Brief Lives  Aubrey's vivid account, which portrays Bacon as a martyr to experimental scientific method, had him journeying to High-gate through the snow with the King's physician when he is suddenly inspired by the possibility of using the snow to preserve meat:They were resolved they would try the experiment presently  They alighted out of the coach and went into a poor woman's house at the bottom of Highgate hill, and bought a fowl, and made the woman exenterate it 
After stuffing the fowl with snow, Bacon contracted a fatal case of pneumonia  Some people, including Aubrey, consider these two contiguous, possibly coincidental events as related and causative of his death:The Snow so chilled him that he immediately fell so extremely ill, that he could not return to his Lodging     but went to the Earle of Arundel's house at Highgate, where they put him into     a damp bed that had not been layn-in     which gave him such a cold that in 2 or 3 days as I remember Mr Hobbes told me, he died of Suffocation Aubrey has been criticized for his evident credulousness in this and other works; on the other hand, he knew Thomas Hobbes, Bacon's fellow-philosopher and friend 
Being unwittingly on his deathbed, the philosopher dictated his last letter to his absent host and friend Lord Arundel:My very good Lord,—I was likely to have had the fortune of Caius Plinius the elder, who lost his life by trying an experiment about the burning of Mount Vesuvius; for I was also desirous to try an experiment or two touching the conservation and in-duration of bodies  As for the experiment itself, it succeeded excellently well; but in the journey between London and High-gate, I was taken with such a fit of casting as I know not whether it were the Stone, or some surfeit or cold, or indeed a touch of them all three  But when I came to your Lordship's House, I was not able to go back, and therefore was forced to take up my lodging here, where your housekeeper is very careful and diligent about me, which I assure myself your Lordship will not only pardon towards him, but think the better of him for it  For indeed your Lordship's House was happy to me, and I kiss your noble hands for the welcome which I am sure you give me to it  I know how unfit it is for me to write with any other hand than mine own, but by my troth my fingers are so disjointed with sickness that I cannot steadily hold a pen 
Another account appears in a biography by William Rawley, Bacon's personal secretary and chaplain:He died on the ninth day of April in the year 1626, in the early morning of the day then celebrated for our Savior's resurrection, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, at the Earl of Arundel's house in Highgate, near London, to which place he casually repaired about a week before; God so ordaining that he should die there of a gentle fever, accidentally accompanied with a great cold, whereby the defluxion of rheum fell so plentifully upon his breast, that he died by suffocation 
He was buried in St Michael's Church in St Albans  At the news of his death, over 30 great minds collected together their eulogies of him, which were then later published in Latin 
He left personal assets of about £7,000 and lands that realised £6,000 when sold  His debts amounted to more than £23,000, equivalent to more than £4m at current value 

Philosophy and works
Francis Bacon's philosophy is displayed in the vast and varied writings he left, which might be divided into three great branches:

Scientific works in which his ideas for a universal reform of knowledge into scientific methodology and the improvement of mankind's state using the Scientific method are presented 
Religious and literary works in which he presents his moral philosophy and theological meditations 
Juridical works in which his reforms in English Law are proposed 

Influence and legacy
Science
Bacon's seminal work Novum Organum was influential in the 1630s and 1650s among scholars, in particular Sir Thomas Browne, who in his encyclopedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646–72) frequently adheres to a Baconian approach to his scientific enquiries  This book entails the basis of the scientific method as a means of observation and induction 
According to Bacon, learning and knowledge all derive from the basis of inductive reasoning  Through his belief in experimental encounters, he theorised that all the knowledge that was necessary to fully understand a concept could be attained using induction  In order to get to the point of an inductive conclusion, one must consider the importance of observing the particulars (specific parts of nature)  "Once these particulars have been gathered together, the interpretation of Nature proceeds by sorting them into a formal arrangement so that they may be presented to the understanding " Experimentation is essential to discovering the truths of Nature  When an experiment happens, parts of the tested hypothesis are started to be pieced together, forming a result and conclusion  Through this conclusion of particulars, an understanding of Nature can be formed  Now that an understanding of Nature has been arrived at, an inductive conclusion can be drawn  "For no one successfully investigates the nature of a thing in the thing itself; the inquiry must be enlarged to things that have more in common with it "Bacon explains how we come to this understanding and knowledge because of this process in comprehending the complexities of nature  "Bacon sees nature as an extremely subtle complexity, which affords all the energy of the natural philosopher to disclose her secrets " Bacon described the evidence and proof revealed through taking a specific example from nature and expanding that example into a general, substantial claim of nature  Once we understand the particulars in nature, we can learn more about it and become surer of things occurring in nature, gaining knowledge and obtaining new information all the while  "It is nothing less than a revival of Bacon's supremely confident belief that inductive methods can provide us with ultimate and infallible answers concerning the laws and nature of the universe " Bacon states that when we come to understand parts of nature, we can eventually understand nature better as a whole because of induction  Because of this, Bacon concludes that all learning and knowledge must be drawn from inductive reasoning 
During the Restoration, Bacon was commonly invoked as a guiding spirit of the Royal Society founded under Charles II in 1660  During the 18th-century French Enlightenment, Bacon's non-metaphysical approach to science became more influential than the dualism of his French contemporary Descartes, and was associated with criticism of the Ancien Régime  In 1733 Voltaire introduced him to a French audience as the "father" of the scientific method, an understanding which had become widespread by the 1750s  In the 19th century his emphasis on induction was revived and developed by William Whewell, among others  He has been reputed as the "Father of Experimental Philosophy" He also wrote a long treatise on Medicine, History of Life and Death, with natural and experimental observations for the prolongation of life 
One of his biographers, the historian William Hepworth Dixon, states: "Bacon's influence in the modern world is so great that every man who rides in a train, sends a telegram, follows a steam plough, sits in an easy chair, crosses the channel or the Atlantic, eats a good dinner, enjoys a beautiful garden, or undergoes a painless surgical operation, owes him something "In 1902 Hugo von Hofmannsthal published a fictional letter, known as The Lord Chandos Letter, addressed to Bacon and dated 1603, about a writer who is experiencing a crisis of language 

North America
Bacon played a leading role in establishing the British colonies in North America, especially in Virginia, the Carolinas and Newfoundland in northeastern Canada  His government report on "The Virginia Colony" was submitted in 1609  In 1610 Bacon and his associates received a charter from the king to form the Tresurer and the Companye of Adventurers and planter of the Cittye of London and Bristoll for the Collonye or plantacon in Newfoundland, and sent John Guy to found a colony there  Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, wrote: "Bacon, Locke and Newton  I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral sciences" In 1910, Newfoundland issued a postage stamp to commemorate Bacon's role in establishing the colony  The stamp describes Bacon as "the guiding spirit in Colonization Schemes in 1610"  Moreover, some scholars believe he was largely responsible for the drafting, in 1609 and 1612, of two charters of government for the Virginia Colony  William Hepworth Dixon considered that Bacon's name could be included in the list of Founders of the United States 

Law
Although few of his proposals for law reform were adopted during his lifetime, Bacon's legal legacy was considered by the magazine New Scientist in 1961 as having influenced the drafting of the Napoleonic Code as well as the law reforms introduced by 19th-century British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel  The historian William Hepworth Dixon referred to the Napoleonic Code as "the sole embodiment of Bacon's thought", saying that Bacon's legal work "has had more success abroad than it has found at home", and that in France "it has blossomed and come into fruit" Harvey Wheeler attributed to Bacon, in Francis Bacon's Verulamium—the Common Law Template of The Modern in English Science and Culture, the creation of these distinguishing features of the modern common law system:

using cases as repositories of evidence about the "unwritten law";
determining the relevance of precedents by exclusionary principles of evidence and logic;
treating opposing legal briefs as adversarial hypotheses about the application of the "unwritten law" to a new set of facts As late as the 18th century, some juries still declared the law rather than the facts, but already before the end of the 17th century Sir Matthew Hale explained modern common law adjudication procedure and acknowledged Bacon as the inventor of the process of discovering unwritten laws from the evidences of their applications  The method combined empiricism and inductivism in a new way that was to imprint its signature on many of the distinctive features of modern English society  Paul H  Kocher writes that Bacon is considered by some jurists to be the father of modern Jurisprudence Bacon is commemorated with a statue in Gray's Inn, South Square in London where he received his legal training, and where he was elected Treasurer of the Inn in 1608 More recent scholarship on Bacon's jurisprudence has focused on his advocating torture as a legal recourse for the crown  Bacon himself was not a stranger to the torture chamber; in his various legal capacities in both Elizabeth I's and James I's reigns, Bacon was listed as a commissioner on five torture warrants  In 1613(?), in a letter addressed to King James I on the question of torture's place within English law, Bacon identifies the scope of torture as a means to further the investigation of threats to the state: "In the cases of treasons, torture is used for discovery, and not for evidence " For Bacon, torture was not a punitive measure, an intended form of state repression, but instead offered a modus operandi for the government agent tasked with uncovering acts of treason 

Organization of knowledge
Francis Bacon developed the idea that a classification of knowledge must be universal while handling all possible resources  In his progressive view, humanity would be better if access to educational resources were provided to the public, hence the need to organise it  His approach to learning reshaped the Western view of knowledge theory from an individual to a social interest 
The original classification proposed by Bacon organised all types of knowledge into three general groups: history, poetry, and philosophy  He did that based on his understanding of how information is processed: memory, imagination, and reason, respectively  His methodical approach to the categorization of knowledge goes hand-in-hand with his principles of scientific methods  Bacon's writings were the starting point for William Torrey Harris's classification system for libraries in the United States by the second half of the 1800s 
The phrase "scientia potentia est" (or "scientia est potentia"), meaning "knowledge is power", is commonly attributed to Bacon: the expression "ipsa scientia potestas est" ("knowledge itself is power") occurs in his Meditationes Sacrae (1597) 

Historical debates
Bacon and Shakespeare
The Baconian hypothesis of Shakespearean authorship, first proposed in the mid-19th century, contends that Francis Bacon wrote some or even all of the plays conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare 

Occult theories
Francis Bacon often gathered with the men at Gray's Inn to discuss politics and philosophy, and to try out various theatrical scenes that he admitted writing  Bacon's alleged connection to the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons has been widely discussed by authors and scholars in many books  However, others, including Daphne du Maurier in her biography of Bacon, have argued that there is no substantive evidence to support claims of involvement with the Rosicrucians  Frances Yates does not make the claim that Bacon was a Rosicrucian, but presents evidence that he was nevertheless involved in some of the more closed intellectual movements of his day  She argues that Bacon's movement for the advancement of learning was closely connected with the German Rosicrucian movement, while Bacon's New Atlantis portrays a land ruled by Rosicrucians  He apparently saw his own movement for the advancement of learning to be in conformity with Rosicrucian ideals The link between Bacon's work and the Rosicrucians' ideals which Yates allegedly found was the conformity of the purposes expressed by the Rosicrucian Manifestos and Bacon's plan of a "Great Instauration", for the two were calling for a reformation of both "divine and human understanding", as well as both, had in view the purpose of mankind's return to the "state before the Fall" Another major link is said to be the resemblance between Bacon's New Atlantis and the German Rosicrucian Johann Valentin Andreae's Description of the Republic of Christianopolis (1619)  Andreae describes a utopic island in which Christian theosophy and applied science ruled, and in which the spiritual fulfilment and intellectual activity constituted the primary goals of each individual, the scientific pursuits being the highest intellectual calling—linked to the achievement of spiritual perfection  Andreae's island also depicts a great advancement in technology, with many industries separated in different zones which supplied the population's needs—which shows great resemblance to Bacon's scientific methods and purposes While rejecting occult conspiracy theories surrounding Bacon and the claim Bacon personally identified as a Rosicrucian, intellectual historian Paolo Rossi has argued for an occult influence on Bacon's scientific and religious writing  He argues that Bacon was familiar with early modern alchemical texts and that Bacon's ideas about the application of science had roots in Renaissance magical ideas about science and magic facilitating humanity's domination of nature  Rossi further interprets Bacon's search for hidden meanings in myth and fables in such texts as The Wisdom of the Ancients as succeeding earlier occultist and Neoplatonic attempts to locate hidden wisdom in pre-Christian myths  As indicated by the title of his study, however, Rossi claims Bacon ultimately rejected the philosophical foundations of occultism as he came to develop a form of modern science Rossi's analysis and claims have been extended by Jason Josephson-Storm in his study, The Myth of Disenchantment  Josephson-Storm also rejects conspiracy theories surrounding Bacon and does not make the claim that Bacon was an active Rosicrucian  However, he argues that Bacon's "rejection" of magic actually constituted an attempt to purify magic of Catholic, demonic, and esoteric influences and to establish magic as a field of study and application paralleling Bacon's vision of science  Furthermore, Josephson-Storm argues that Bacon drew on magical ideas when developing his experimental method  Josephson-Storm finds evidence that Bacon considered nature a living entity, populated by spirits, and argues Bacon's views on the human domination and application of nature actually depend on his spiritualism and personification of nature The Rosicrucian organization AMORC claims that Bacon was the "Imperator" (leader) of the Rosicrucian Order in both England and the European continent, and would have directed it during his lifetime Bacon's influence can also be seen on a variety of religious and spiritual authors, and on groups that have utilized his writings in their own belief systems 

Bibliography
Some of the more notable works by Bacon are:

Essays
1st edition with 10 essays (1597)
2nd edition with 38 essays (1612)
3rd/final edition with 58 essays (1625)
The Advancement and Proficience of Learning Divine and Human (1605)
Instauratio magna (The Great Instauration) (1620) – a multi-part work including Distributio operis (Plan of the Work); Novum Organum (The New Organon); Parasceve ad historiam naturalem (Preparatory for Natural History) and Catalogus historiarum particularium (Catalogue of Particular Histories)
De augmentis scientiarum (1623) – an enlargement of The Advancement of Learning translated into Latin
New Atlantis (1626)

See also
Cestui que (defence and comment on Chudleigh's Case)
Romanticism and Bacon
Scientia potentia est
Works by Francis Bacon

Notes
Passage 3:
Red Head, Florida
Red Head is an unincorporated community in Washington County, Florida, United States  It is located along State Road 79 north of Ebro, and is the home of a local airstrip named Red Head Airport 
Passage 4:
Head I
Head I is a relatively small oil and tempera on hardboard painting by the Irish-born British figurative artist Francis Bacon  Completed in 1948, it is the first in a series of six heads, the remainder of which were painted the following year in preparation for a November 1949 exhibition at the Hanover Gallery in London  Like the others in the series, it shows a screaming figure alone in a room, and focuses on the open mouth  The work shows a skull which has disintegrated on itself and is largely a formless blob of flesh  The entire upper half has disappeared, leaving only the jaw, mouth and teeth and one ear still intact  It is the first of Bacon's paintings to feature gold background railings or bars; later to become a prominent feature of his 1950s work, especially in the papal portraits where they would often appear as enclosing or cages around the figures  It is not known what influences were behind the image; most likely they were multiple – press or war photography, and critic Denis Farr detects the influence of Matthias Grünewald Bacon juxtaposes traditional elements of portraiture with loose, spontaneous brushwork  In some passages he has rubbed or brushed out (perhaps with a cloth) the paint, a technique art historian Armin Zweite describes as "productive vandalism"   There are a number of ambiguous elements in the work  The hanging tassel rest just above the figure's right ear, giving the impression that it has hooked the head and is pulling it sideways  The gold railings suggest in the top right suggest the corner of a room, while those in the center background may be the headboard of a bed  The upper half is largely void of detail, while the lower portion, particularly the lower third has been heavily reworked, and consists of a blending of white, gray and black pigments The use of heavy impasto gives the impression of animal skin; critic Robert Melville described the "color of wet, black snakes lightly powdered with dust"  In 1951 Bacon said of his choice of colour and gloss; "One of the problems is to paint like Velázquez, but with the texture of a hippopotamus skin", and later "I had an idea in those days that textures should be very much thicker, and therefore the texture of, for instance a rhinoceros skin would help me to think about the texture of the human skin"  Furthering this impression, the mouth and teeth resemble those of a howling fanged animal Bacon began the Head series out of necessity; he was granted the 1949 exhibition at the Hayward a year in advance, but had not painted at all in 1947, and had only a few works he was happy with from 1948  Over time, the series became something quite apart from his initial idea; Head VI turned into the first of his many examinations of Velázquez's c  1650 Portrait of Innocent X 

See also
List of paintings by Francis Bacon
Passage 5:
Sun Ce
Sun Ce (Chinese: 孫策; pinyin: Sūn Cè; Wade–Giles: Sun1 Ts‘ê4) (pronunciation ) (175 – 5 May 200), courtesy name Bofu, was a Chinese military general, politician, and warlord who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty of China  He was the eldest child of Sun Jian, who was killed during the Battle of Xiangyang when Sun Ce was only 16  Sun Ce then broke away from his father's overlord, Yuan Shu, and headed to the Jiangdong region in southern China to establish his own power base there  With the help of several people, such as Zhang Zhao and Zhou Yu, Sun Ce managed to lay down the foundation of the state of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period 
In 200, when the warlord Cao Cao was at war with his rival Yuan Shao in the Battle of Guandu, Sun Ce was rumoured to be planning an attack on Xuchang, Cao Cao's base  However, he was assassinated before he could carry out the plan  Sun Ce was posthumously honoured as "Prince Huan of Changsha" (長沙桓王) by his younger brother Sun Quan when the latter became the founding emperor of Eastern Wu 
Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi) describes Sun Ce as a handsome man who was full of laughter  He was also a generous and receptive man who employed people according to their abilities  As such, his subjects were willing to risk their lives for him  One detractor named Xu Gong, in a letter to Emperor Xian, compared Sun Ce to Xiang Yu, the warrior-king who overthrew the Qin dynasty  As a result, Sun Ce was also referred to as the "Little Conqueror" in popular culture  Sun Ce is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu (無雙譜, Table of Peerless Heroes) by Jin Guliang 

Early life and career
Born in 175, Sun Ce was the eldest son of Sun Jian, a military general serving under the Eastern Han dynasty  In 190, a year after Emperor Ling died, the warlord Dong Zhuo usurped power, placing in the throne the puppet Emperor Xian  Regional warlords in eastern China then launched a campaign against Dong Zhuo  Sun Jian rendered his service to Yuan Shu, one of the leaders of the coalition  The attempt to oust Dong Zhuo soon failed and China slid into a series of massive civil wars  In the next year, Sun Jian was sent by Yuan Shu to attack Liu Biao, governor of Jing Province, but he was killed in an ambush 
Sun Ce brought his father's body to Qu'e (曲阿; present-day Danyang, Jiangsu) for burial and settled his mother down before heading for Danyang, where his maternal uncle Wu Jing was the governor  There he raised a small militia a few hundred in strength  This small force was far from sufficient for him to establish his own power so in 194 Sun Ce went to Yuan Shu  Yuan Shu was very impressed with Sun Ce and often lamented that he had no son like him  He also returned Sun Jian's former division of troops to Sun Ce 
Initially, Yuan Shu promised to appoint Sun Ce the governor of Jiujiang but eventually gave the governorship to Chen Ji (陳紀)  Later, when Yuan Shu was denied a large loan of grains from the governor of Lujiang, he sent Sun Ce to attack the latter, promising to make Sun Ce the governor of Lujiang should he succeed  When Sun Ce did, however, Yuan Shu again went back on his words and appointed someone else instead  The disappointed Sun Ce then began to contemplate leaving 
Meanwhile, Liu Yao, who was by imperial decree the governor of Yang Province, occupied Qu'e as the regional seat Shouchun was already occupied by Yuan Shu  He then forced Wu Jing back west across the Yangtze River to Liyang (歷陽; present-day He County, Anhui)  However, Yuan Shu claimed to be the rightful governor and sent Wu Jing and Sun Ce's cousin Sun Ben to attack Liu Yao  After they were unable to break down Liu Yao's defences for more than a year, Sun Ce requested to lead forces to assist the effort 

Conquest of Wu territory
Though Yuan Shu knew Sun Ce intended to leave, he believed the latter would not be able to defeat Liu Yao  Thus he deployed the young general off with merely a thousand odd troops and a tiny cavalry force  Along with a few hundred more willing followers, Sun Ce proceeded to Liyang, where he boosted his strength to more than 5,000  He then launched an offensive across the Yangtze River and successfully occupied the strategic position of Niuzhu (牛渚; southwest of present-day Ma'anshan, Anhui) in 195



ground_truth: Colin Firth

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Who is the father of the artist who painted Head I?

The following are given passages.
Context 3: 
Two of Liu Yao's allies then came south from Pengcheng and Xiapi respectively to aid him  Sun Ce chose to first attack one of them, Ze Rong, who made camp south of Moling  After suffering initial defeat in the hands of the aggressor, Ze Rong fell back in defence and refused to engage in battle  Sun Ce then marched further north and attacked Xue Li (薛禮) in Moling  Although Xue Li soon gave up the city and escaped, Liu Yao's subordinate Fan Neng (樊能) and others had regrouped their forces and launched a renewed attack on Niuzhu  Turning back, Sun Ce defeated Fan Neng and secured Niuzhu  He then began a second offensive against Ze Rong  However, he was struck by a stray arrow in the thigh  Returning to Niuzhu, he sent out false words that he was killed in battle  The exulted Ze Rong then sent a force to attack  Sun Ce led the enemies into an ambush and annihilated them  When Ze Rong heard that Sun Ce was still alive, he further reinforced his defences 
Sun Ce then temporarily gave up attacking Ze Rong and focused his forces on Qu'e  After all the surrounding areas were taken over by Sun Ce, Liu Yao gave up the city and escaped south to Nanchang, capital of Yuzhang Commandery, where he died later  Hua Xin, administrator of Yuzhang, joined Sun's forces  As Sun Ce implemented strict discipline among his troops, he won the instant support of the local people and gathered many talented men, such as Chen Wu, Zhou Tai, Jiang Qin, Zhang Zhao, Zhang Hong, Qin Song, and Lü Fan  He then pushed his force deeper into Yang Province and conquered Kuaiji along the southern shore of Hangzhou Bay, whose governor Wang Lang surrendered  Sun Ce made Kuaiji his base city and struck out at the wandering bandit army led by Yan Baihu  Yan Baihu sent his younger brother Yan Yu (嚴輿) to offer Sun Ce a position alongside Yan Baihu, but Sun Ce showed no mercy and personally slew the emissary  As Yan Yu was known among Yan Baihu's men as a fierce warrior, his death struck fear into their hearts and they were soon defeated  Sun Ce then appointed his relatives and a trusted subject to govern Danyang and Yuzhang, from which he divided a new commandery named Luling (廬陵)  His campaign, from the occupation of Niuzhu to the conquest of the entire region southeast of the Long River, took less than a year  He then defeated and received the services of Zu Lang (祖郎), the Chief of Danyang, and Taishi Ci, the leader of the remnants of Liu Yao's forces; he then urged the surrender of Hua Xin, another one of the remnants of Liu Yao's forces  Thus, with the exception of the scattered but still numerous army of Yan Baihu, the lands south of the Yangtze were mostly pacified 
The barbarians of Shanyue tribe, however, were not easily dealt with  To counter the frequent rebellions of the Shanyue (who would continue to rebel for many years), Sun Ce appointed He Qi to a military rank with orders to subdue the Shanyue  He Qi became a highly successful general later; truly, his appointment by Sun Ce was the first important step to Wu's eventual subjugation of the Shanyue 

Later life
In 197, Yuan Shu declared himself emperor – an act deemed treasonous against the Han dynasty  In a letter to Yuan Shu, Sun Ce denounced the move and broke ties with the former  In an effort to garner support from Sun Ce, the rising warlord Cao Cao then recommended him to be appointed General Who Attacks Rebels (討逆將軍) and enfeoffed as the Marquis of Wu (吳侯)  In 199 Yuan Shu died of sickness along with his short-lived Zhong Dynasty  His cousin Yuan Yin (袁胤) feared Cao Cao and gave up Shouchun  Bringing along Yuan Shu's coffin and his former troops, he headed to Wan County (皖縣; present-day Qianshan County, Anhui) to seek refuge under Liu Xun (劉勳)  As Liu Xun had insufficient food supplies in his realm to support the additional troops, he led a force south to pillage Haihun (海昏; east of present-day Yongxiu County, Jiangxi) 
Sun Ce was en route to attack Huang Zu in Xiakou when he received the news  He then turned back and captured the poorly-defended Wan County, taking over all of Yuan Shu's 30,000 former troops  Hearing that his base city had been taken, Liu Xun headed west and sought help from Huang Zu, who sent a 5,000-strong naval force to assist him  Sun Ce pressed forward and defeated Liu Xun, who escaped north to Cao Cao  Sun Ce annexed more than 2,000 former troops and 1,000 ships of his enemy and came upon Huang Zu  Despite reinforcements from Liu Biao, Huang Zu was utterly defeated  During the battle, Sun Ce slew Liu Biao's officer, Han Xi (韓希), and completely routed Huang Zu's son, Huang She (黃射) 
The victorious Sun Ce in 199 looked poised to take over the entire southern China  As he was threatened by rival Yuan Shao in the north and could not divide his attention, Cao Cao attempted to further reinforce the alliance with Sun Ce by marrying the daughter of his relative Cao Ren to Sun Ce's youngest brother Sun Kuang  Sun Ce in turn agreed to marry Sun Ben's daughter to Cao Cao's son Cao Zhang 
The former administrator of Wu Commandery, Xu Gong, had long opposed Sun Ce  Xu Gong wrote to Emperor Xian, recommending the emperor to summon Sun Ce to the capital as he deemed Sun Ce to be a hero comparable to Xiang Yu and too dangerous to be allowed to occupy a territory  However, the letter was intercepted by an official loyal to Sun Ce, who attacked and then had Xu Gong executed  Xu Gong's former servants then kept a low profile and waited for chance to revenge 
In the year 200, Cao Cao engaged in the decisive Battle of Guandu with Yuan Shao along the shores of the Yellow River, leaving the capital and his base city Xuchang poorly guarded  Sun Ce is said to have then plotted to attack Xuchang under the banner of rescuing Emperor Xian, who was a figurehead under Cao Cao's control  Preparations were underway for the military excursion when Sun Ce ran into three former servants of Xu Gong during a solo hunting trip  One of them managed to plant an arrow into Sun Ce's cheek before Sun Ce's men arrived and slew the assassins  Many differing accounts of Sun Ce's death exist (see below)  One generally accepted scenario is that he died that same night 
Another possible scenario has Sun Ce living for quite some time  The physician told Sun Ce to rest still for a hundred days to allow the wound to heal, but Sun Ce looked into the mirror one day and, seeing his scar, became so enraged that he slammed his table  The large movement caused the wound to break and he died in the same night  Although he was survived by one son, Sun Ce passed his legacy to his younger brother, Sun Quan  When Sun Quan declared himself emperor of the state of Eastern Wu in 222, he honoured Sun Ce with the posthumous title "Prince Huan of Changsha" (長沙桓王) 
Sun Ce was succeeded by a posthumous son, Sun Shao (孫紹), as well as at least two (possibly three) daughters, married to Gu Shao and later Zhu Ji (朱紀), and Lu Xun respectively  Sun Shao bore one son, Sun Feng (孫奉), who was executed by Sun Hao for alleged treason due to his popularity 

Dispute over cause of death
Sun Sheng (孫盛) in his Exposition on Disparities and Similarities (異同評) discounted the theory that Sun Ce made plans to attack Xuchang  He believed that although Sun Ce was a rising power, he was threatened in the west by Huang Zu, who was defeated but not eliminated, in the north by Chen Deng, governor of Guangling Commandery, and in the south by indigenous tribes yet to be assimilated  These prevented Sun Ce from striking far out at Xuchang and moving the emperor to southeastern China  He further argued that Sun Ce died on the fifth day in the fourth month of 200, before the Battle of Guandu even took place 
Pei Songzhi, who annotated the Records of the Three Kingdoms, rebutted Sun Sheng, arguing that Huang Zu was newly broken and had yet to recollect his forces while the indigenous tribes were scattered and not much of a threat  Pei Songzhi believed that the first objective of Sun Ce's planned northward excursion was to attack Chen Deng, which would provide a platform for capturing Xuchang  On the other hand, Cao Cao and Yuan Shao had been engaging in skirmishes and small-scale battles before Sun Ce's death  Thus there was in fact no discrepancy in timing 
A historically implausible legend regarding Sun Ce's death involves a highly respected Taoist priest of his time, Gan Ji (干吉), whom he condemned as a sorcerer due to his popularity  Despite petitions from his subjects and his own mother, Sun Ce ordered Gan Ji's execution  According to In Search of the Supernatural (搜神記) by Gan Bao (干竇), a compilation largely based on legends and hearsay, Sun Ce began to see apparitions of Gan Ji ever since the execution of the latter  After he was injured by assassins, Sun Ce was told by the physician to rest still to allow the wound to heal  However, he looked into the mirror one day and saw Gan Ji's face, whereupon he let out a cry and slammed the mirror  His wound broke and he died shortly  This version was adopted and further dramatised in the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in which Gan Ji's name was taken to be "Yu Ji" (于吉) 

Family
In popular culture
Chinese opera
In Peking opera, Sun Ce's role is usually that of a hero or tragic hero, while his brother, Sun Quan is usually portrayed as a villain at worst or self-seeking at best  Several operas even toy with the idea that Sun Quan had Sun Ce assassinated so that he could take control of the warlord state, though there is no historical evidence to support this view  In the opera Fenghuang Er Qiao, Sun Ce borrows 3,000 troops from Yuan Shu and allies with the Qiao army, which is led by the Two Qiaos  Sun Ce, the protagonist of the opera, eventually gains Da Qiao's hand in marriage through a martial arts contest with the help of Zhou Yu and Xiao Qiao 

Film and television
In the 1983 Shaw Brothers Studio film The Weird Man, Sun Ce has Yu Ji executed and the sorcerer becomes a vengeful ghost  In this film Sun Ce is portrayed as the anti-hero and Yu Ji as the hero due to the controversy between them in the novel  The 1993 Hong Kong film Ninja in Ancient China is also adapted from this story except Yu Ji's apprentices try to avenge him 
Sha Yi portrayed Sun Ce in the 2010 Chinese television series Three Kingdoms 

Comics and anime
In the anime Yokoyama Mitsuteru Sangokushi, Sun Ce fights alongside his father against Dong Zhuo and is befriended by Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei, with whom he trains to become a hero 
The protagonist of the manga/anime Ikki Tousen, Sonsaku Hakufu, is loosely based on the historical figure Sun Ce ("Sonsaku Hakufu" being the Japanese reading of Sun Ce's name and courtesy name)  Her guardian, Shuuyu Koukin, bears the same name and personality as Zhou Yu 
In the anime Kōtetsu Sangokushi, Sun Ce is portrayed as a once kind-hearted and virtuous hero who was corrupted by the power of the Imperial Seal, causing him to kill its protector 
In the Chinese manhua The Ravages of Time, Sun Ce is a cunning, ruthless and manipulative character 

Video games
Sun Ce appears in Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy game series 
Sun Ce is featured as a playable character in Koei's Dynasty Warriors video game series, as well as Warriors Orochi, a crossover between Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors 
Sun Ce is also a legendary character in Creative Assembly's Total War: Three Kingdoms, the newest part of the Total War video games series which was released on May 23, 2019 
Sun Ce is also a playable character in the fighting game Sango Fighter 2 

Card games
In the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering there is a card named "Sun Ce, Young Conqueror", in the Portal Three Kingdoms set 

See also
Lists of people of the Three Kingdoms
Eastern Wu family trees

Notes
Passage 6:
Gorgons Head
Gorgons Head (79°33′S 157°30′E) is a peak southeast of Mount Hughes in the Cook Mountains of Antarctica  The peak is sandstone with dolerite intrusions and is a sharp summit ridge  It was named after the Gorgons, three winged creatures of Greek mythology only one of which (Medusa) could be killed by having its head cut off 
Passage 7:
Louise of Savoy
Louise of Savoy (11 September 1476 – 22 September 1531) was a French noble and regent, Duchess suo jure of Auvergne and Bourbon, Duchess of Nemours and the mother of King Francis I and Marguerite of Navarre  She was politically active and served as the regent of France in 1515, in 1525–1526 and in 1529 

Family and early life
Louise of Savoy was born at Pont-d'Ain, the eldest daughter of Philip II, Duke of Savoy and his first wife, Margaret of Bourbon  Her brother, Philibert II, Duke of Savoy, succeeded her father as ruler of the duchy and head of the House of Savoy  He was, in turn, succeeded by their half-brother Charles III, Duke of Savoy 
Because her mother died when she was only seven, she was brought up by Anne de Beaujeu, who was regent of France for her brother Charles VIII  At Amboise she met Margaret of Austria (daughter of Maximlian and Mary of Burgundy), who was betrothed to the young king and with whom Louise would negotiate peace several decades later 

Marriage
At age eleven, Louise married Charles of Orléans, Count of Angoulême, on 16 February 1488 in Paris  She only began living with him when she was fifteen, though  Despite her husband having two mistresses, the marriage was not unhappy and they shared a love for books 
The household of Charles was presided over by his châtelaine Antoinette de Polignac, Dame de Combronde, by whom he had two illegitimate daughters, Jeanne of Angoulême and Madeleine  Antoinette became Louise's lady-in-waiting and confidante  Her children were raised alongside Louise's own  Charles had another illegitimate daughter, Souveraine, by Jeanne le Conte, who also lived in the Angoulême chateau  She would later arrange marriages for her husband's illegitimate children Their first child, Marguerite, was born on 11 April 1492; their second child, Francis, was born on 12 September 1494 
When her husband fell ill after going out riding in the winter of 1495, she nursed him and suffered much grief when he died on 1 January 1496 

Widowed and motherhood
When she was widowed at the young age of 19, Louise deftly manoeuvred her children into a position that would secure for each of them a promising future  Though they remained in Cognac for two years, she moved her family to court at the ascension of King Louis XII, her husband's cousin 
Louise had a keen awareness of the intricacies of politics and diplomacy, and was deeply interested in the advances in arts and sciences in Renaissance Italy  She made certain that her children were educated in the spirit of the Italian Renaissance, also helped by her Italian confessor, Cristoforo Numai from Forlì  She commissioned books specifically for them and she taught Francis Italian and Spanish When Louis XII became ill in 1505, he determined that Francis should succeed him and that both Louise and his wife Anne of Brittany should be part of the regency council  He recovered and Francis became a favourite of the king, who eventually gave him his daughter Claude of France in marriage on 8 May 1514  Following the marriage, Louis XII designated Francis as his heir 

Mother of the King
With the death of Louis XII on 1 January 1515, Francis became king of France  On 4 February 1515, Louise was named Duchess of Angoulême, and on 15 April 1524, Duchess of Anjou 

The Bourbon inheritance
Her mother having been one of the sisters of the last dukes of the main branch of Bourbon, after the death of Suzanne, Duchess of Bourbon, in 1521, Louise, on basis of proximity of blood, advanced claims to the Duchy of Auvergne and other possessions of the Bourbons  This led her (supported by her son) in rivalry against Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, Suzanne's widower, whom she proposed to marry in order to settle the Bourbon inheritance issue  When her suit was insultingly rejected by Charles, Louise instigated efforts to undermine him  This led to Charles' exile and his attempt to regain his lost status by waging war against the King  He died in 1527 having failed to regain his lost lands and titles  Louise recovered Auvergne from confiscations and became duchess in the name of her son 

Regent
Louise of Savoy remained politically active on behalf of her son in the early years of his reign especially  During his absences, she acted as regent on his behalf  Louise served as the Regent of France in 1515, during the king's war in Italy, and again from 1525 to 1526, when the king was at war and during his time as a prisoner in Spain 
In 1524, she sent one of her servants, Jean-Joachim de Passano, to London to open unofficial negotiations with Cardinal Wolsey for a peace treaty; the negotiations were not a success, although they may have prepared the ground for the Treaty of the More the following year 

She initiated friendly relations with the Ottoman Empire by sending a mission to Suleiman the Magnificent requesting assistance, but the mission was lost on its way in Bosnia  In December 1525, a second mission was sent, led by John Frangipani, which managed to reach Constantinople, the Ottoman capital, with secret letters asking for the deliverance of King Francis I and an attack on the Habsburg  Frangipani returned with a positive answer from Suleiman, on 6 February 1526, initiating the first steps of a Franco-Ottoman alliance She was the principal negotiator for the Treaty of Cambrai between France and the Holy Roman Empire, which concluded on 3 August 1529  That treaty, called "the Ladies' Peace", put an end to the second Italian war between the head of the Valois dynasty, Francis I of France, and the head of the Habsburg dynasty, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor  The Treaty temporarily confirmed Habsburg hegemony in Italy  The treaty was signed by Louise of Savoy for France and her sister-in-law, Margaret of Austria, for the Holy Roman Empire 

Death
Louise of Savoy died on 22 September 1531, in Grez-sur-Loing of the plague  Her remains were entombed at Saint-Denis in Paris  After her death, her lands, including Auvergne, merged in the crown  Through her daughter Marguerite (Queen of Navarre) and her granddaughter Jeanne d'Albret, she is the ancestress of the Bourbon kings of France, as her great-grandson, Henry of Navarre, succeeded as Henry IV of France 

Ancestors
Passage 8:
Chen Peisi
Chen Peisi (Chinese: 陈佩斯; born 1 February 1954) is a Chinese sketch comedian, film and stage actor, and voice actor   Chen's oft-time comedy partner is Zhu Shimao 

Name
Chen Peisi is the second son of famous stage and film actor Chen Qiang  Chen Qiang's first son (Chen Peisi's brother) was born in 1951 while he was overseas in the Hungarian capital Budapest performing The White-Haired Girl, so he named his first son Chen Buda (陈布达) after Buda, the western half of Budapest, as he loved the city during the visit   When the second son was born three years later, he named the son Peisi after Pest, the eastern half of Budapest, as the Standard Chinese phonetic translation of Budapest is "Bù Dá Peì Sī"   Chen Qiang's youngest child and daughter Chen Lida (陈丽达) was also named after a part of Budapest — the Margaret Island in the Danube between Buda and Pest 

Biography
Chen was born in Changchun, Jilin on 1 February 1954  In 1966, Chen studied at The High School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University  In 1969, during the Cultural Revolution, he worked in Inner Mongolia Production and Construction Corps  In 1973, Chen worked in August First Film Studio as an actor  In 1991, Chen set up a company named Hainan Comedy Film and Television Limited Company (海南喜剧影视有限公司), then renamed it Dadao Film and Television Limited Company (大道影业有限公司)  In 2000, Chen and his partner Zhu Shimao sued the China International Television Corporation over royalties from broadcasts which they won, but they were then taken off air by the parent company, China Central Television On October 26, 2020, he returned to the CCTV stage and served as the first instructor of the variety show "Gold Medal Comedy Class" after 20 years 

Filmography
Film
Television
Variety show
Passage 9:
Hugi Glacier
Hugi Glacier (66°11′S 65°7′W) is a glacier flowing northward into the head of Holtedahl Bay southwest of Rasnik Peak, on the west coast of Graham Land, Antarctica  It was charted by the British Graham Land Expedition under John Rymill, 1934–37, and was named by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee in 1959 for Franz Joseph Hugi, a Swiss teacher who was called the "father of winter mountaineering," and was author of two pioneer works on glacier phenomena 
Passage 10:
Rivers Inlet, British Columbia
Rivers Inlet is an unincorporated settlement and First Nations community of the Wuikinuxv (Owikeno) people, located at the head of the inlet of the same name in the Central Coast region of British Columbia, Canada   The community is located adjacent to the Wannock River, a short waterway connecting Owikeno Lake to the head of Rivers Inlet 
Passage 11:
Head of Grassy, Kentucky
Head of Grassy is an unincorporated community in Lewis County, Kentucky, United States  Head of Grassy is located on Kentucky Route 59 and the Grassy Fork 14 7 miles (23 7 km) south-southeast of Vanceburg; its name is a misnomer, as it lies 5 miles (8 0 km) downstream from the head of the Grassy Fork  Head of Grassy had a post office, which opened on November 19, 1878, and closed in 1982 or 1984 



ground_truth: Nicholas Bacon

Sir Nicholas Bacon