In the early 1950s, the young Havel entered a four-year apprenticeship as a chemical laboratory assistant. He took evening classes at the same time and completed secondary education in 1954. None of the colleges or universities with humanities programs would accept Havel for political reasons. So, he chose to study at the Faculty of Economics of Czech Technical University in Prague. He dropped out after two years. In 1964, Havel married Olga Šplíchalová. His mother was against the marriage.
Havel was already leader of the Civic Forum, and on 29 December 1989, he became president. He left office after his second term as Czech president ended on 2 February 2003. Every member of the Federal Assembly voted to make him president. This was a surprising change because Havel had always said that he was not interested in politics. He and other dissidents had said that change should come from groups of people directly, not from the government.
Czechoslovakia had free elections in 1990. Havel won and continued to be president. Havel wanted to keep the federation of the Czechs and the Slovaks together during the breakup of Czechoslovakia. He supported keeping the country together even though this was difficult and there was a lot of pressure. On 3 July 1992 the federal parliament did not elect Havel — the only candidate — because Slovak MPs did not support him. Havel resigned as president on 20 July after the Slovaks issued their Declaration of Independence. He stood for election as president of the new Czech Republic in 1993. He won and became president of this new, separate country.
Havel was quite popular throughout his career. However, some of his actions caused controversy and criticism. One of his first acts as a president was to pardon many people. He wanted to reduce the number of people in overcrowded prisons and release people who had been put in prison during the Communist era even though they were innocent. He did not trust the decisions of a corrupt court of the previous government. He thought the courts had been unfair to most people in prison. Critics said that this amnesty caused more crime. In his memoir, "To the Castle and Back", Havel wrote that most of the people he released had less than a year left to stay in prison. Statistics about this are not clear.
Havel said that the most important thing he did as president was breaking up the Warsaw Pact. Ending this group of countries was very complicated because the association was a deep part of how the countries worked. It took two years before the Soviet troops finally left Czechoslovakia completely.
Havel was very important to changing NATO. He helped change it from an anti-Warsaw Pact alliance to a group that includes former-Warsaw Pact members. Havel spoke very strongly for expanding of the military alliance into Eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic.
He has received many awards, including:
Qincheng Prison
Qincheng Prison () is a maximum-security prison in the Changping District northwest of Beijing in the People's Republic of China. The prison was built in 1958 with aid from the Soviet Union and it is the only prison belonging to the Ministry of Public Security.
The majority of people in prison here are political prisoners. Some of them were participants in the Chinese democracy movement and Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Famous inmates include Jiang Qing, Bao Tong, Dai Qing, as well as Tibetans such as Choekyi Gyaltsen, the 10th Panchen Lama, and Phuntsok Wangyal. Other inmates included many communist cadres who were criticized during the Cultural Revolution, such as Bo Yibo, Peng Zhen, Israel Epstein, Sidney Rittenberg and David Crook. 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo was also imprisoned here.
The prison is at the eastern foothill of Yanshan, facing the North China Plain in the east, north and south. The plain is where Qincheng Farm (秦城农场) is, which is part of the prison.
Suicide pact
A suicide pact is a plan of two or more people to kill themselves. People who agree on such a plan may kill themselves together, or they may just plan to do it on a certain schedule together. When studying suicide, suicide pacts are an important concept. Suicide pacts have occurred through history.
Note that a suicide pact is different from mass suicide. In a mass suicide, many people commit suicide for the same reason. In a suicide pact, it might be that one person is suicidal because of romance, and the other is suicidal because of a disease, but they both wish to die.
Mass suicide
In a mass suicide a group of people kill themselves for the same reason. Very often, all the people involved kill themselves together, at more or less the same time. The reason for the mass suicide often inolves religious views. Suicide bombings and Kamikaze missions are military or paramliitary forms of mass suicide.
Goldie Goldthorpe
Bill "Goldie" Goldthorpe (born June 20, 1953 in Hornepayne, Ontario) is a Canadian retired professional ice hockey left winger who played for 16 minor league teams between 1973 to 1984, playing exhibition games with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins. Goldthorpe grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, is widely regarded as one of the most infamous hockey enforcers to have ever played the game, a man once dubbed the "wildest, meanest, most unpredictable player in hockey", earning an amazing 1,132 penalty minutes in 194 professional games. He was the inspiration for the character Ogie Ogilthorpe in the 1977 movie Slap Shot. On January 1, 2008 during the 1st intermission of the NHL's Winter Classic outdoor game in Buffalo, NBC showed a 1 minute and 15 second piece on the movie Slapshot and the Ogilthorpe, Bill Goldthorpe connection to Bob Costas. Costas once did radio play-by-play for the Syracuse Blazers (NAHL) in 1973-74, a team that Bill Goldthorpe played on. Goldthorpe is currently a foreman at a construction company in Canada, having held that position in San Diego for several years.
Alex Gray
Alexander Haim Gray (June 21, 1899 - April 10, 1986) was a Canadian ice hockey right winger for the New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs from 1927 to 1933.
Although born in Glasgow, Scotland, Alex Gray grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario. He played for five years with the Port Arthur Ports of the TBSHL. According to Legends of Hockey, "he topped the league in goal scoring three times and was its most penalized player twice."
In 1928 Gray signed with the New York Rangers of the NHL. Wearing jersey number 2, he played on a line with Paul Thompson and Murray Murdoch. He helped the Rangers win the Stanley Cup that spring.
After his rookie season in New York he was involved in a big trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs, He was traded along with Lorne Chabot for Melville "Butch" Keeling and John Ross Roach.
He played a total of 13 games for the Maple Leafs in the 1928–29 season (7 regular season games and 4 playoff games). After 1 season in Toronto he was sent to the minors where he spent the remainder of his career.
Gordie Clark
Gordon Corson Clark (born May 31, 1952 in Glasgow, Scotland) is a retired ice hockey right winger. He played in the National Hockey League for the Boston Bruins and in the WHA for the Cincinnati Stingers.
Round Maple
Round Maple is a hamlet in the civil parish of Edwardstone, in the Babergh district of Suffolk, East of England. Round Maple is 1.2 miles northeast of Edwardstone village, 6 miles east-northeast of Sudbury and 54.9 miles northeast of London. Its postcode district is CO10.
Round Maple gives its name to Round Maple Mild ale. The ale is made at Mill Green. It has 3.3% alcohol. It also has a little bit of maple syrup. Round Maple Mild is a dark ale.
Round Maple has 4 Grade II Listed buildings (important buildings). All are timber-framed and plastered. The buildings include Little Thatch and Hathaway Cottage, Quicks Farmhouse, Seasons, and The Flushing.