Gounod returned to Paris where he got a job as director of music at a church. He thought of becoming a priest, but then he changed his mind. He left his job in the church. Some time later he became friends with the singer Pauline Viardot and her husband Louis. He spent some time at their house composing the opera "Sapho".
He composed the "Messe Sollennelle", also known as the "Saint Cecilia Mass". Two fragments of this work were first performed in London during 1851 and it helped him to become famous. By this time he was married. He had a job in charge of several choirs. He started to write a lot of choral music.
He wrote two symphonies in 1855, the 1st Symphony in D major, and the 2nd Symphony in E flat, although they are not often played today.
In 1856 he started to write the opera by which he is now best remembered: "Faust" (1859), based on the first part of the play "Faust" by Goethe. The opera was produced in 1859 and soon was performed in many countries, especially in Germany. The composer Richard Wagner was the most important opera composer in Germany and his operas were quite different, so he said that Gounod’s operas were silly.
When the Franco-Prussian war broke out in 1870 Gounod went to live in England. He stayed there for five years becoming the first conductor of what is now the Royal Choral Society. Gounod wrote a lot of music for choirs at this time, including a motet composed especially for the grand opening of the Royal Albert Hall in 1871. He worked very hard, although he was often depressed about the war situation in France. His house in Saint-Cloud had been destroyed. He returned to France in 1874 and was glad to be back with his family.
He wrote much chamber music, including five string quartets, but these are hardly ever played today.
Later in his life, Gounod became very interested in religion again. He wrote a lot of religious music, including his famous musical setting of Ave Maria based on the first prelude from Book I of "The Well-Tempered Clavier" by J.S. Bach and "Hymnus Pontificius" the anthem of Vatican. He also wrote two oratorios, including "Mors et vita" which Queen Victoria liked so much that she asked for it to be played in the Royal Albert Hall in 1886.
He was just finishing a requiem called "Le Grand Requiem" when he died. He was given a state funeral on October 27, 1893. He asked for all the music at his funeral to be chant only.
Operación Puerto doping case
The Operación Puerto doping case (meaning "Operation Mountain pass") is a doping investigation in Spain. It started in May of 2006.
Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes is accused of giving banned doping drugs to 200 professional athletes.
Fuentes doped a lot of well known tennis and football stars but most attention was on the fairly small number of professional road cyclists that were named in the investigation.
By May 2007, fifteen have been proved not guilty, but three have admitted doping or have had very much evidence of blood doping placed before them.
Dover, Pennsylvania
Dover is a borough in York County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,815 at the 2000 census. The United States Census Bureau says the borough has a total area of 1.3 km² (0.5 mi²). All of it is land. There are no lakes or rivers in Dover.
James Joner bought 203 acres of land in 1764. On this land, he created the town of Dover. It was known as Jonerstown until 1815, when the name was changed to Dover. Dover was incorporated in 1864, exactly 100 years after its founding.
Dover is most well known for something that happened in 2004-05. The Dover Area School District voted to include a statement about intelligent design in what is taught on about biology in its schools. This action led to the court case "Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District" in late 2005.
On December 20, 2005, Judge John E. Jones III decided in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania that a public school district in Pennsylvania cannot teach Intelligent Design in a science class room. He said it was because it is based on a religious belief. The first amendment in the United States Constitution does not allow the government to deal with anything that deals with religious points of view.
Rugby sevens
Rugby sevens is the shortened version of rugby union in which only seven players per side feature, instead of the full fifteen. The version of rugby union is very popular, with notable comptitions including the IRB Sevens World Series and the Rugby World Cup Sevens. It is also played at events such as the Commonwealth Games and rugby league has also adopted the sevens format.
Rugby sevens was invented in Melrose, a small town in Scotland.
It is played under the same rules and on a field of the same dimensions as the 15-player game but a rugby sevens match lasts approximately 15 minutes (7 minutes aside with 1 minute half-time break) but the finals last somewhat more than 20 minutes; each half in a final is ten minutes instead of the normal seven minutes also the game ends when the ball goes of the pitch or points are scored. The point system is similar to rugby union where a Try gets a team 5 points and conversion 2 points with 3 points for penalties and Drop-goals (drop-goals are very uncommon in sevens). Points scoring occurs with much greater regularity in sevens compared to fifteens, since there are more spaces for players to run. Scrums still exist within sevens, composed of just three players from each team. Given the speedy nature of the game, players are usually either from the backline or the trio of loose forwards in fifteens rugby. All sevens players, wether in the forwards or otherwise must be fit,agile,relatively strong and demonstrate a high level of fitness in order to compete at an optimum level. Countries such as New Zealand, Fiji, South Africa, England, and Samoa have very successful sevens teams. Rugby sevens have also been played in the commonwealth games since 1998 where there are only boys teams. New zealand is ranked as number 1 in the commonwealth games. New zealand has won 4 gold medals and one silver medal.
Rugby World Cup Sevens
The Rugby World Cup Sevens was the world's premier international contest in the Sevens version of rugby union before the sport was added to the Olympics starting in 2016. The World Cup was first held for men's teams only in Scotland in 1993; a women's World Cup was added in 2009 when the event was held in Dubai. Through 2013, the World Cup has been held every four years; after a five-year break for the next tournament in 2018, the four-year cycle will restart. The trophy for the winners of the men's tournament is the Melrose Cup, named after the Scottish town of Melrose where the first sevens game was played. The current holders for both men and women are New Zealand, who won in 2013.
The tournament's most recent edition, in Russia in 2013, was planned to be the last. In October 2009, the International Olympic Committee voted to add men's and women's rugby sevens to the Summer Olympics starting in 2016. World Rugby (then known as the International Rugby Board, or IRB), which runs rugby union around the world, said in September 2009 that it would no longer hold a World Cup if the sport would be part of the Olympics. However, the IRB changed its mind, saying in 2013 that the World Cup would be kept. The next World Cup will be held in 2018, and from that point will continue every four years.
Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon
Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002), was the only sibling of Queen Elizabeth II and the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
Margaret was born in Glamis Castle, Scotland.
In 1961, she married the photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones, who was made Earl of Snowdon. After they divorced she was known as "Princess Margaret" Countess of Snowdon; the Earl's new wife was simply "the" Countess of Snowdon. Armstrong-Jones died in 2017, almost 15 years after Margaret.