Year 1248 (MCCXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.
Honor Blackman
Honor Blackman (22 August 1925 – 5 April 2020) was an English actress. She was born in Plaistow, Essex. She is best known for her roles in the movie "Goldfinger" and on the television programmes, "The Avengers" and "The Upper Hand" (the British version of "Who's the Boss").
Blackman died at her home in Lewes on 5 April 2020. She was 94.
Hamlet
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy play by William Shakespeare. It is one of his best-known plays, and many lines have become famous quotations. The play is often just called Hamlet.
"Hamlet" was written between 1600 and 1602, and first printed in 1603. With 4042 lines and 29551 words, Hamlet is the longest Shakespearean play.
Hamlet is a young prince in Denmark who was supposed to become king when his father (also named Hamlet) died. Instead, the throne was seized by Hamlet's uncle Claudius, who also married Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. Hamlet meets a ghost of his dead father, who tells him that he was poisoned by Claudius and demands that Hamlet kill Claudius in revenge.
Hamlet is at first not sure whether to believe the ghost, so he tries to investigate. He pretends to be mad to hide what he is doing. As the play goes on, it becomes hard to tell if Hamlet is actually mad or still just pretending. His behaviour causes him to fall out with Ophelia, a girl he was in love with. He eventually has the idea of getting some actors to put on a play of a king being killed in the way the ghost described to see if Claudius reacts guiltily. Claudius panics when he sees the play, and Hamlet sees this as confirmation that he is a murderer.
Hamlet has a chance to kill Claudius in the castle chapel, but cannot bring himself to do it. While waiting outside, he gets into an argument with his mother. Someone moves behind a curtain and Hamlet, thinking it is Claudius, stabs him. It turns out that he has killed Polonius, a royal advisor and Ophelia's father. Claudius orders Hamlet to be exiled to England. He sets up a plot to have Hamlet killed, but Hamlet escapes and returns to Denmark. Meanwhile, Ophelia has been suffering from madness after falling out with Hamlet. After learning that he has killed her father, she drowns herself. Hamlet reappears at Ophelia's funeral and gets into a fight with her brother Laertes. Laertes blames Hamlet for his sister and father's deaths and wants to take revenge. He challenges Hamlet to a sword fight. Hamlet agrees.
The sword fight is arranged to take place at the castle. To get Hamlet killed, Claudius gets Laertes to fight with a sword that has poison on the blade, and brings some poisoned wine in case this does not work. The sword fight begins. After some fighting, Laertes wounds Hamlet and poisons him. During a break, the swords are mixed up and Hamlet ends up fighting and wounding Laertes with the poisoned sword. Laertes shows regret for what he has done and tells Hamlet about the poison as he dies. Meanwhile, Gertrude drinks the poisoned wine by mistake and dies. Realising that he is also dying, Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned sword and forces him to drink the rest of the wine. In his last moments, Hamlet tells his friend Horatio that Fortinbras, a Norwegian prince, should be named as the next King of Denmark.
The characters in the story are:
Hamlet is one of the hardest parts for an actor to perform. It is one of the largest roles written by Shakespeare. Many people disagree about what Hamlet is really thinking. For many actors, playing Hamlet is one of the most important parts of their career.
There have been many movies made of the play. Most of them show only part of the play, because the entire play is very long. Some of the most famous movies include:
Director
A director is someone who is in charge of something. It can mean slightly different things in different places.
1605
Bias
Bias means that a person prefers an idea and possibly does not give equal chance to a different idea. Bias can be influenced by a number of factors, such as popularity (for example, a newspaper might be biased towards a particular political party due to their employees sharing the same political beliefs as that party).
Bias in an article or editorial would show one point of view, using selected facts and quotes to support that point of view. Facts or opinions that do not support the point of view in a biased article would be excluded. For example, an article biased toward riding a motorcycle would show facts about the good gas mileage, fun, and agility. An article biased against motorcycle riding would show facts about risk of injury and noise, and ignore positive facts about motorcycles.
An article biased against guns would show only facts and information that support the author's position. They would list suicides, accidental shootings and other facts showing guns in a negative way. An article biased for guns should show only information that supports the author's position. The positively biased article would discuss 'lives saved' by guns, numbers of crimes prevented by civilian gun use, and other facts and data that put gun ownership and guns in a good light.
Bias in writing can also be shown by using bad or slang words to refer to groups of people or things. "Broads" rather than "women"; "murdercycles" rather than "motorcycles". Words or phrasing that make wide assumptions about races or groups of people also indicates bias. "All Chinese people are good at math".
Bias also means mistakes in measurements. For example, a person may measure the height of another person wearing shoes. The shoes make the height more than the same person without shoes. If the extra height of the shoes (extra bias) was not explained, someone might think that the person had been measured without shoes on. Data with extra parts not explained is called biased data.
1701
Harpsichord
Harpsichords are keyboard instruments that make sound by having the strings plucked with a plectrum. They are thought to have originated when a keyboard was attached to a psaltery. This makes them different from a clavichord where the strings are hit. The piano is therefore closer to a clavichord than a harpsichord. On a piano it is possible to play louder or quieter by playing the keys with more or less force. On a harpsichord the volume (playing louder or softer) cannot be controlled by the way it is played. However, some large harpsichords have several "stops", each one giving a different kind of sound. The largest harpsichords have two manuals (keyboards) which gives more variety. It makes it possible for the right hand to play the tune on one manual while the left hand plays an accompaniment more quietly on the other.
Some small harpsichords were called "virginals", perhaps because they were played by young girls. There are also spinets which were very small and sometimes wing-shaped. They could be picked up and put on a table.
Harpsichords were very important in music from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. They were used as solo instruments as well as to accompany an orchestra. Some of the most famous composers of harpsichord music are William Byrd (1543-1623), François Couperin (1668-1733), Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). The last of these composers wrote "The Well-Tempered Clavier", which has a prelude and fugue in every major and minor key. It is said that Bach wrote this collection of music to show how keyboard instruments like the harpsichord can be tuned in a way to make playing in any key possible.
The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio was a folk music group from Palo Alto, California who were popular in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Passion of the Christ