At the time of the release of All About Eve, "The Sarah Siddons Award" was a purely fictitious award. However, there now exists the American Sarah Siddons Award for dramatic achievement in theatre: a genuine and prestigious award, named in honor of Siddons. The award is given annually in Chicago by the "Sarah Siddons Society."
The London Underground had an electric locomotive built by Vickers named after her. Used on the Metropolitan Line, No. 12 lasted along with other locomotives, until 1961. Painted a maroon colour, she is now the only one of twenty locomotives to remain preserved in working order.
Michael Corby, founder of the 1970s group The Babys, is reportedly the great-great-great-great-grandson of Sarah Siddons.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks on the Empire of Japan during World War II (WWII). The United States and the Allies were fighting against Japan and slowly winning. Two nuclear weapons were dropped on Japan, one on the city of Hiroshima and the other on the city of Nagasaki. The generals wanted to bomb Kokura instead of Nagasaki, but it was too cloudy over Kokura that day. U.S. President Harry S. Truman ordered these attacks on August 6 and 9, 1945. This was near the end of WWII.
The atomic bombs had been created through the Manhattan Project. They created two bombs. The first bomb was called Little Boy, and was to be dropped on Hiroshima, and the second bomb was called Fat Man, and was to be dropped on Nagasaki. Nuclear bombs are much more powerful than other bombs. Six days after the explosion over Nagasaki, and after the Soviet invasion of Manchukuo, Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers on August 15. Japan signed the surrender paper on September 2. This officially ended the Pacific War and World War II.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen for several reasons. First, both cities were unsuitable for firebombing, mainly due to the river deltas preventing firestorms from being very effective. Second, both cities had areas which provided a good measurement for damage caused by the nuclear bombs. Third and finally, both cities contained strategic personnel and installations; Hiroshima was the headquarters of the 2nd General Army and 5th Division with 40,000 Japanese combatants stationed within the city's limit, and Nagasaki contained two large Mitsubishi armament factories and many other medium-to-small workshops and plants providing vital war components for Japan's war machine.
Several other cities were selected for similar reasons and some of those were rejected due to bad weather. As with other Japanese cities, these targets were mixed in with civilian homes, schools, and temples. Sources said that at least 54% of the deaths in Hiroshima were combatants and slave laborers while 72% of the deaths in Nagasaki were war industry employees and slave laborers, however these figures at various points mix soldiers, enslaved POWs and victims of Japanese occupations and do not necessarily correspond to the overall population of the cities and the overall casualties
Many say that the atomic bombs actually saved many lives in the long run because it prevented the invasion of Japan. However, Japan had lost a huge part of its food resources and the majority of its navy. Many of these people suggest that Japan may have lacked the strength to carry out major fighting. US military commanders made statements during and immediately after 1945 that they believed Japan was effectively defeated prior to the dropping of the bomb. Before the bombs, Japan offered to surrender, on condition that their leaders had to stay in charge. America said the Emperor of Japan leader could stay in power, but the Japanese had to take orders from American soldiers placed in Japan, making it an occupied territory. More people would have been killed in a full battle in Japan. Some give different guesses of deaths in an invasion and deaths by the atomic bombs, and say that the bombings were not necessary. People still argue about this. No nuclear weapon has ever been used against a target since August 9, 1945.
The decision to use nuclear weapons on Japan was made after an analysis showed that more than a million people—combatants and civilians of both nations—would die if Japan was invaded by Allied forces. The nuclear bombings, while shocking and unprecedented, actually paled in comparison with the "Operation Meetinghouse" firebombing of Tokyo on March 9/10, 1945, which killed 100,000 civilians and destroyed 16 square miles in a single night. Doing nothing or waiting for surrender was not an option because hundreds of thousands of combatants, civilians, and prisoners of war were dying each month in the territories of the Empire of Japan.
Partly because of the atomic bombings, Japan adopted the Three Non-Nuclear Principles after the war. These principles said that Japan could not create or try to get nuclear weapons. A scientist Albert Einstein wrote a letter about the atomic bomb on August 2, 1939. But he said later, "I made one great mistake in my life, when I signed a letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made."
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18 November 1836 – 29 May 1911) was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator. He is best known for the comic operas (or operettas) that he wrote with Sir Arthur Sullivan.
Gilbert worked in the civil service for a few years, but he did not like it. He studied law and became a lawyer, but not many people hired him. To make more money, he wrote short stories and comic poems for magazines. He also worked as a theatre critic. Gilbert made drawings for some of his poems and signed them "Bab", a nickname he had when he was a baby. Those poems became known as "The Bab Ballads" and were very popular.
In the 1860s Gilbert started writing plays. At first he wrote parodies of other writers' plays and operas, but soon he developed his own way of writing. Gilbert wrote many plays; most of them are not performed anymore, but "Engaged" (1877), about a man who proposes marriage to every woman he meets, is still performed.
In 1871 Gilbert started working with Sullivan. They wrote fourteen comic operas together; Gilbert wrote the words and Sullivan wrote the music. Their fourth opera, "H.M.S. Pinafore" (1878), made the team of "Gilbert and Sullivan" famous all over the English-speaking world. Besides "Pinafore", their best-known operas are "The Pirates of Penzance" (1879) and "The Mikado" (1885). The Gilbert and Sullivan operas are still performed very often, by opera companies, theatre companies, and groups in schools and colleges.
Gilbert and Sullivan sometimes argued about what to write and how to write it, but they worked together for 25 years, from 1871 to 1896. When they were angry with each other, they wrote operas with other people, but those operas did not make as much money as the operas they wrote together. When Sullivan died in 1900, Gilbert stopped writing operas.
Gilbert directed his own plays and operas. He wanted the actors to talk in a natural way, and not shout as if they were giving a speech to a big crowd. Gilbert's ideas helped other playwrights, like Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, to make their plays more real.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is a 2008 American adventure movie. It is a sequel to "The Mummy" and "The Mummy Returns". It was released on August 1, 2008 in the United States. Jet Li is in the movie also.
The movie opened in Los Angeles on July 27, 2008.
Most critics said the movie is bad. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" liked it as "plain dumb fun."
Borough of Congleton
The Borough of Congleton (or Congleton Borough) is in Cheshire, England. The towns of Alsager,Congleton, Middlewich and Sandbach are in the Borough. It is part of the second tier of local government, the Borough will be replaced by Cheshire East in April 2009.