The current version of the Chinese calendar was developed for the Chongzhen Emperor in the 17th century. It has
Today in China the Gregorian calendar is used for most activities. At the same time, the Chinese calendar is still used for traditional Chinese holidays like Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year.
Music for the Royal Fireworks
Music for the Royal Fireworks is a group of five pieces for orchestra composed by George Frideric Handel in 1749. He was asked by King George II to write the music because the king wanted some music and fireworks to celebrate the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. This was an agreement between a lot of European countries to end the war they had been fighting.
The king wanted the celebrations to take place in Green Park in London. He wanted the orchestra to have lots of military instruments such as trumpets and drums and “hoped there would be no violins”! He wanted the orchestra to have a rehearsal in Vauxhall Gardens to which the public would be able to go. Handel was not very happy with these arrangements, but in the end he agreed.
The rehearsal in Vauxhall Gardens took place on 21 April. This was just for the music, there were no fireworks. There were 12,000 people in the audience. The huge crowds caused a three hour traffic jam on London Bridge. The tickets for entrance cost 2s 6d (two shillings and six pence, worth 12 ½p in modern money).
Six days later the real performance took place in Green Park. The orchestra played in a building which had been specially made. The music was played while the fireworks went off. Unfortunately there was a disaster. The building caught fire when a huge bas relief of the king fell down. However, no one was hurt.
The music has five movements: an overture, a Bourrée, a movement called La paix (The Peace), La réjouissance (The Rejoicing), and two minuets.
Handel wrote the music for a large orchestra with 24 oboes, 12 bassoons (including a contrabassoon), nine trumpets, nine horns, three pairs of kettledrums, and a number of side drums. On 27 May Handel conducted the music again at a special concert for the Foundling Hospital. This time he used a normal orchestra with string instruments and wind instruments. This is the way it is usually played today.
Thora Birch
Thora Birch (born March 11, 1982) is an American actress. She was one of the most popular child actors of the 1990s in movies, such as "Hocus Pocus" (1993), "Now and Then" (1995) and "Alaska" (1996). Since the 1990's she has had more serious roles, with good acting in movies, such as "American Beauty" (1999) and "Ghost World" (2001).
Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren (born 20 September 1934) is an Italian actress, one of the best known and most popular of Italian actresses.
Born Sofia Scicolone in Rome, Italy, out of wedlock. She grew up in Puzzuoli, near Naples, raised by her single mother in poverty.
In 1950, she entered a beauty contest and was noticed by film producer Carlo Ponti (1912-2007) who took her under his wing. With his help and guidance, she began appearing in bit parts in film, and got her first major role in director Vittorio De Sica's "The Gold of Naples" in 1954.
Ponti made her learn English and took her to Hollywood. Her first film there was "The Pride and the Passion" in 1957, opposite Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra. This was followed by "Desire under the Elms" (1958) with Anthony Perkins, "Houseboat" (1958) with Cary Grant, "Black Orchid" (1958) with Anthony Quinn, "It Happened in Naples" (1960) with Clark Gable, "Heller in Pink Tights" (1960) with Anthony Quinn, "A Breath of Scandal" (1960) with John Gavin.
Back in Italy, she was reunited with Vittorio De Sica in "La Ciocara" ("Two Women") in 1961, which won her the Academy Award and the BAFTA for best actress.
Thereafter, she pursued her career both in Italy and the United States, appearing in films such as "El Cid" (1962), "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964), "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" (1964), "Marriage Italian Style" (1964), "Arabesque" (1966), "The Countess from Hong Kong" (1967), "The Man from La Mancha" (1972), "The Cassandra Crossing" (1976), etc.
Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti were first married on 17 September 1957, but Ponti being Catholic his divorce from his first wife was not recognized in Italy and the marriage was declared invalid. Ponti took French citizenship and after being legally divorced, he and Loren were remarried on 9 April 1966, and had two sons; Carlo (b. 1968) and Eduardo (b. 1973).
Helen Hunt
Helen Elizabeth Hunt (born June 15, 1963) is an American actress. She has won the Emmy, Golden Globe and Academy Awards. She is best known for her role in the television sitcom "Mad About You".
Hunt has been given many awards in her career. In 1998 she became one of only two actresses (the other is Helen Mirren) to win a Golden Globe Award, an Academy Award and an Emmy Award in the same year. She is the only actress to win four consecutive Emmys and to win four Blockbuster Entertainment Awards.
Academy Award
Emmy Award
Golden Globe Award
Screen Actors Guild Award
Jane Seymour (actress)
Jane Seymour OBE (born Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg on 15 February 1951) is an English actress. Her father was a Jew from England whose family was from Poland. Her mother was a Dutch Protestant. Seymour is known as the co-star of the James Bond movie "Live and Let Die" and star of the TV series and movie "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman".
Goldie Hawn
Goldie Jeanne Hawn (born November 21, 1945) is an American actress, director and producer. Her mother was an American Jew of Hungarian immigrant parents. One of her early roles was as a cast member of "Laugh-In", a comedy series on NBC television. She won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award in 1969 for her work in "Cactus Flower". She then left "Laugh-In" to continue her movie career.
Hawn is famous for her acting in many movie comedies during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Her son, Oliver Hudson, is a television and movie actor. Her daughter is Kate Hudson, who is an actress and has been nominated for an Oscar. Hawn has another son, Wyatt Russell, whose father is actor Kurt Russell, Hawn's longtime partner.
Meg Ryan
Meg Ryan (born November 19, 1961) is an American actress. She has starred in several romantic comedies, but has also worked in other movie genres, including drama and mystery.
Dennis Quaid
Dennis William Quaid (born April 9, 1954 in Houston, Texas) is an American actor.
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is a British organisation that gives awards at a special show every year, for movies, television, children's movies and television, and media. The award for movies is called the British Academy Film Awards.
BAFTA was created in 1947 as The British Film Academy. In 1958, the Academy joined with The Guild of Television Producers and Directors and together they formed The Society of Film and Television. This later became The British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1976.
BAFTA's main office is on Piccadilly in London, but it also has smaller offices in Northern England, Scotland, Wales, New York City and Los Angeles.
The Academy's awards are in the form of a theatrical mask designed by American sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe, which was ordered by the Guild of Television Producers in 1955.
Essay
An essay is a written text. It is usually about the personal point of view of the author who wrote it. The definition of an essay is vague. Articles and short stories can be quite similar. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been called essays (e.g. Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism" and "An Essay on Man"). People that write essays are called essayists.
Most essays are short. This does not have to be the case. John Locke's "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" and Thomas Malthus's "An Essay on the Principle of Population" are long essays.