James I made him a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, where he was organist from at least 1615 until his death. In 1625 he became senior organist at the Chapel Royal, with Thomas Tomkins as junior organist. He was also keyboard player (mainly harpsichord) in the privy chamber of the court of Prince Charles (later King Charles I), and organist at Westminster Abbey. He died an early death in Canterbury of apoplexy, and a monument to him was built in Canterbury Cathedral.
Gibbons wrote a lot of keyboard works, around thirty fantasias for viols, some madrigals (the best-known being "The Silver Swan"), and many popular anthems. He was very good at writing counterpoint as well as lovely melodies. His famous verse anthem "This is the record of John" is often sung by choirs at Advent. It has a lovely solo for a countertenor who takes it in turns with the full chorus. Gibbons wrote two settings of the Evensong service: a long one with several verses, and the "Short" service. His full anthems include "O Lord in thy wrath", and the Palm Sunday setting of "O clap your hands together" for 8 voices.
Waits
Waits or waites were British town musicians. From medieval times up to the early 19th century, every important British town and city had a band of waites. Some other countries in Europe also had waits. They were called Stadtpfeifer in Germany and Pifferi in Italy.
The duties (things they had to do) varied in different towns and at different times in history. One of their most important jobs was to play at certain times of day so that people knew what the time was. They often played from the top of church towers. Sometimes they were also guards, watching from the towers so that they could spot any danger. They were like watchmen, making sure everything was all right (there was no police at that time). They woke people up in the mornings by playing music in the streets.
The instruments they played also varied. Mostly they were loud wind instruments such as the shawm. It was a paid job. The waits wore smart liveries and silver chains of office with the town's arms.
In Germany the Stadtpfeifer would also play at church services. They would play shawms or trombones on normal days, but trumpets and drums on feast-days.
In Britain there were no more waits after 1835. The name “waits” is still used in “Christmas Waits” (any group of people singing carols at Christmas).
Tennis Court Oath
The oath was a pledge signed by 576 members out of 577 of France's Third Estate and a few members of the First Estate on June 20, 1789 in a tennis court near the Palace of Versailles.
The meeting hall of the Estates General had been locked accidentally, but the Third Estate thought that this was an invasion of their rights, and were very angry with the king. They stood in a nearby indoor tennis court. They made a solemn vow that they would not move until "the voice of the country was heard" and their requests were met. They were joined by the nobles and clergy.
The vote had always been taken by class, and usually, the clergy and the nobility voted to support whatever the king wanted, so the vote of the middle class did not matter. The middle class argued that voting should be "by poll" not by order, because they had more representatives than the first two estates combined. They also wanted the Estates General to meet as one body, so that voting would be by poll, rather than by class.
A week later, the king agreed and the Estates General met as the "National Assembly".
Chart
A chart or graph is an image which summarizes data and presents it in an easy to understand way. Charts are often used to make it easier to understand the relationships of different aspects of the data. It is easier to read a chart than the raw data.
Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams (September 27 (OS), 1722–October 2, 1803) was an American leader, politician, writer, and political philosopher, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Adams helped gather support in the American colonies to rebel against Great Britain. This led to the American Revolution. Adams shaped the foundations of American politics.
Adams, born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, was brought up in a religious family. He was educated at Boston Latin School and Harvard College. He started his life as a businessman, but did not like his occupation. He then turned his interest to politics, and became an influential political writer. Adams urged the colonists to withdraw from Great Britain and form a new government. He told the colonies to defend their rights and liberties at town meetings in Boston. He wrote protests against Parliament's taxes against the colonies, such as the Stamp Act of 1765. Adams also organized the Boston Tea Party in 1773 and he was a member of the Continental Congress. He argued for the Declaration of Independence at the Second Continental Congress in 1776.
Adams helped write the Massachusetts Constitution with James Bowdoin and his cousin John Adams. Later, Adams helped draft the Articles of Confederation. After the Revolutionary War ended, he ran for the House of Representatives in the 1st United States Congressional election. He lost the election to Fisher Ames. He was elected Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts in 1789. After John Hancock's death in 1793, Adams served as the acting governor. He was then elected governor in January of 1794. He served in that position until June 1797. He then retired from politics and settled in his home in Boston. He died six years later on October 2, 1803.
Many of the foremost works on Adams' life are from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Much of the information in more recent biographies is attributed to these earlier works.
Bar chart
A bar chart is a type of chart which shows the values of different categories of data as rectangular bars with different lengths. A histogram is a bar chart that shows how data is spread over its categories.
It is another one dimensional diagram also known as pillar diagram or column graph. These bars do not have any specific width but the height of the bar is proportionally to the value of an element. When the variations are small this method is very efficient.
Pie chart
A pie chart is a type of chart with the shape of a pie or circle. It presents the relationship of different parts of the data. One would easily see the biggest or smallest share of the total data, by simply looking at the pie chart.
The earliest known pie charts were in William Playfair's "Statistical Breviary" of 1801, in which two are used.
This invention was not widely used at first. The French engineer Charles Joseph Minard was one of the first to use it. In 1858 he used them in maps to add information in a third dimension.
Some have said that Florence Nightingale invented it, but they were ignorant of Playfair's creation.
Nightingale was one of the first to use graphics to get important statistics to the reading public.
The polar area diagram is similar to a usual pie chart, except sectors are equal angles and differ rather in how far each sector extends from the center of the circle.
The polar area diagram is used to plot cyclic phenomena (e.g., count of deaths by month).
For example, if the count of deaths in each month for a year are to be plotted then there will be 12 sectors (one per month) all with the same angle of 30 degrees each. The radius of each sector would be proportional to the square root of the death count for the month, so the area of a sector represents the number of deaths in a month.
If the death count in each month is subdivided by cause of death, it is possible to make multiple comparisons on one diagram, as is seen in the polar area diagram used by Nightingale.
Pie charts are not the most accurate way to show data: that has been known for some time. Pie charts should be used only when the sum of all categories is meaningful, for example if they represent proportions.