Gniezno ( ) is a city in central-western Poland, some 50 km east of Poznań, inhabited by about 70,000 people. Situated in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. It is the administrative capital of the Gniezno County (powiat).
Gniezno is a cradle of the Polish state and until 1038 was capital of Poland. In the 1000 here took place Gniezno Congress, meeting beetwen duke Boleslaus I the Brave and Otto III, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. In Gniezno Cathedral until 14th century took place royal coronations. Patron of Gniezno is saint Adalbert of Prague.
Birmingham to Peterborough Line
The Birmingham to Peterborough Line is an important cross-country train track in the United Kingdom, making a connection from the Midlands to East Anglia. Passenger services are given by CrossCountry and East Midlands Trains, serving the following places:
On other tracks (Ely to Peterborough, Breckland and West Anglia) the trains keep going after Peterborough, through March and Ely to Thetford and Norwich or Wendens Ambo (Audley End) and Stansted Airport. Many of them run to Stansted. Services for Norwich come back out of Ely.
Other services using part of the Birmingham to Peterborough Line include Birmingham to Leicester local (close by) trains. The tracks also have a lot of cargo on the trains, being one of the big train tracks to Birmingham Freightliner Terminal (on the site of Birmingham Lawley Street railway station).
Stations that are not on these tracks anymore are:
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is a novel by E. L. Konigsburg that won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1968.
This book tells the story of Claudia Kincaid, an 11-year-old girl who feels unappreciated by her parents. She decides to run away from home just long enough to show her family what they would be missing without her. Unfortunately, she does not enjoy hardship or discomfort, so running away has lots of problems. To solve this problem, Claudia decides to stay at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She tells her brother Jamie to accompany her: he's quiet, but most importantly, he has a secret stash of cash he's gotten by cheating at card games with his best friend, Bruce.
Much of the first part of the novel details how Claudia and Jamie settle in at the museum: blending in with school groups on field trips during the day to get a free presentation, hiding in the restroom at closing time to stay there, and emerging at night to bathe in the fountain and sleep on antique beds. During their stay, they become fascinated with the newest exhibit: a beautiful statue of an angel, thought to have been crafted by Michelangelo. Their time and money are spent trying to find the secret of the statue, hidden somewhere in the unorganized files of the statue's old owner, Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, who lives in Farmington, Connecticut.
She says,"You can know the secret only if you can find the truth from my mixed up files." They find the truth under the file "Bologna". They go home, and by their choice, Jamie and Claudia turn out to be the grandchildren of Mrs Frankweiler's lawyer, Saxonberg.
This novel was made into a movie in 1973, starring Ingrid Bergman in the title role. It later became a made-for-TV movie in 1995, starring Lauren Bacall in the title role.
In the television series "The Simpsons", the plot was mimicked in the episodes "Smart and Smarter," in which Lisa hides in a local science museum in embarrassment at finding her baby sister is smarter than she, and the episode "Last Tap Dance in Springfield" features Bart and Milhouse hiding out in the shopping mall for one week while on a camping trip. The movie "The Royal Tenenbaums" has a scene in which characters Margot and Richie hide in a museum; in the movie's DVD commentary, Wes Anderson states that this was an homage to the novel, the aquarium.
Citizenship of the European Union
Citizenship of the European Union was started by the Maastricht Treaty signed in 1992. It is extra to being a citizen of one of the member countries of the European Union, and gives extra rights to nationals of European Union Member States.
Before the Maastricht Treaty (1992), the European Communities treaties allowed workers, and their families, to travel and live in any member country. This idea started when the European Coal and Steel Community was set up by the Treaty of Paris in 1951. This allowed workers in the coal and steel industries to move to another country for work. In 1957, the European Economic Community was set up by the Treaty of Rome. That treaty allowed all workers to move freely.
The European Court of Justice took a wider idea of freedom of movement. The Court said people should be allowed to move to another country to get a better life style, not just to earn more money by working. The law made by the European Court, the reason the reason a worker wanted to move abroad does not matter, they could start part-time and full-time work, and get extra help from the new country.
Other decisions of the ECJ allowed any citizen of a member country live anywhere in the EU and be treated the same as a citizen of the new country.
The idea of EU citizenship was started by the Maastricht Treaty, and was extended by the Treaty of Amsterdam. The Treaty of Amsterdam said that union citizenship will not replace national citizenship, but only be extra it.
Article 17 (1) of the amended EC Treaty states that Citizenship of the Union is hereby established. Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall complement and not replace national citizenship.
The amended EC Treaty provides the following rights to EU citizens:
Citizens of new countries which join the EU can have some of the rights limited for up to seven years after they join.
The United Kingdom is set to leave the European Union. It is still unclear whether UK citizens will continue to enjoy EU citizenships after Brexit.
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel. It is Handel’s most famous work, and in England, the most often performed of any big choral work. The title Messiah means “the anointed one” and is the name given to Jesus Christ in the Christian teaching.
Georg Frideric Handel was born in Germany. When he was a young man he came to England and he liked it so much that he soon visited England again and stayed there for the rest of his life, becoming a naturalised Englishman says the legend. Actually he was composer for the King of Hannover, who then became King of England, and Handel followed his "employer".
The main reason why Handel liked England at that time was because the people liked his music and gave him support. At this time Handel was known as a composer of operas. For about 20 years Handel spent most of his time working on operas: composing them, organising performances and looking for opera singers to sing his works.
By the late 1730s, however, people’s tastes started to change and opera was not so popular. Handel changed to writing oratorios. Although it is thought that Handel invented the oratorio he in fact did not.Oratorio is Italian, after the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri at Rome, where famous musical services were held in the 16th century. Handel is just one composer of many who wrote oratorios. His oratorios are based on the English tradition of the Masque, which was something between a play and an opera. However, oratorios were about stories from the Old Testament. Instead of ancient gods or Roman emperors (which is what operas were about at that time) he used dramatic stories from the Bible. Among many great oratorios that he wrote, "Messiah" is his most famous one. However, it is different from his other oratorios in some ways.