The Dallas Mavericks are an American basketball team from Dallas, Texas. They play in the National Basketball Association (NBA). They were founded in 1980. They play their home games at the American Airlines Center. Their owner is Mark Cuban. Though they have had good teams for most of the 2000s, they only made the NBA Finals once, where they lost to the Miami Heat. Dallas Mavericks players include Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Shawn Marion, Caron Butler, and Peja Stojakovic. They won their first NBA Championship in 2011 when they beat the Miami Heat in a 4-2 series.
Walter Payton
Walter Payton (July 25, 1954 – November 1, 1999) was an American football player. He was born in Columbia, Mississippi. Payton played for the Chicago Bears from 1975 to 1987. The Bears won Super Bowl XX in 1985. Payton was made a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993. He died of cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer) in 1999.
Christopher Benfey
Christopher Benfey (born October 28, 1954) is an American writer. He is a Professor of English language at Mount Holyoke College. He has written several books that people liked a lot. He was born in Marion, Pennsylvania. He later moved to Richmond, Indiana where he grew up. He has attended many colleges including the Putney school, Guilford College, Earlham College, and Harvard University.
Harthacanute
Harthacanute (Canute the Hardy, sometimes "Hardicanute, Hardecanute"; Danish: "Hardeknud") (1018 – 8 June 1042) was King of Denmark from 1035 to 1042 and England from 1040 to 1042. He was the only son of Canute the Great and Emma of Normandy.
He followed his father as King of Denmark in 1035, becoming Canute III. Fighting with Magnus I of Norway stopped him from sailing to England to take up his throne. His older, illegitimate half-brother, Harold Harefoot, became regent of England.
Harold took the English crown for himself in 1037. After Harthacanute had settled the situation in Scandinavia he prepared an invasion of England to take over his kingdom. Harold died, and Harthacanute was able to take back his throne peacefully.
Harthacanute was a harsh and unpopular ruler. To pay for his ships, he greatly increased the rate of taxation. In 1041, the people of Worcester killed two of Harthacanute's men who had been collecting the tax. Harthacanute burned the city. The story of Lady Godiva riding naked through the streets of Coventry to persuade the local earl to lower taxes, may come from the reign of Harthacanute. The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" says of him: "He never accomplished anything kingly for as long as he ruled".
In 1041, Harthacanute asked his half-brother Edward the Confessor (his mother Emma's son by Ethelred the Unready) back from exile in Normandy to become a member of his household, and probably made Edward his heir. Harthacanute was unmarried and had no children. On 8 June 1042, he died at Lambeth— he "died as he stood at his drink, and he suddenly fell to the earth". He was buried at Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire. Edward became the new king.
Harold Harefoot
Harold Harefoot, also Harold I, ("c". 1015 – 17 March 1040) was King of England from 1035 to 1040. He was said to be the son of Canute the Great, King of England, Denmark, Norway, and some of Sweden, by his wife Aelgifu of Northampton. There was skepticism about his being Canute's son.
Upon Canute's death (12 November 1035), Harold's younger half-brother Harthacanute, the son of Canute and his queen, Emma of Normandy, was legitimate heir to the thrones of both the Danes and the English. He was unable to travel to his coronation, because his Danish kingdom was under threat of invasion by King Magnus I of Norway and King Anund Jacob of Sweden. Therefore, he was installed temporarily as regent though Godwin the Earl of Wessex and the Queen were against it.
Harold died at Oxford on 17 March 17 1040, just as Harthacanute was preparing an invasion force of Danes, and was buried at the abbey of Westminster.
English Interregnum
The English Interregnum was the period of parliamentary and military rule in the land occupied by modern-day England and Wales after the English Civil War. It began with the execution of Charles I in 1649 and ended when Charles II became king, after Oliver Cromwell died in 1660.
This era in English history can be divided into four periods.
Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan and during the Interregnum, he imposed a very strict form of Christianity upon the country. Although a main cause of the English Civil War was oppression under Charles I, England during the Interregnum became oppressive in its own fashion. Cromwell granted religious freedom otherwise previously unknown in England, but other forms of expression were suddenly limited (for instance, theatre, which had thrived under the Stuart kings and Elizabeth I, was banned). Cromwell also made certain that his own personal vision of Christianity was enforced upon the masses. Many of Cromwell's actions were called "harsh, unwise, and tyrannical" by some commentators.
His son and successor, Richard Cromwell gave up his position as Lord Protector with little hesitation, resigning or "abdicating" after a demand by the Rump Parliament. This was the beginning of a short period of restoration of the Commonwealth of England.
Interregnum
An interregnum is a period between monarchs, between popes of the Roman Catholic Church, emperors of Holy Roman Empire, Polish kings (elective monarchy) or between consuls of the Roman Republic. It can also refer any gap in the continuity of a government, organization, or social order. The period of interregnum may be peaceful, or it may collapse into chaos and anarchy.
In some monarchies, such as the United Kingdom, an "interregnum" is usually avoided due to a rule described as "the king is dead, long live the King", i.e. the heir to the throne becomes a new monarch immediately on his predecessor's death or abdication. This famous phrase signifies the continuity of sovereignty. This is not so in other monarchies where the new monarch's reign begins only with coronation or some other formal or traditional event.
An "interregnum" occurs also upon the death of the Roman Catholic Pope, though this is generally known as a "sede vacante" (vacant seat). The interregnum ends immediately upon election of the new Pope by the College of Cardinals.
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 – 3 September 1658) was an English military and political leader best known for making England a republic and leading the Commonwealth of England and primarily because of ethnic cleansing activities in Ireland euphemistically called as Cromwellian Genocide.
Cromwell's actions during his career seem confusing to us today. He supported Parliament against the King, yet he ordered his soldiers to break up parliament. Under his rule, the Protectorate said that people's religious beliefs should be respected, but people who went against what most people believed were sometimes tortured and imprisoned.
Cromwell was the first ruler of England to be a Puritan. He created a new model army. Many English people today think he was one of their greatest leaders.
Cromwell started off as a gentleman from Huntingdon. He first studied at Huntingdon Grammar School. He had a bad relationship with his father. He went on to Sidney Sussex College at the University of Cambridge. This was a new, small college where he had the chance to talk about his new Puritan ideas. However, he never took a degree because his father died in 1617 while he was studying.
In 1628, Cromwell became an MP and a Puritan and supported Parliament in its quarrel with the King. When war broke out, the King's army was stronger and better-prepared than the army of Parliament. Cromwell saw this, and he decided to train men to fight better. Soon the "New Model Army" he had trained began to win battles. As a result, Parliament won the war. By the end of the war, Cromwell was very powerful.