In Europe Royal charters have been used to create towns ever since the Middle Ages. The date when the charter was made is thought of as the date when the town was founded (started), even if there had been people living there many years before.
Many groups such as the British East India Company were formed by Royal charter. Most British university operate under Royal Charters. This gives them the right to give degrees to the students at the end of their studies.
The BBC operates under a Royal Charter which lasts for a limited period of ten years, after which it is renewed.
Charities may also have Royal charters. They do not need to have one, but they are likely to be more successful if they have a Royal charter.
Aluminium sulfate
Aluminium sulfate, sometimes spelled aluminum or sulphate, is a chemical compound. Its chemical formula is Al(SO). It is a white crystalline solid. It can be made by dissolving aluminium oxide in sulfuric acid. It is used to remove particles from water when it is processed for drinking. It is also used in making paper. It is used in baking powder, deodorants, slug killer, and to make garden soils more acidic.
George Grove
Sir George Grove (born Clapham in South London, 13 August 1820; died Sydenham on 28 May 1900) was an English engineer and musician.
He wrote books about classical composers and is particularly famous for his big musical dictionary "Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians". This dictionary continued to be updated and published after his death. It has now gone through seven editions. The latest edition is available online.
George Grove was born in Clapham in South London. His father sold fish. His mother was into musicals. He learned to be an engineer and was sent out to Jamaica to help to build a lighthouse.
He worked on the building of the Britannia tubular bridge over the Menai Strait. He married the daughter of a clergyman. He became secretary of the Society of Arts and he wrote many articles for a Dictionary of the Bible. He spent seven years doing this. It gave him the idea of doing something similar for music.
Grove went to many concerts. He bought sheet music and studied it. He wrote programme notes for concerts, writing about the music that was being played. He wrote about a lot of music by Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann.
He wrote detailed essays about the symphonies of Beethoven and was a good friend of Clara Schumann. He travelled with the composer Arthur Sullivan to Vienna where he met many great musicians including Brahms and discovered some music by Schubert that had been forgotten. He spent several years writing his "Dictionary of Music" which was published in four volumes.
Grove worked very hard to get enough money to found the Royal College of Music which was opened in 1883 by the Prince of Wales. Grove got many great musicians to come and teach there, including the world-famous singer Jenny Lind who was already retired, and Hubert Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford and others.
The prime minister William Gladstone gave him a knighthood for what he had done for music. The new students included many who were to become famous.
These include Hamish MacCunn and Charles Wood. He became very fond of the student Edith Oldham and had an emotional attachment to her for the rest of his life. His wife was not interested in his work. He called his students his "children" and persuaded them to have a broad education.
He wanted them to read a lot. He was director of the RCM for eleven years, retiring in 1894, just after the RCM moved into a new building which is situated on the south side of the Royal Albert Hall. The RCM is still there today.
George Grove was a very influential man for English music. Although he was not trained as a musician he became extremely knowledgeable and was an excellent musicologist. The RCM setup a George Grove Memorial Scholarship in his memory.
Thurston Dart
Thurston Dart (born 3 September 1921 - died 6 March 1971), was a British musicologist, conductor and keyboard player. He is particularly remembered for his books in which he wrote about how music from earlier centuries should be performed.
Dart studied keyboard instruments at the Royal College of Music in London from 1938 to 1939, and also studied mathematics at University College, Exeter, graduating in 1942. He became a music lecturer and later professor at the University of Cambridge. During his time at Cambridge, Dart did a lot of work for the early music revival. Musicians were becoming interested in playing music from the Baroque, Renaissance and even Middle Ages. He formed such groups as the Early Music Consort of London. In 1964 he became King Edward Professor of Music in the University of London (King's College).
Thurston Dart played the harpsichord in many concerts and made several gramophone recordings. He wrote a book "The Interpretation of Music" (London, 1954), which became very widely read. He wrote many articles in journals about music.
Dart taught many students, included some who later became famous: the composer Michael Nyman, conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner and conductor/musicologist Christopher Hogwood. He was one of the first musicians to make a recording of Bach's "Brandenburg Concertos" using historical instruments.
Lend-Lease
Lend-Lease was a program of the United States government put into place right before World War II. The United States was still trying to be neutral in the War, but wanted to give supplies to the Allied Powers (Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union). The U.S. gave the Allies several billion dollars of weapons. The Allies gave the United States rights to air and naval bases around the world, as well as billions in future monies. This money was not fully given until 2006.
Huey Long
Huey Long (August 30, 1893 – September 10, 1935) was an American politician. He was Governor and Senator in Louisiana in the 1930s. As governor he gave out free school books, built new schools, hospitals, roads, and even a new capitol building. He was a critic of big companies and the rich. As Senator, he came up with the idea of "Share Our Wealth" clubs, which promoted wealth redistribution. Long was very popular among the American people.
Long was shot dead in 1935, when he was only 42. At the time, he was saying that Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies did not go far enough. There were rumors Long would run for president. Long was buried on the grounds of the Louisiana Capitol. The movie "All the King's Men" is based on the life of Huey Long.
His son, Russell would also become a U.S. Senator.
During Long's lifetime, he visited various places in Europe as part of the "Global Reach" projects that he was part of. The most prominent of these visits in the public eye was in Robertsbridge, East Sussex.
Teapot Dome
Teapot Dome was a political scandal that took place in 1921 to 1922
. The name comes from an oil reserve near Teapot Rock, Wyoming. President Warren G. Harding let the reserve and another reserve in California, be under the control of the Department of the Interior. The Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, who had taken $100,000 from oil companies, then let oil companies use the land. The United States Senate looked into the matter and found Fall had committed conspiracy. It is thought to be one of the biggest political scandals in American history. The scandal caused a large amount of damage to the legacy of former President Harding.
In 1924, Democrats tried to use Teapot Dome to their advantage in that year´s presidential election by reminding people about it. The tactic failed and Republicans handily won.
Air door