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John Humphrys
Desmond John Humphrys (born 17 August 1943) is a Welsh broadcaster. From 1981 to 1987 he was the main presenter for the '' Nine O'Clock News'', the flagship BBC News television programme, and from 1987 until 2019 he presented on the BBC Radio 4 breakfast programme ''Today''. He was the host of the BBC Two television quiz show ''Mastermind'' from 2003 to 2021, for a total of 735 episodes. Humphrys has a reputation as an outspoken and challenging interviewer; occasionally politicians have been critical of his style after being subjected to a tough interview on live radio. Early life and career Humphrys was born in a working class environment in Cardiff at 193 Pearl Street, Adamsdown, son of Winifred Mary (Matthews), a hairdresser, and Edward George Humphrys, a self-employed Conservative voting French polisher. He was one of five children. During early life Humphrys had a bout of whooping cough and, concerned that he would be known as 'Dismal Desmond', his mother opted to use t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586, it is the second oldest university press after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics known as the Delegates of the Press, who are appointed by the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. The Delegates of the Press are led by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University Press has had a similar governance structure since the 17th century. The press is located on Walton Street, Oxford, opposite Somerville College, in the inner suburb of Jericho. For the last 500 years, OUP has primarily focused on the publication of pedagogical texts and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eleven Plus Exam
The eleven-plus (11+) is a standardized examination administered to some students in England and Northern Ireland in their last year of primary education, which governs admission to grammar schools and other secondary schools which use academic selection. The name derives from the age group for secondary entry: 11–12 years. The eleven-plus was once used throughout England and Wales, but is now only used in counties and boroughs in England that offer selective schools instead of comprehensive schools. Also known as the transfer test, it is especially associated with the Tripartite System which was in use from 1944 until it was phased out across most of the UK by 1976. The examination tests a student's ability to solve problems using a test of verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning, with most tests now also offering papers in mathematics and English. The intention was that the eleven-plus should be a general test for intelligence (cognitive ability) similar to an IQ test, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Simpson (journalist)
John Cody Fidler-Simpson (born 9 August 1944) is an English foreign correspondent and world affairs editor of BBC News. He has spent all his working life with the BBC, and has reported from more than 120 countries, including thirty war zones, and interviewed many world leaders. He was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read English and was editor of ''Granta'' magazine. Early life and education Simpson was born on 9 August 1944 in Cleveleys, Lancashire, but was taken to his mother's "bomb-damaged house in London" the following week. He says in his autobiography that his father was an anarchist. He spent ten years growing up in Dunwich in Suffolk. He was educated at Dulwich College Preparatory School and St Paul's School, followed by Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read English and was editor of ''Granta'' magazine. In 1965 he was a member of the Magdalene ''University Challenge'' team. A year later Simpson started as a trainee sub-editor at BBC radio news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozambique to the east. The capital and largest city is Harare. The second largest city is Bulawayo. A country of roughly 15 million people, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, with English, Shona language, Shona, and Northern Ndebele language, Ndebele the most common. Beginning in the 9th century, during its late Iron Age, the Bantu peoples, Bantu people (who would become the ethnic Shona people, Shona) built the city-state of Great Zimbabwe which became one of the major African trade centres by the 11th century, controlling the gold, ivory and copper trades with the Swahili coast, which were connected to Arab and Indian states. By the mid 15th century, the city-state had been abandoned. From there, the Kingdom of Zimbabwe was established, fol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhodesia
Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, which had been self-governing since achieving responsible government in 1923. A landlocked nation, Rhodesia was bordered by South Africa to the south, Bechuanaland (later Botswana) to the southwest, Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) to the northwest, and Mozambique ( a Portuguese province until 1975) to the east. From 1965 to 1979, Rhodesia was one of two independent states on the African continent governed by a white minority of European descent and culture, the other being South Africa. In the late 19th century, the territory north of the Transvaal was chartered to the British South Africa Company, led by Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes and his Pioneer Column marched north in 1890, acquiring a huge block of territory that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gary Gilmore
Gary Mark Gilmore (born Faye Robert Coffman; December 4, 1940 – January 17, 1977) was an American criminal who gained international attention for demanding the implementation of his death sentence for two murders he had admitted to committing in Utah. After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a new series of death penalty statutes in the 1976 decision ''Gregg v. Georgia'', he became the first person in almost ten years to be executed in the United States. These new statutes avoided the problems under the 1972 decision in ''Furman v. Georgia,'' which had resulted in earlier death penalty statutes being deemed "cruel and unusual" punishment, and therefore unconstitutional. (The Supreme Court had previously ordered all states to commute death sentences to life imprisonment after ''Furman''.) Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in 1977. His life and execution were the subject of the 1979 nonfiction novel ''The Executioner's Song'' by Norman Mailer, and 1982 TV film of the novel star ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was the 36th vice president from 1953 to 1961 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. His five years in the White House saw reduction of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, détente with the Soviet Union and China, the first manned Moon landings, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Nixon's second term ended early, when he became the only president to resign from office, as a result of the Watergate scandal. Nixon was born into a poor family of Quakers in a small town in Southern California. He graduated from Duke Law School in 1937, practiced law in California, then moved with his wife Pat to Washington in 1942 to work for the federal government. After active duty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North West England
North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of 7,052,000 in 2011. It is the Countries of the United Kingdom by population, third-most-populated region in the United Kingdom, after the South East England, South East and Greater London. The largest settlements are Manchester and Liverpool. Subdivisions The official Regions of England, region consists of the following Subdivisions of England, subdivisions: After abolition of the Greater Manchester and Merseyside County Councils in 1986, power was transferred to the metropolitan boroughs, making them equivalent to unitary authorities. In April 2011, Greater Manchester gained a top-tier administrative body in the form of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which means the 10 Greater Manchester boroughs are once again second-ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.24 million. On the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary, Liverpool historically lay within the ancient hundred of West Derby in the county of Lancashire. It became a borough in 1207, a city in 1880, and a county borough independent of the newly-created Lancashire County Council in 1889. Its growth as a major port was paralleled by the expansion of the city throughout the Industrial Revolution. Along with general cargo, freight, and raw materials such as coal and cotton, merchants were involved in the slave trade. In the 19th century, Liverpool was a major port of departure for English and Irish emigrants to North America. It was also home to both the Cunard and White Star Lines, and was the port of registry of the ocean li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aberfan Disaster
The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. Heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as a slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School and a row of houses. The tip was the responsibility of the National Coal Board (NCB), and the Aberfan Disaster Tribunal, subsequent inquiry placed the blame for the disaster on the organisation and nine named employees. There were seven spoil tips on the hills above Aberfan; Tip 7—the one that slipped onto the village—was started in 1958 and, at the time of the disaster, was high. In contravention of the NCB's procedures, the tip was partly based on ground from which springs emerged. After three weeks of heavy rain the tip was saturated and approximately of spoil slipped ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Television Wales And The West
Television Wales and the West (TWW) was the British Independent Television (commercial television) contractor for a franchise area that initially served South Wales and West of England (franchise awarded 26 October 1956, started transmissions on 14 January 1958, the eighth franchise to launch) until 1968. For the first six years, TWW's service was provided from a single VHF transmitter serving both south east Wales and the west of England. The later acquisition of Teledu Cymru in 1964 enabled TWW to extend its coverage across most of Wales and to provide separate services for the Welsh and English parts of the resulting 'dual region' franchise. After losing their franchise to Harlech in 1967, TWW ended their service early in protest long before Harlech was ready to take over. This forced the Independent Television Authority to organise an emergency transitional service run by Harlech but using TWW's staff, leftover programming, and some assets. History Launch Television Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Mail (Wales)
The ''Western Mail'' is a daily newspaper published by Media Wales Ltd in Cardiff, Wales owned by the UK's largest newspaper company, Reach plc. The Sunday edition of the newspaper is published under the title ''Wales on Sunday''. It describes itself as "the national newspaper of Wales" (originally "the national newspaper of Wales and Monmouthshire"), although it has a very limited circulation in north Wales. The paper was published in broadsheet format until 2004, when it became a compact. It has an average circulation of 7,177 down from over 40,000 in 2007. History The ''Western Mail'' was founded in Cardiff in 1869 by John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute as a Conservative penny daily paper designed to promote the Marquess' political aspirations. Henry Lascelles Carr (1841–1902), editor since 1869, bought the paper with Daniel Owen in 1877. Under Carr, and later William Davies, the paper became influential in Wales. Historically in South Wales the ''Western Mail' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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