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Charles Howard, 20th Earl Of Suffolk
Charles Henry George Howard, 20th Earl of Suffolk, 13th Earl of Berkshire, (2 March 1906 – 12 May 1941) was an English bomb disposal expert who was also an earl in the Peerage of England, belonging to the ancient Howard family. He was styled Viscount Andover until 1917. He is most famous for being responsible for rescuing a team of French nuclear scientists and the entire world stockpile of heavy water from France to Britain in the face of the imminent French defeat in 1940. He was known by the nicknames Mad Jack, Wild Jack or just Jack and although he was generally referred to in aristocratic circles as Suffolk, he was better known in the workaday world as Jack Howard (more officially Charles Howard). Early life He was the son of Henry Howard, 19th Earl of Suffolk, and his American wife, the former Margaret Hyde Leiter (aka "Daisy"), sister of Lady Curzon and daughter of the American businessman Levi Leiter. The 19th Earl was killed in the First World War at the Battle o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Right Honourable
''The Right Honourable'' ( abbreviation: ''Rt Hon.'' or variations) is an honorific style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the United Kingdom, the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations. The term is predominantly used today as a style associated with the holding of certain senior public offices in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and to a lesser extent, Australia. ''Right'' in this context is an adverb meaning 'very' or 'fully'. Grammatically, ''The Right Honourable'' is an adjectival phrase which gives information about a person. As such, it is not considered correct to apply it in direct address, nor to use it on its own as a title in place of a name; but rather it is used in the third person along with a name or noun to be modified. ''Right'' may be abbreviated to ''Rt'', and ''Honourable'' to ''Hon.'', or both. ''The'' is sometimes dropped in written abbreviated form, but is always pronounced. Countries with common or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sailing Ship
A sailing ship is a sea-going vessel that uses sails mounted on masts to harness the power of wind and propel the vessel. There is a variety of sail plans that propel sailing ships, employing square-rigged or fore-and-aft sails. Some ships carry square sails on each mast—the brig and full-rigged ship, said to be "ship-rigged" when there are three or more masts. Others carry only fore-and-aft sails on each mast, for instance some schooners. Still others employ a combination of square and fore-and-aft sails, including the barque, barquentine, and brigantine. Early sailing ships were used for river and coastal waters in Ancient Egypt and the Mediterranean. The Austronesian peoples developed maritime technologies that included the fore-and-aft crab-claw sail and with catamaran and outrigger hull configurations, which enabled the Austronesian expansion into the islands of the Indo-Pacific. This expansion originated in Taiwan BC and propagated through Island Southeast Asia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost a millennium of architectural history. The original castle was built in the 11th century, after the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I (who reigned 1100–1135), it has been used by the reigning monarch and is the longest-occupied palace in Europe. The castle's lavish early 19th-century state apartments were described by early 20th century art historian Hugh Roberts as "a superb and unrivalled sequence of rooms widely regarded as the finest and most complete expression of later Georgian taste".Hugh Roberts, ''Options Report for Windsor Castle'', cited Nicolson, p. 79. Inside the castle walls is the 15th-century St George's Chapel, considered by the historian John Martin Robinson to be "one of the supreme achievements of English Perpe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tube Alloys
Tube Alloys was the research and development programme authorised by the United Kingdom, with participation from Canada, to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War. Starting before the Manhattan Project in the United States, the British efforts were kept classified, and as such had to be referred to by code even within the highest circles of government. The possibility of nuclear weapons was acknowledged early in the war. At the University of Birmingham, Rudolf Peierls and Otto Robert Frisch co-wrote a memorandum explaining that a small mass of pure uranium-235 could be used to produce a chain reaction in a bomb with the power of thousands of tons of TNT. This led to the formation of the MAUD Committee, which called for an all-out effort to develop nuclear weapons. Wallace Akers, who oversaw the project, chose the deliberately misleading code name "Tube Alloys". His Tube Alloys Directorate was part of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The Tube ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antwerp Diamond Bank
The Antwerp Diamond Bank (ADB) (Banque Diamantaire Anversoise and Antwerpse Diamantbank) was a small, 75-year-old bank that specialized exclusively in serving the diamond and the diamond jewelry sector. In addition to its headquarters in Antwerp, it had offices covering all the major traditional as well as emerging diamond centers such as Antwerp, Dubai, Geneva, Hong Kong, Mumbai and New York. ADB became currently a wholly owned subsidiary of KBC Bank, however, European Competition Commission directed KBC to divest the bank as part of the terms of the Belgian government's bail-out of KBC. KBC agreed in December 2013 to sell ADB to the Chinese Yinren Group. However, the sale required regulatory approval and stalled; after the sale failed KBC stated in September 2014 that it would wind down ADB as no other entity had expressed an interest in buying ADB. ADB would make no new loans and would close out existing loans as they were paid off. History Origins Société Belge de Banque e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Halban
Hans Heinrich von Halban (24 January 1908 – 28 November 1964) was a French physicist, of Austrian-Jewish descent. Family He was descended on his father's side from Polish Jews, who left Kraków for Vienna in the 1850s. His grandfather, Heinrich Blumenstock, was a senior official in the Habsburg Empire and was ennobled by Emperor Franz Joseph I in the 1880s, taking the name of Ritter Heinrich Blumenstock von Halban. The surname Blumenstock was subsequently dropped by the family, as was the use of 'von' after the Second World War. His mother's family was from Bohemia and his great-grandfather, Moritz von Fialka, was a colonel in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Although converted to Catholicism, the family were never religiously observant. Hans Halban was a convinced secularist. Education and research Hans Halban was born in Leipzig and moved to Würzburg, where his father, Hans von Halban Sr. became a professor of physical chemistry. He began his studies in physics at Fra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lew Kowarski
Lew Kowarski (10 February 1907, Saint Petersburg – 30 July 1979, Geneva) was a naturalized French physicist. He was a lesser-known but important contributor to nuclear science. Early life Lew Kowarski was born in Saint Petersburg to Nicholas Kowarski, a businessman and the Ukrainian singer Olga Vlassenko. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, when Lew was 12 years old, his family fled west under adventurous circumstances and settled in Vilnius (then in Poland). During his youth, Lew was a talented musician and considered a music career; however, his fingers grew too large for the keyboard. Education He received a Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Lyon and an Sc.B. and Ph.D. from the University of Paris where he carried out research on neutron counting. Research during World War II He joined Frédéric Joliot-Curie's group in 1934, where Hans von Halban came in 1937. They established in 1939 the possibility of nuclear chain reactions and nuclear energy production ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Department Of Scientific And Industrial Research (United Kingdom)
The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research was a department of the British Government responsible for the organisation, development, and encouragement of scientific and industrial research. At the outbreak of the First World War "Britain found ... it was dangerously dependent on enemy industries". At the request of the Board of Trade, the Board of Education prepared a White Paper under the chairmanship of Sir William McCormick. The DSIR was set up to fill the roles that the White Paper specified: "to finance worthy research proposals, to award research fellowships and studentships n universities and to encourage the development of research associations in private industry and research facilities in university science departments. trapidly assumed a key role in coordinating government aid to university research. It maintained these roles until 1965. The annual budget during its first year, 1915, was £1,000,000. History Before the twentieth century, the government was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world; it has buildings in every style of English architecture since late Anglo-Saxon. Oxford's industries include motor manufacturing, education, publishing, information technology and science. History The history of Oxford in England dates back to its original settlement in the Saxon period. Originally of strategic significance due to its controlling location on the upper reaches of the River Thames at its junction with the River Cherwell, the town grew in national importance during the early Norman period, and in the late 12th century became home to the fledgling University of Oxford. The city was besieged during The Anarchy in 1142. The university rose to domina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Royal Society Of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established in 1783. , there are around 1,800 Fellows. The Society covers a broader selection of fields than the Royal Society of London, including literature and history. Fellowship includes people from a wide range of disciplines – science & technology, arts, humanities, medicine, social science, business, and public service. History At the start of the 18th century, Edinburgh's intellectual climate fostered many clubs and societies (see Scottish Enlightenment). Though there were several that treated the arts, sciences and medicine, the most prestigious was the Society for the Improvement of Medical Knowledge, commonly referred to as the Medical Society of Edinburgh, co-founded by the mathematician Colin Maclaurin in 1731. Maclaurin was unhappy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AEDT
Australia uses three main time zones: Australian Western Standard Time (AWST; UTC+08:00), Australian Central Standard Time (ACST; UTC+09:30), and Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST; UTC+10:00). Time is regulated by the individual state governments, some of which observe daylight saving time (DST). Australia's external territories observe different time zones. Standard time was introduced in the 1890s when all of the Australian colonies adopted it. Before the switch to standard time zones, each local city or town was free to determine its local time, called local mean time. Now, Western Australia uses Western Standard Time; South Australia and the Northern Territory use Central Standard Time; while New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, Jervis Bay Territory, and the Australian Capital Territory use Eastern Standard Time. Daylight saving time (+1 hour) is used in jurisdictions in the south and south-east: South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Jer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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