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January 20

January 20

January 20 is the 20th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 345 days remaining (346 in leap years). In astrology, it is the cusp day between Aquarius and Capricorn.

Events

- 1156 - According to legend, freeholder Lalli slays English crusader Bishop Henry with an axe on the ice of the lake Köyliönjärvi in Finland.
- 1265 - In Westminster, the first English parliament conducts its first meeting in the Palace of Westminster, now also known as the "Houses of Parliament".
- 1320 - Duke Wladyslaw Lokietek becomes king of Poland.
- 1356 - Edward Balliol resigns as King of Scotland.
- 1523 - Christian II was forced to abdicate as King of Denmark and Norway.
- 1667 - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth cedes Kyiv, Smolensk, and left-bank Ukraine to Imperial Russia in the treaty of Andrusiv.
- 1783 - Britain signs a peace treaty with France and Spain, officially ending hostilities in the Revolutionary War.
- 1801 - John Marshall is appointed Chief Justice of the United States.
- 1839 - In the Battle of Yungay, Chile defeats a Peruvian and Bolivian alliance.
- 1840 - Dumont D'Urville discovers Adélie Land, Antarctica.
- 1840 - Willem II becomes King of the Netherlands.
- 1885 - L.A. Thompson patents the roller coaster.
- 1887 - The United States Senate allows the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.
- 1891 - James Hogg becomes the first native Texan to be governor of that state.
- 1892 - At the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, the first official basketball game is played.
- 1921 - The first constitution of Turkey was adopted, which made fundamental change in the source and exercise of sovereignty.
- 1929 - The movie In Old Arizona was released. The film was the first full-length talking film to be filmed outdoors.
- 1936 - Edward VIII becomes King of the United Kingdom.
- 1937 - The coldest temperature in California is recorded by Boca station at -45° Fahrenheit.
- 1937 - Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States. This is the first inauguration scheduled on January 20, following adoption of the 20th Amendment. Previous inaugurations were scheduled on March 4.
- 1942 - World War II: Nazis at the Wannsee conference in Berlin decide the "final solution to the Jewish problem".
- 1944 - World War II: The Royal Air Force drops 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin.
- 1945 - Hungary drops out of the Second World War, agreeing an armistice with the Allies.
- 1952 - Edgar Faure becomes Prime Minister of France.
- 1954 - The National Negro Network is established with 40 charter member radio stations.
- 1958 - Elvis Presley receives his draft notice.
- 1960 - Hendrik Verwoerd announced a plebiscite on whether South Africa should become a Republic.
- 1961 - John F. Kennedy is inaugrated as 35th President of the United States.
- 1964 - Meet the Beatles, the first Beatles album in the United States, is released.
- 1969 - The first pulsar is discovered, in the Crab Nebula.
- 1975 - Michael Ovitz founds Creative Artists Agency.
- 1981 - Ronald W. Reagan is inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States.
- 1981 - Iran releases 52 American hostages bare minutes after Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as U.S. President.
- 1986 - Martin Luther King, Jr., day was celebrated as a federal holiday for the first time.
- 1986 - The United Kingdom and France announce plans to construct the Channel Tunnel.
- 1987 - Church of England envoy Terry Waite is kidnapped in Lebanon.
- 1989 - Los Angeles Lakers beat the Dallas Mavericks: 115-99.
- 1989 - Detroit Pistons beat the Indiana Pacers: 132-99.
- 1990 - Black January - bloody crackdown of Azeri protest demonstrations by Soviet army in Baku.
- 1991 - Sudan's government imposes Islamic law nationwide, worsening the civil war between the country's Muslim north and Christian south.
- 1992- Bill Clinton is inaugurated as the 42nd President of the United States.
- 1994 - In South Carolina, Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet to attend The Citadel but soon drops out.
- 1996 - Yasser Arafat is elected president of the Palestinian Authority.
- 1999 - The China News Service announces new government restrictions on Internet use aimed especially at Internet bars.
- 2001 - Philippine president Joseph Estrada is ousted in the EDSA II Revolution, succeeded by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
- 2001 - George W. Bush is inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States.
- 2002 - Inauguration of Churches Uniting in Christ.
- 2005 - Ireland completes metrication.

Births

- 225 - Gordian III, Roman Emperor (d. 244)
- 1358 - Eleanor of Aragon, queen of John I of Castile (d. 1382)
- 1435 - Ashikaga Yoshimasa, Japanese shogun (d. 1490)
- 1554 - King Sebastian of Portugal (d. 1578)
- 1586 - Johann Schein, German composer (d. 1630)
- 1664 - Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, Italian writer and jurist (d. 1718)
- 1716 - King Charles III of Spain (d. 1788)
- 1798 - Anson Jones, 5th and last President of Texas (d. 1858)
- 1804 - Eugène Sue, French novelist (d. 1857)
- 1812 - Thomas Meik, Scottish engineer (d. 1896)
- 1837 - David Josiah Brewer, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (d. 1910)
- 1855 - Ernest Chausson, French composer (d. 1899)
- 1867 - Yvette Guilbert, French singer and actress (d. 1944)
- 1873 - Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, Danish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1950)
- 1876 - Józef Hofmann, Polish pianist (d. 1967)
- 1878 - Ruth St. Denis, dancer (d. 1968)
- 1880 - Walter W. Bacon, Governor of Delaware (d. 1962)
- 1891 - Mischa Elman, Ukrainian born violinist (d. 1967)
- 1894 - Walter Piston, American composer
- 1896 - George Burns, American actor, comedian (d. 1996)
- 1900 - Colin Clive, British actor (d. 1937)
- 1906 - Aristotle Onassis, Greek industrialist (d. 1975)
- 1910 - Joy Adamson, Austrian naturalist and writer (d. 1980)
- 1915 - Ghulam Ishaq Khan, President of Pakistan
- 1918 - Juan Garcia Esquivel, Mexican musician (d. 2002)
- 1920 - Federico Fellini, Italian film director (d. 1993)
- 1920 - DeForest Kelley, American actor (d. 1999)
- 1920 - John O'Connor, American Catholic cardinal (d. 2000)
- 1924 - Slim Whitman, American singer
- 1925 - Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaraguan theologian and author and politician
- 1926 - Patricia Neal, American actress
- 1926 - David Tudor, American pianist and composer (d. 1996)
- 1929 - Jimmy Cobb, American jazz drummer
- 1929 - Bob Denard, French mercenary
- 1929 - Arte Johnson, American actor
- 1929 - Glenn "Fireball" Roberts, American race car driver (d. 1964)
- 1930 - Buzz Aldrin, astronaut
- 1931 - David Lee, American phyicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1934 - Tom Baker, British actor
- 1938 - William Berger, Austrian actor (d. 1993)
- 1939 - Paul Coverdell, American politician (d. 2000)
- 1940 - Carol Heiss, American figure skater
- 1946 - David Lynch, American film director
- 1948 - Natan Sharansky, Russian-born physicist and politician
- 1949 - Göran Persson, Prime Minister of Sweden
- 1950 - Mahamane Ousmane, President of Niger
- 1951 - Ian Hill, British musician (Judas Priest)
- 1952 - Paul Stanley, American musician (KISS)
- 1955 - Wyatt Knight, American actor
- 1956 - Bill Maher, American actor, comedian, and political analyst
- 1958 - Lorenzo Lamas, American actor
- 1960 - Will Wright, American computer game designer
- 1963 - James Denton, American actor
- 1965 - Greg Kriesel, American bassist (The Offspring)
- 1965 - John Michael Montgomery, American singer
- 1968 - Melissa Rivers, American reporter and actress
- 1969 - Patrick K. Kroupa, American writer, hacker
- 1969 - Skeet Ulrich, American actor
- 1971 - Derrick Green, American singer (Sepultura)
- 1976 - Gretha Smit, Dutch speed skater
- 1979 - Rob Bourdon, American musician (Linkin Park)
- 1989 - Eric Felder, American Child Prodigy

Deaths

- 1156 - Bishop Henry, patron saint of Finland
- 1479 - King John II of Aragon (b. 1397)
- 1568 - Myles Coverdale, English Bible translator
- 1612 - Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1552)
- 1666 - Anna of Austria, queen of Louis XIII of France and regent (b. 1601)
- 1707 - Humphrey Hody, English theologian (b. 1659)
- 1709 - François de la Chaise, French confessor of Louis XIV of France (b. 1624)
- 1745 - Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1697)
- 1751 - John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol, English politician (b. 1665)
- 1770 - Charles Yorke, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1722)
- 1779 - David Garrick, English actor (b. 1717)
- 1810 - Benjamin Chew, Chief Justice of colonial Pennsylvania (b. 1722)
- 1819 - King Charles IV of Spain (b. 1748)
- 1848 - Christian VIII of Denmark (b. 1786)
- 1850 - Adam Oehlenschläger, Danish poet (b. 1779)
- 1891 - David Kalakaua, King of Hawaii (b. 1836)
- 1907 - Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, Russian chemist (b. 1834)
- 1920 - Georg Lurich, Estonian wrestler (b. 1876)
- 1936 - King George V of the United Kingdom (b. 1865)
- 1944 - James McKeen Cattell, American psychologist (b. 1860)
- 1962 - Robinson Jeffers, American poet (b. 1887)
- 1965 - Alan Freed, American disk jockey (b. 1922)
- 1971 - Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson, American actor, director, writer, and producer (b. 1880)
- 1983 - Garrincha, Brazilian footballer (b. 1933)
- 1984 - Johnny Weissmuller, American swimmer and actor (b. 1904)
- 1990 - Hayedeh, Persian singer (b. 1942)
- 1990 - Barbara Stanwyck, American actress (b. 1907)
- 1993 - Audrey Hepburn, Belgian actress (b. 1929)
- 1996 - Gerry Mulligan, American musician (b. 1927)
- 1997 - Curt Flood, baseball player (b. 1938)
- 1998 - Bobo Brazil, American professional wrestler (b. 1924)
- 2003 - Al Hirschfeld, American caricaturist (b. 1903)
- 2003 - Nedra Volz, American actress (b. 1908)
- 2003 - Bill Werbeniuk, Canadian snooker player (b. 1947)
- 2004 - Guinn Smith, American athlete (b. 1920)
- 2005 - Per Borten, Prime Minister of Norway (b. 1913)
- 2005 - Roland Frye, American literary critic and theologian
- 2005 - Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, Polish journalist, writer, and politician (b. 1913)
- 2005 - Miriam Rothschild, British zoologist, entomologist, and author (b. 1908)

Holidays and observances

- The Eve of St. Agnes
- Presidential Inauguration Day in the United States
- day of Saint Sebastian and St Fabian in Catholic church. Also holiday in Rio de Janeiro as he is the city's saint
- Astrology: First day of sun sign Aquarius

External links

- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/20 BBC: On This Day] ---- January 19 - January 21 - December 20 - February 20 — listing of all days ko:1월 20일 ms:20 Januari ja:1月20日 simple:January 20 th:20 มกราคม

January 20

January 20 is the 20th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 345 days remaining (346 in leap years). In astrology, it is the cusp day between Aquarius and Capricorn.

Events

Births

Deaths

Holidays and observances

External links

Leap year

A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing an extra day or month in order to keep the calendar year in sync with an astronomical or seasonal year. Seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of days, so a calendar which had the same number of days in each year would over time drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. Leap years (which keep the calendar in sync with the year) should not be confused with leap seconds (which keep clock time in sync with the day).

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar, the current standard calendar in most of the world, adds a 29th day to February in all years evenly divisible by 4, except for century years (those ending in -00), which receive the extra day only if they are evenly divisible by 400. Thus 1996 was a leap year whereas 1999 was not, and 1600, 2000 and 2400 are leap years but 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not. The reasoning behind this rule is as follows:
- The Gregorian calendar is designed to keep the vernal equinox on or close to March 21, so that the date of Easter (celebrated on the Sunday after the 14th day of the Moon that falls on or after 21 March) remains correct with respect to the vernal equinox.
- The vernal equinox year is currently about 365.242375 days long.
- The Gregorian leap year rule gives an average year length of 365.2425 days. This difference of a little over 0.0001 days means that in around 8,000 years, the calendar will be about one day behind where it should be. But in 8,000 years' time the length of the vernal equinox year will have changed by an amount we can't accurately predict (see below). So the Gregorian leap year rule does a good enough job. Image:Gregoriancalendarleap.png

Which day is the leap day?

The Gregorian calendar is a modification of the Julian calendar first used by the Romans. The Roman calendar originated as a lunar calendar (though from the 5th century BC it no longer followed the real moon) and named its days after three of the phases of the moon: the new moon (calends, hence "calendar"), the first quarter (nones) and the full moon (ides). Days were counted down (inclusively) to the next named day, so 24 February was ante diem sextum calendas martii ("the sixth day before the calends of March"). Since 45 BC, February in a leap year had two days called "the sixth day before the calends of March". The extra day was originally the second of these, but since the third century it was the first. Hence the term bissextile day for 24 February in a bissextile year. Where this custom is followed, anniversaries after the inserted day are moved in leap years. For example, the former feast day of Saint Matthias, 24 February in ordinary years, would be 25 February in leap years. This historical nicety is, however, in the process of being discarded: The European Union declared that, starting in 2000, 29 February rather than 24 February would be leap day, and the Roman Catholic Church also now uses 29 February as leap day. The only tangible difference is felt in countries that celebrate feast days.

Julian calendar

The Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4. This rule gives an average year length of 365.25 days. The excess of about 0.0076 days with respect to the vernal equinox year means that the vernal equinox moves a day earlier in the calendar every 130 years or so.

Revised Julian Calendar

The Revised Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4, except for years divisible by 100 that do not leave a remainder of 200 or 600 when divided by 900. This rule agrees with the rule for the Gregorian calendar until 2799. The first year that dates in the Revised Julian calendar will not agree with the those in the Gregorian calendar will be 2800, because it will be a leap year in the Gregorian calendar but not in the Revised Julian calendar. This rule gives an average year length of 365.242222… days. This is a very good approximation to the mean tropical year, but because the vernal equinox tropical year is slightly longer, the Revised Julian calendar does not do as good a job as the Gregorian calendar of keeping the vernal equinox on or close to 21 March.

Chinese calendar

The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, so a leap year has an extra month, often called an embolismic month after the Greek word for it. In the Chinese calendar the leap month is added according to a complicated rule, which ensures that month 11 is always the month that contains the northern winter solstice. The intercalary month takes the same number as the preceding month; for example, if it follows the second month then it is simply called "leap second month".

Hebrew calendar

The Hebrew calendar is also lunisolar with an embolistic month. In the Hebrew calendar the extra month is called Adar Alef (first Adar) and is added before Adar, which then becomes Adar Sheni (second Adar). According to the Metonic cycle, this is done seven times every nineteen years, specifically, in years, 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19. In addition, the Hebrew calendar has postponement rules that postpone the start of the year by one or two days. The year before the postponement gets one or two extra days, and the year whose start is postponed loses one or two days. These postponement rules reduce the number of different combinations of year length and starting day of the week from 28 to 14, and regulate the location of certain religious holidays in relation to the Sabbath.

Hindu Calendar

In the Hindu calendar, which is a lunisolar calendar, the embolismic month is called adhika maas (extra month). It is the month in which the sun is in the same sign of the stellar zodiac on two consecutive dark moons.

Iranian calendar

The Iranian calendar also has a single intercalated day once in every four years, but every 33 years or so the leap years will be five years apart instead of four years apart. The system used is more accurate and more complicated, and is based on the time of the March equinox as observed from Teheran. The 33-year period is not completely regular; every so often the 33-year cycle will be broken by a cycle of 29 or 37 years.

Long term leap year rules

The accumulated difference between the Gregorian calendar and the vernal equinoctial year amounts to 1 day in about 8,000 years. This suggests that the calendar needs to be improved by another refinement to the leap year rule: perhaps by avoiding leap years in years divisible by 8,000. (The most common such proposal is to avoid leap years in years divisible by 4,000 [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22gregorian+calendar%22+error+%22leap+year%22+4000]. This is based on the difference between the Gregorian calendar and the mean tropical year. Others claim, erroneously, that the Gregorian calendar itself already contains a refinement of this kind [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mleapyr.html].) However, there is little point in planning a calendar so far ahead because over a timescale of tens of thousands of years the number of days in a year will change for a number of reasons, most notably: #Precession of the equinoxes moves the position of the vernal equinox with respect to perihelion and so changes the length of the vernal equinoctial year. #Tidal acceleration from the sun and moon slows the rotation of the earth, making the day longer. In particular, the second component of change depends on such things as post-glacial rebound and sea level rise due to climate change. We can't predict these changes accurately enough to be able to make a calendar that will be accurate to a day in tens of thousands of years.

Marriage proposal

There is a tradition, said to go back to Saint Patrick and Saint Bridget in 5th century Ireland, whereby women may only make marriage proposals in leap years.

Saint Patrick and the leap year

:Saint Patrick, having driven the frogs out of the bogs was walking along the shores of Lough Neagh, when he was accosted by Saint Bridget in tears, and was told that a mutiny had broken out in the nunnery over which she presided, the ladies claiming the right of popping the question. :Saint Patrick said he would concede them the right every seventh year, when Saint Bridget threw her arms round his neck, and exclaimed, "Arrah, Pathrick, jewel, I daurn't go back to the girls wid such a proposal. Make it one year in four." Saint Patrick replied, "Bridget, acushla, squeeze me that way again, an' I'll give ye leap-year, the longest of the lot." Saint Bridget, upon this, popped the question to St Patrick himself, who, of course, could not marry: so he patched up the difficulty as best he could with a kiss and a silk gown. (Source: Evans, Ivor H, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988) According to a 1288 law in Scotland, fines were levied if the proposal was refused by the man; compensation ranged from a kiss to a silk gown to soften the blow. Because men felt that put them at too great a risk, the tradition was in some places tightened to restricting female proposals to 29 February.

Birthdays

A person who was born on 29 February may be called a "leapling". In non-leap years they usually celebrate their birthday on 28 February or 1 March. There are many instances in children's literature where a person's claim to be only a quarter of their actual age turns out be based on counting their leap-year birthdays. A similar device is used in the plot of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance. Category:Calendars Category:Units of time als:Schaltjahr ko:윤년 ja:閏年 simple:Leap year th:ปีอธิกสุรทิน

Aquarius

Aquarius (20px, Latin for the Water-bearer or Cup-bearer) is the eleventh sign of the zodiac, situated between Capricornus and Pisces. Its symbol is 20px, representing part of a stream of water. Aquarius is one of the oldest recognized constellations along the zodiac, the sun's apparent path. It is found in a region often called the Sea due to its profusion of watery constellations such as Cetus, Pisces, Eridanus, etc. Sometimes, the river Eridanus is depicted spilling from Aquarius' watering pot.

Notable deep sky objects

There are three deep sky objects that are on the Messier catalog, the Globular Cluster M2, Globular Cluster M72, and the Open Cluster M73. Two planetary nebulae are found in Aquarius: NGC 7009, called the Saturn Nebula due to its resemblance to the planet, to the southeast of η Aquarii; and NGC 7293, the famous Helix Nebula, southwest of δ Aquarii.

History

The constellation was immortalized in the 1960s, proclaimed the Age of Aquarius. However, there is no standard definition for astrological ages, so the age of Aquarius could begin in 2150 or even 2660, depending on the preferred definition. Based on the modern constellation boundaries of Pisces and Aquarius, the age of Aquarius would begin around 2660. However, with so much of modern society reflecting the qualities of Aquarius most astrologers believe that this era has begun. Mass production, electricity, flight and space travel, electronic communications including computers the Internet, even the growing movement against capitalism in favour of a more socialist system of humanitarian development are all related to the Aquarian paradigm.

Mythology

The best-known myth identifies Aquarius with Ganymede, a beautiful youth with whom Zeus fell in love, and whom he (in the guise of an eagle, represented as the constellation Aquila) carried off to Olympus to be cupbearer to the gods. Crater is sometimes identified as his cup. Aquarius generally resembles the figure of a man, and when considering fainter humanly visible stars, it takes on the image of a man with a bucket from which is pouring a stream. Aquarius was also identified as the pourer of the waters which flooded the earth in the Great Flood, in the ancient Greek version of the myth. As such, the constellation Eridanus was sometimes identified as being a river poured out by Aquarius. It may also, together with the constellation Pegasus, be part of the origin of the myth of the Mares of Diomedes, which forms one of The Twelve Labours of Herakles. Its association with pouring out rivers, and the nearby constellation of Capricornus, may be the source of the myth of the Augean stable, which forms another of the labours.

Astrology

The Western astrological sign Aquarius of the tropical zodiac (January 20 - February 18) differs from the astronomical constellation and the Hindu astrological sign of the sidereal zodiac (February 16 - March 11). In some cosmologies, Aquarius is associated with the classical element Air, and thus called an Air Sign (with Libra and Gemini). It is also one of the four Fixed signs (along with Leo, Scorpio, and Taurus). Its polar opposite is Leo. It is the domicile of Saturn (since its discovery Uranus has been considered Aquarius' ruling or co-ruling planet by many modern astrologers). Each astrological sign is assigned a part of the body, viewed as the seat of its power. Aquarius rules the circulatory system as well as the ankles. The symbol for Aquarius is the water bearer.

Notable and named stars

Source: The Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed., The Hipparcos Catalogue, ESA SP-1200

References

External links

Category:Astrological signs
- [http://www.allthesky.com/constellations/aquarius/ The Deep Photographic Guide to the Constellations: Aquarius]
- [http://astrology.yahoo.com/astrology/general/dailyoverview/aquarius Aquarius Links on Yahoo.com]
- [http://www.astrology.com/ssc/aquarius.html?ice=ast,scopes,mssc Aquarius Links on Astrology.com]
- [http://www.doublesign.com/astro/western/signs.php?signid=aquarius Aquarius Links on DoubleSign.com] ko:물병자리 ja:みずがめ座 th:กลุ่มดาวคนแบกหม้อน้ำ

1156

Events

- Establishment of the Carmelite Order
- Hogen Rebellion in Japan
- January 20 - According to legend, freeholder Lalli slays English crusader Bishop Henry with an axe on the ice of the lake Köyliönjärvi in Finland.
- The Privilegium Minus elevates Austria to the status of a duchy ruled by the Babenburgs family. (see History of Austria).
- Mosan artists create the Stavelot Triptych, a masterpiece of goldsmithing, as a reliquary to house purported pieces of the True Cross.

Births

- October 27 - Count Raymond VI of Toulouse (died 1222)
- Matilda of England, daughter of Henry II of England (d. 1189)
- Minamoto no Noriyori, Japanese general (died 1193)

Deaths

- January 17 - André de Montbard, fifth Grand Master of the Knights Templar
- January 20 - Bishop Henry, patron saint of Finland
- July 20 - Emperor Toba of Japan (born 1103)
- Hoel III, Duke of Brittany
- Tairrdelbach mac Ruaidri Ua Conchobair, High King of Ireland (born 1088)
- Demetre I, King of Georgia
- Gilbert de Gant, Earl of Lincoln
- William, Count of Poitiers (born 1153)
- Mas'ud of Rüm, Seljuk sultan of Rüm
- Sverker I of Sweden
- Minamoto no Tameyoshi, Japanese general (born 1096) Category:1156 ko:1156년

Legend

:For other senses of this word, see legend (disambiguation). A legend (Latin, legenda, "things to be read") is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and passive participants, includes no happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility", defined by a highly flexible set of parameters, which may include miracles that are perceived as actually having happened, within the specific tradition of indoctrination where the legend arises, and within which it may be transformed over time, in order to keep it fresh and vital, and realistic. Modern retellings of the legend of Saint George omit many of the miraculous happenings that were central to earlier versions, but which have lost credibility. Thus modern "urban legends" are quite correctly termed legends: "it happened to the brother-in-law of someone my friend's mother knew". The distinction is carefully drawn by Karl Kerenyi in the opening pages of The Heroes of the Greeks (1959): :"An essential difference between the legends of heroes and mythology proper, between the myths of the gods and those of the heroes, which are often entwined with them or at least border upon them, consists in this: that the latter prove to be, whether more or less, interwoven with history, with the events, not of a primaeval time which lies outside of time, but with historical time." A clear example, which distinguishes what is myth from what is legend, is the tale of the Gordian Knot. The legend concerns Alexander the Great, who, when confronted with the ancient knot of cornel bark that secured the pole of the sacral ox-cart at Gordium in the winter of 333 BC, severed it with a slash of his sword. The myth of the Gordian Knot is the founding myth of Gordium itself, justifying the authenticity of its line of kings. From the moment a legend is retailed as a legend, its authentic legendary qualities begin to fade and recede: in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving transformed a local Hudson River Valley legend into a sly literary anecdote with "Gothic" overtones, which actually tended to diminish its character as genuine legend. Like metaphors, legends may be living or dead: the vital signs of a legend depend upon its being fiercely defended as true, which eliminates the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow. But compare the Voyage of Saint Brendan, and the "Black Legend" of the supposedly fanatical and cruel national character of Spain. Legends that exceed these boundaries of "realism"— a term that has no practical application unless it is bound within particular cultural perspectives— are "fables". The talking animal formula of Aesop identifies his brief parables as fables, not legends. The parable of the Prodigal Son would be a legend if it were told as having actually happened to a specific son of a historical father. If it included an ass that gave sage advice to the Prodigal Son it would be a fable. Legend may be transmitted orally, passed on person-to-person, or, in the original sense, through written text. Jacob de Voragine's Legenda Aurea or "The Golden Legend" comprises a series of vitae or instructive biographical narratives, tied to the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. They are presented as lives of the saints, but the profusion of miraculous happenings and above all their uncritical context are characteristics of hagiography. The Legenda was intended to inspire extemporized homilies and sermons appropriate to the saint of the day. The word "legend" appeared in English ca 1340, transmitted from medieval Latin through French. Its first blurred extended (and essentially Protestant) sense of a nonhistorical narrative or myth was first recorded in 1613. By emphasizing the unrealistic character of "legends" of the saints, English-speaking Protestants were able to introduce a note of contrast to the "real" saints and martyrs of the Reformation, whose authentic narratives could be found in Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Thus "legend" gained its modern connotations of "undocumented" and "spurious". Legend may be interpreted for its ontological consequences and be treated as myth. To take an example, myths surrounding Cadmus, a Phoenician immigrant credited with bringing the alphabet and other Near Eastern culture to Bronze Age Greece, may have begun as a series of legends gathering around the memory of the historical founder of certain coastal cities in Greece. Explaining the origins of myth as former historical legends in this fashion is termed "euhemerism". See the entry Euhemerus for more detail. A legend or legend fragment is a meme that propagates through a culture. It may be crystallized in a literary work that fixes it and which affects the future direction it will take: compare Hamlet (legend) and Shakespeare's Hamlet. When a legend that is rooted in a kernel of truth is so strongly affected by an ideal (perhaps of chivalry) that it conforms to expected literary conventions of behavior, it becomes Romance. Some legends we "know" today may have their basis in historical fact. What distinguishes legend from chronicle, however, is that legend applies a structure that reveals a moral "meaning" to events, which lifts them above the meaningless repetitions and constraints of average human lives and gives them a universality that makes them worth repeating. Conspiracy theories are similar to legends in that the linchpin of the conspiracy is usually a plausible, but unprovable secret agenda which exclusively drives the story and links otherwise unconnected happenings into a satisfying pattern. Before the invention of the printing press, stories were passed on via oral tradition. Storytellers abounded. They learned their stock in trade, their stories, typically from an older storyteller, who might (or more usually might not) have actually been there when the "story" was "history" bardic schools. Artificial legends are the stock-in-trade of computer gaming. See The Legend of Zelda, among numerous examples.

Some legends

- Atlantis, especially when its "actual site" is hunted for (Plato used the myth as a parable);
- Cenodoxus, or the Damnation of the Good Doctor of Paris, an event leading ultimately to the Sanctification of St. Bruno of Carthusia;
- King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, when the "real Arthur" is identified in 6th century Cornwall;
- The Holy Grail;
- El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth, which both evolved from legend to myth;
- Vlad the Impaler; the legend from which vampire mythology is said to derive;
- Robin Hood
- Roland
- William Tell

England

:For an explanation of often-confusing terms like England, (Great) Britain and United Kingdom see British Isles (terminology). England is a nation and the largest and most populous constituent country of the United Kingdom accounting for more than 83% of the total UK population. It occupies most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and shares land borders with fellow home nations Scotland, to the north, and Wales, to the west. Elsewhere, it is bordered by the sea. England is named after the Angles, one of a number of Germanic tribes believed to have originated in Angeln in Northern Germany, who settled in England in the 5th and 6th centuries. It has not had a distinct political identity since 1707, when Great Britain was established as a unified political entity; however, it has a legal identity separate from those of Scotland and Northern Ireland, as part of the entity "England and Wales;". England's largest city, London, is also the capital of the United Kingdom.

History

Main article: History of England England has been inhabited for at least 500,000 years, although the repeated Ice Ages made much of Britain uninhabitable for extended periods until as recently as 20,000 years ago. Stone Age hunter-gatherers eventually gave way to farmers and permanent settlements, with a spectacular and sophisticated megalithic civilisation arising in western England some 4,000 years ago. It was replaced around 1,500 years later by Celtic tribes migrating from Western and continental Europe, mainly from France. These tribes were known collectively as "Britons", a name bestowed by Phoenician traders — an indication of how, even at this early date, the island was part of a Europe-wide trading network. The Britons were significant players in continental politics and supported their allies in Gaul militarily during the Gallic Wars with the Roman Republic. This prompted the Romans to invade and subdue the island, first with Julius Caesar's raid in 55 BC, and then the Emperor Claudius' conquest in the following century. The whole southern part of the island — roughly corresponding to modern day England and Wales — became a prosperous part of the Roman Empire. It was finally abandoned early in the 5th century when a weakening Empire pulled back its legions to defend borders on the Continent. Unaided by the Roman army, Roman Britannia could not long resist the Germanic tribes who arrived in the 5th and 6th centuries, enveloping the majority of modern day England in a new culture and language and pushing Romano-British rule back into modern-day Wales and western extremities of England, notably Cornwall and Cumbria. Others emigrated across the channel to modern-day Brittany, thus giving it its name and language (Breton). But many of the Romano-British remained in and were assimilated into the newly "English" areas. The invaders fell into three main groups: the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles. As they became more civilised, recognisable states formed and began to merge with one another. (The most well-known state of affairs being the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy.) From time to time throughout this period, one Anglo-Saxon king, recognised as the "Bretwalda" by other rulers, had effective control of all or most of the English; so it is impossible to identify the precise moment when the Kingdom of England was unified. In some sense, real unity came as a response to the Danish Viking incursions which occupied the eastern half of "England" in the 8th century. Egbert, King of Wessex (d. 839) is often regarded as the first king of all the English, although the title "King of England" was first adopted, two generations later, by Alfred the Great (ruled 871–899). The principal legacy left behind in those territories from which the language of the Britons were displaced is that of toponyms. Many of the place-names in England and to a lesser extent Scotland are derived from celtic British names, including London, Dumbarton, York, Dorchester, Dover and Colchester. Several place-name elements are thought to be wholly or partly Brythonic in origin, particularly bre-, bal-, and -dun for hills, carr for a high rocky place, coomb for a small deep valley. Until recently it has been believed that those areas settled by the Anglo-Saxons were uninhabited at the time or the Britons had fled before them. However, genetic studies show that the British were not pushed out to the Celtic fringes – many tribes remained in what was to become England (see C. Capelli et al. A Y chromosome census of the British Isles. Current Biology 13, 979–984, (2003)). Capelli's findings strengthen the research of Steven Bassett of the University of Birmingham; his work during the 1990s suggests that much of the West Midlands was only very lightly colonised with Anglian and Saxon settlements.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,—
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

William Shakespeare
Richard II (Act 2, Scene 1)

The English are great lovers of themselves, and of everything belonging to them; they think that there are no other men than themselves, and no other world but England; and whenever they see a handsome foreigner, they say that 'he looks like an Englishman', and that 'it is a great pity that he should not be an Englishmen'.

Venetian ambassador to England
Early 16th century
Charlotte Augusta Sneyd
Italian Relations of England (p. 20)

Richard II] Richard II] In 1066, William the Conqueror and the Normans conquered the existing Kingdom of England and instituted an Anglo-Norman administration and nobility who, retaining proto-French as their language for the next three hundred years, ruled as custodians over English commoners. Although the language and racial distinctions faded rapidly during the middle ages, the class system born in the Norman/Saxon divide persisted longer — arguably with traces lasting to the modern day. While Old English continued to be spoken by common folk, Norman feudal lords significantly influenced the language with French words and customs being adopted over the succeeding centuries evolving to a Romance-Germanic hybrid of Middle English widely spoken in Chaucer's time. England came repeatedly into conflict with Wales and Scotland, at the time an independent principality and an independent kingdom respectively, as its rulers sought to expand Norman power across the entire island of Britain. The conquest of Wales was achieved in the 13th century, when it was annexed to England and gradually came to be a part of that kingdom for most legal purposes, although in the modern era it is more usually thought of as a separate nation (fielding, for example, its own athletic teams). Norman power in Scotland waxed and waned over the years, with the Scots managing to maintain a varying degree of independence despite repeated wars with the English. Although it was on the whole only a moderately successful power in military terms, England became one of the wealthiest states in medieval Europe, due chiefly to its dominance in the lucrative wool market. The failure of English territorial ambitions in continental Europe prompted the kingdom's rulers to look further afield, creating the foundations of the mercantile and colonial network that was to become the British Empire. The turmoil of the Reformation embroiled England in religious wars with Europe's Catholic powers, notably Spain, but the kingdom preserved its independence as much through luck as through the skill of charismatic rulers such as Elizabeth I. Elizabeth's successor, James I was already king of Scotland (as James VI); and this personal union of the two crowns into the crown of Great Brittaine was followed a century later by the Act of Union 1707, which formally unified England, Scotland and Wales into the Kingdom of Great Britain. This later became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801 to 1927) and then the modern state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1927 to present) For post-unification history, see history of the United Kingdom.

Politics

Main article: Politics of the United Kingdom, Government of England Since the promulgation of the 1284 Statute of Rhuddlan and the Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542, Wales has shared a legal identity with England as the joint entity of England and Wales. The Act of Union with the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707 created the Kingdom of Great Britain, subsuming England, Wales and Scotland into a single political entity. Scotland, along with Northern Ireland, retain separate legal systems. The duchy of Cornwall also retains some unique rights. All of Great Britain has been ruled by the government of the United Kingdom since that date, although in 1999 the first elections to the newly created Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales left England as the only part of the Union with no devolved assembly or parliament. As all legislation for England is passed by Parliament at Westminster there are some complaints about the ability of non-English Members of Parliament to influence purely English affairs. This apparent anomaly has been highlighted by both English and non-English politicians, often those opposed to devolution, and has become popularly known as the West Lothian question. Administratively, England is something of an anomaly within the UK. Unlike the other three nations, it has no local parliament or government and its administrative affairs are dealt with by a combination of the UK government, the UK parliament and a number of England-specific quangos, such as English Heritage. There are calls from some for a devolved English Parliament and from others for the dissolution of the UK and an independent England. The current Labour government favoured the establishment of regional administration, claiming that England was too large to be governed as a sub-state entity. A referendum on this issue in North East England on 4 November 2004 decisively rejected the proposal. Some criticised the English regional proposals for not decentralising enough, saying that they amounted not to devolution, but to little more than local government reorganisation, with no real power being removed from central government. The English regions would not even have had the limited powers of the Welsh Assembly, much less the tax-varying and legislative powers of the Scottish Parliament. Rather, power was simply re-allocated within the region, with little new resource allocation and no real prospects of Assemblies being able to change the pattern of regional aid. Responsibility for regional transport was added to the proposals late in the process. This was perhaps crucial in the North East, where resentment at the Barnett Formula, which delivers greater regional aid to adjacent Scotland, was a significant impetus for the North East devolution campaign. There has also been a campaign for a Cornish assembly along Welsh lines by groups such as Mebyon Kernow, which recently collected 50,000 signatures in support. Some eurosceptics believe that the establishment of English regions as administrative entities is designed to undermine the concept of English nationhood and more easily fit England into a European federal model. Conventionally the national capital of England is London, although technically it would be more exact to call London the capital of "England and Wales" gi

January 20

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January 20

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1156

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England

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