Prolific English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. Joseph Mallord William Turner RA was born 23 April 1775 in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, to a modest lower middle-class family. He lived in London all his life, retaining his Cockney accent and assiduously avoiding the trappings of success and fame.
He was A child prodigy, And studied at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1789, enrolling when he was 14, and exhibited his first work there at 15. During this period, he also served as an architectural draftsman. He earned a steady income from commissions and sales, which due to his troubled, contrary nature, were often begrudgingly accepted. He opened his own gallery in 1804 and became professor of perspective at the academy in 1807, where he lectured until 1828, although he was viewed as profoundly inarticulate. He traveled to Europe from 1802, typically returning with voluminous sketchbooks and became known for his expressive colourisations, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings.
Turner was Intensely private, eccentric and reclusive, and courted much controversy throughout his career. He did not marry, but fathered two daughters, Eveline (1801–1874) and Georgiana (1811–1843), by his housekeeper Sarah Danby. He became more pessimistic and morose as he got older, especially after the death of his father, after which his outlook deteriorated, his gallery fell into disrepair and neglect, and his art intensified. He lived in squalor and poor health between 1845 and 1851.
Turner sadly died in London on 19 December 1851 aged 76 and is buried in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London. However He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper. He had been championed by the leading English art critic John Ruskin from 1840, and is today regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting.
Last Bus to Coffeeville is a funny, Charming, uplifting, and profoundly moving, story featuring A road trip. It concerns Nancy Skidmore who has Alzheimer’s and her oldest friend Eugene Chaney III who both decide to journey to Coffeeville.
However Eugene is unexpectedly admitted to the secure unit of a nursing home and he has to call upon his two remaining friends to help break her out: one his godson, a disgraced weatherman in the throes of a midlife crisis, and the other an ex-army marksman officially dead for 40 years.
On a tour bus once stolen from Paul McCartney, the band of misfits career toward Mississippi through a landscape of war, euthanasia, communism, religion, and racism. Along the way they are joined by a young orphan boy who is searching for lost family and they discover the true meaning of love, family, and friendship.
International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day Takes place annually on 23 April. It was founded by author Jo Walton in response to remarks made by Howard V. Hendrix who objected to Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, who post their creations on the net for free” stating that “webscabs” are “converting the noble calling of Writer into the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch.”
Science fiction (often shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that has been called the “literature of ideas”. It typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, time travel, parallel universes, fictional worlds, space exploration, and extraterrestrial life. Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific innovations
The purpose of International Pixel Stained Technopeasant day, according to Walton, was to encourage writers to post “professional quality” works for free on the internet. The first International Pixel Stained Technopeasant day was held on April 23 2007, anD Many notable authors contributed to International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day 2007, including Chaz Brenchley, Steven Brust, Emma Bull, Debra Doyle, Diane Duane, Naomi Kritzer, Jay Lake, David Langford, Sharon Lee, Beth Meacham, Steve Miller, Andrew Plotkin, Robert Reed, Will Shetterly, Sherwood Smith, Ryk Spoor, Charles Stross, Catherynne M. Valente, Jo Walton, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Martha Wells and Sean Williams.
International and National Holidays and Events happenning on April 23
Impossible Astronaut Day takes place on 11 April. It commemorates the date of 23 April 2011 when The Impossible Astronaut” was broadcast. This was the first episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who it starred Matt Smith, Karen Gillanp, Arthur Darville and Alex Kingston and was written by show runner Steven Moffat and directed by Toby Haynes. It was first broadcast on 23 April 2011 in the United Kingdom on BBC One, the United States on BBC America and in Canada on Space. It also aired in Australia on ABC1 on 30 April 2011. The episode features alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companions Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill), and is the first of a two-part story, which concluded with “Day of the Moon” on 30 April.
The Impossible Astronaut features, the Doctor, Amy, Rory and the archaeologist River Song (Alex Kingston)
who are summoned together by a version of the Doctor from 200 years in his future. they also meet a man called Canton Evrett Delaware III (Mark Sheppard and William Morgan Sheppard), before travelling to the United States in 1969 where they find discover a scared girl (Sydney Wade) who is trapped inside a spacesuit. Amy, Rory, and River discover the fourth envelope was sent to the Doctor, alive and 200 years younger than the one at the lake. So The Doctor and his companions travel back to 8 April 1969, where the younger Canton, a former FBI operative, is briefed by President Richard Nixon about a series of phone calls Nixon received from a young girl asking for help. The Doctor arrives in Washington, DC trying to locate the girl. Meanwhile, Amy meets and takes a photograph of one of the leaders of the Silence, a group she also saw by the lake. Canton follows the Doctor and the others into the TARDIS as they depart for Florida where they encounter more Silence and get a bit of a shock
The episode was dedicated to Elisabeth Sladen, known for playing former companion Sarah Jane Smith, who died from cancer on 19 April 2011.
The original, global World Book Day event takes place annually on 23 April. This event should not be confused with United Kingdom’s World Book Day which is held annually on the first Thursday in March instead, to avoid clashing with the Easter school holidays, and St George’s Day. The United Kingdom’s own version of World Book Day was launched in 1995 and is sponspored by UNESCO. The purpose of World Book Day is to promote reading, publishing and copyright. It is the local manifestation of World Book and Copyright Day (also known as International Day of the Book or World Book Days)
During World Book Day, every child in full-time education in the UK is given a voucher to be spent on books. The Day was first celebrated in 1995 in the United Kingdom at the Globe Theatre in London, when Several million schoolchildren in Great Britain were given a GB£1 special World Book Day Book Token (€1.50 in Ireland) which could be redeemed against any book in any UK bookshop. A specially created WBD anthology priced at £1 (€1.50 in Ireland) was also published. All World Book Day point of sale and the £1 book carried the special World Book Day logo to help unify the initiative through all outlets. These include online retailer Amazon which is celebrating World Book Day 2019 with nine free ebooks, from their Read the World page, you can download books to read across the world, from Mexico to the Netherlands to Israel and beyond. These are also all translated works, which Can be downloaded for free until April 24, 2019,
Every World Book Day has followed a similar pattern, gradually growing each year to encompass more initiatives, such as Spread The Word, Quick Reads Initiative and Books for Hospitals. Every year, the number of children receiving a World Book Day Book Token has increased. In 2000, instead of a single £1 special anthology, four separate £1 books were published, covering a wider age-range. Since then, each year has seen a new set of special £1 books published.
In 2006, World Book Day began its support of and association with the Quick Reads initiative for adult emergent readers. In 2007, World Book Day celebrated its 10th anniversary with the publication of 10 £1 books. Since then every child in full-time education in the UK and Ireland is entitled to receive a £1 World Book day Book token every year. They can swap their WBD token for one of specially-produced £1 WBD books or they can get £1 off a full-price book or audio book. In 2007, the Spread the Word promotion was revamped into an on-line book group featuring a number of adult books suitable for book Groups. A short list of 10 titles was announced on 1 February 2008, and the winning book, was Boy A by Jonathan Trigell. World Book Day 2008 was declared by The Bookseller magazine to be more successful than any previous World Book Day. World Book Day has been billed as The Biggest Book Show on Earth and is celebrated with a variety of events in schools and libraries, including a festival hosted by Tony Robinson, presenter and author of the Weird World of Wonders series, who gave advice on how to start writing.
UN English Language Day is observed annually on April 23. The event was established by the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 2010.
English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and eventually became a global lingua franca. It is named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to the area of Great Britain that later took their name, as England. Both names derive from Anglia, a peninsula in the Baltic Sea. The language is closely related to Frisian and Low Saxon, and its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Norse (a North Germanic language), and to a greater extent by Latin and French.
English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century, are collectively called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England; this was a period in which the language was influenced by French. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London, the printing of the King James Bible and the start of the Great Vowel Shift.
Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, and later the United States, Modern English has been spreading around the world since the 17th century. Through all types of printed and electronic media, and spurred by the emergence of the United States as a global superpower, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation and law.
English is the largest language by number of speakers, and the third most-spoken native language in the world, after Standard Chinese and Spanish. It is the most widely learned second language and is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states. There are more people who have learned it as a second language than there are native speakers. It is estimated that there are over 2 billion speakers of English. English is the most commonly spoken language in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, and it is widely spoken in some areas of the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia. It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union and many other world and regional international organisations. It is the most widely spoken Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch. English has a vast vocabulary, though counting how many words any language has is impossible. English speakers are called “Anglophones”. (That’s not what i call some English speakers)
Modern English grammar is the result of a gradual change from a typical Indo-European dependent marking pattern, with a rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order, to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection, a fairly fixed SVO word order and a complex syntax. Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses, aspect and mood, as well as passive constructions, interrogatives and some negation. Despite noticeable variation among the accents and dialects of English used in different countries and regions—in terms of phonetics and phonology, and sometimes also vocabulary, grammar and spelling—English-speakers from around the world are able to communicate with one another with relative ease.
The purpose of the United Nations English Language Day is “to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six of its official working languages throughout the organization”. April 23 was chosen as the date for the English language because it is the anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth.
Often referred to England’s national poet, the “Bard of Avon”, and widely regarded as the world’s pre-eminent dramatist and greatest writer in the English language. The Prolific English poet and playwright William Shakespeare was believed to have been born on 23rd April1564 (based on his baptism 26 April 1564). Shakespeare was brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later known as the King’s Men.
His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. The first recorded works of Shakespeare include Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI, written in the early 1590s during a vogue for historical drama. He then wrote Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Cardenio. During the mid-1590s Shakespeare wrote his most acclaimed comedies A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. The equally romantic Merchant of Venice, which contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock, which reflects Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to modern audiences. He also wrote the Plays Much Ado About Nothing which is full of wit and wordplay, As You Like Which is set in a charming rural setting of and Twelfth Night which contains lively merrymaking. Shakespeare also infused many of his works with prose comedy
Next Shakespeare wrote Richard II, which was written almost entirely in verse, He then wrote Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. He also wrote two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love, and death and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas North’s 1579 translation of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives. During the early 17th century, Shakespeare wrote the so-called “problem plays” such as Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and All’s Well That Ends Well, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus. In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays: Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest, as well as the collaboration, Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic errors.
His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare was probably educated at the King’s New School in Stratford, a free school chartered in 1553, about a quarter-mile (400 m) from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but grammar school curricula were largely similar: the basic Latin text was standardised by royal decree. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, although there is some speculation that he was also married to his childhood sweetheart Anne Whately, who may have been The Dark Lady referred to in the sonnets. He had three children with Hathaway: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later known as the King’s Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49.
Few records of Shakespeare’s private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare’s.
During his life Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare’s genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called “bardolatry”. In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. Sadly though Shakespeare passed away on 23rd April 1616 but he left behnd an endurng legacy and his books Sonnets & plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world and have been adapted for film and Television numerous times and remain as popular today as they’ve always been.
English Romantic Poet William Wordsworth sadly died 23 April 1850. He was born 7 April 1770 in Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, Cumberland, in the Lake District. His sister was the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth and his eldest brother Richard, became a lawyer; while his brother John, died at sea in 1805 when the ship of which he was captain, the Earl of Abergavenny, was wrecked off the south coast of England. His younger brother Christopher, entered the Church becoming Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Wordsworth was taught to read by his mother and attended, first, a tiny school of low quality in Cockermouth, then a school in Penrith for the children of upper-class families, where he was taught by Ann Birkett. Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator, but little else. It was at the school in Penrith that he met the Hutchinsons, including Mary, who later became his wife. After the death of his mother, in 1778, Wordsworth’s father sent him to Hawkshead Grammar School in Lancashire (now in Cumbria) and sent Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire.
Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine and began attending St John’s College, Cambridge. He received his BA degree in 1791. He returned to Hawkshead for the first two summers of his time at Cambridge, and often spent later holidays on walking tours, visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. In 1790 he went on a walking tour of Europe, visiting France, Switzerland, and Italy. In November 1791, Wordsworth visited Revolutionary France supporting the Republican movement. He fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vallon, who in 1792 gave birth to their daughter Caroline. However Financial problems and Britain’s tense relations with France forced him to return to England alone in 1793. When the Peace of Amiens again allowed travel to France, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy visited Annette and Caroline in Calais in 1802. Afterwards he wrote the sonnet “It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,” recalling a seaside walk with Caroline.
Wordsworth first poems were published in 1793, in the collections An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches. In 1795 he received a legacy of 900 pounds from Raisley Calvert and became able to pursue a career as a poet. he also met Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Somerset. The two poets quickly developed a close friendship. In 1797, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy moved to Alfoxton House, Somerset, just a few miles away from Coleridge’s home in Nether Stowey. Together Wordsworth and Coleridge produced Lyrical Ballads, which contained Wordsworth’s poem Tintern Abbey”, along with Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. A second edition, was published in 1800 and the next edition, of Lyrical Ballads was published in 1802 In which Wordsworth gives his famous definition of poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility,”. A fourth and final edition of Lyrical Ballads was published in 1805. Between 1795-97, Wordsworth wrote his only play, The Borderers, a verse tragedy set during the reign of King Henry III of England, when Englishmen in the North Country came into conflict with Scottish rovers. He attempted to get the play staged in November 1797, but but was thwarted by Thomas Harris, the manager of the Covent Garden Theatre. In 1798 Wordsworth, Dorothy and Coleridge travelled to Germany. Between 1798–99 Wordsworth lived with Dorothy in Goslar, and, despite extreme stress and loneliness, began work on the autobiographical piece titled The Prelude and also wrote a number of other famous poems in Goslar, including “The Lucy poems”.
In 1799, Wordsworth and his sister returned to England and visited the Hutchinson family at Sockburn. When Coleridge arrived back in England he travelled to the North with their publisher Joseph Cottle to meet Wordsworth and tour the Lake District. They settled at Dove Cottage in Grasmere in the Lake District, with poet, Robert Southey nearby. Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey became known as the “Lake Poets”. Between 1798–99 he started an autobiographical poem, “poem to Coleridge” as an appendix or prologue to a larger work called The Recluse. In 1804 he began expanding this autobiographical work. He completed the first version of The Prelude, in 1805, but did not publish it until he had completed The Recluse. The death of his brother John, in 1805, also affected him deeply. In 1807 Wordsworth published Poems in Two Volumes, including “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”. In 1813, he and his family, moved to Rydal Mount, Ambleside (between Grasmere and Rydal Water). Sadly In 1810, Wordsworth and Coleridge fell out over Coleridge’s opium addiction, and in 1812, his son Thomas died at the age of 6, six months after the death of 3-year-old Catherine. The following year he received an appointment as Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland. In 1814 Wordsworth published The Excursion as the second part of the three-part work The Recluse, he also wrote a poetic Prospectus to “The Recluse”. By 1820, he was enjoying considerable success accompanying a reversal in the contemporary critical opinion of his earlier works.
Following the death of his friend the painter William Green in 1823, Wordsworth also mended his relations with Coleridge and in 1828 they toured the Rhineland together. Sadly Dorothy suffered from a severe illness in 1829 that rendered her an invalid for the remainder of her life. In 1838, Wordsworth received an honorary doctorate in Civil Law from the University of Durham and the following year he was awarded the same honorary degree by the University of Oxford. In 1842, the government awarded him a Civil List pension of £300 a year. Following the death of Robert Southey in 1843 Wordsworth became Poet Laureate After assurances from Prime Minister, Robert Peel, Wordsworth thus became the only poet laureate to write no official verses. Sadly His daughter Dora suddenly died in 1847 at the age of only 42 and in his depression, he completely gave up writing new material. Then William Wordsworth died at home at Rydal Mount from an aggravated case of pleurisy on 23 April 1850. He was buried at St Oswald’s Church, Grasmere.
Steve Clark, the former Guitarist with Def Leppard was born 23 April 1960. Def Leppard were Formed in 1977 in Sheffield as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement and their strongest commercial success came between the early 1980s and the early 1990s. Their 1981 album High ‘n’ Dry was produced by Robert John “Mutt” Lange, who helped them begin to define their style, and the album’s stand out track “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak” became one of the first metal videos played on MTV in 1982. The band’s next studio album Pyromania in 1983, with the singles Photograph and Rock of Ages, turned Def Leppard into a household name. In 2004, the album ranked number 384 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Def Leppard’s fourth album Hysteria, was released in 1987, and topped the U.S and UK album charts. As of 2009 it has 12x platinum sales in the United States, and has gone on to sell over 20 million copies worldwide. The album contained loads of absolutely fantastic songs, including “Love Bites”, “Pour Some Sugar on Me , “Hysteria,” Armageddon It , “Animal” Rocket“, Gods of War and Women.
Def Leppard’s next studio album Adrenalize reached number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 and UK Album Chart in 1992, this contained several hits including, “Let’s Get Rocked” and “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad”. Their 1993 album Retro Active contained the acoustic hit song “Two Steps Behind”, while their greatest hits album Vault released in 1995 featured track “When Love & Hate Collide. Sadly though Clarke passed away 8 January 1991. However he was replaced by Vivian Campbell who has remained with Def Leppard ever since. Def Leppard’s latest album Def Leppard was released in 2015 as part of a limited edition fan pack containing a magazine, limited edition prints and a Key ring. It contains the songs Let’s go, Dangerous, Man Enough, we belong, Invincible, Sea of Love, Energized, All time high, Battle of my own, Broke & Broken-hearted, Forever Youmg, Last Dance, Wings of an Angel, Blind Faith, We Belong (Alternate mix), Let’s Go (UK Radio edit).
Known by the nickname ‘The Big O’ and remembered for his distinctive, powerful voice,the American singer, guitarist, and songwriter Roy Orbison was Born April 23, 1936, he grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country and western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis. His greatest success came with Monument Records between 1960 and 1964, when 22 of his songs placed on the Billboard Top Forty, including “Only the Lonely”, “Crying”, and “Oh, Pretty Woman”. Sadly His career stagnated through the 1970s, however several covers of his songs and the use of “In Dreams” in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet revived his popularity during the 1980s. Then in 1988, he joined the supergroup the Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne releasing the album The Travelling Wilbury volume 2 and also released a new solo album.
Orbison was a natural baritone, but music scholars have suggested that he had a three- or four-octave range. The combination of Orbison’s powerful, impassioned voice and complex musical arrangements led many critics to refer to his music as operatic, giving him the sobriquet “the Caruso of Rock”. Elvis Presley and Bono have stated his voice was, respectively, the greatest and most distinctive they had ever heard. While most men in rock and roll in the 1950s and 1960s portrayed a defiant masculinity, many of Orbison’s songs instead conveyed a quiet, desperate vulnerability. He was known for performing dark emotional ballads while standing still and solitary, wearing black clothes and dark sunglasses which lent an air of mystery to his persona.
Sadly His life was marred by tragedy, including the death of his first wife and his two eldest sons in separate accidents. Then on December 6 1988 Orbison sadly died during a resurgence in his fortunes as part of the Travelling Wilbury’s, after suffering a heart attack. Nevertheless he produced many classic songs during his career and gained many plaudits. He was initiated into the second class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 by longtime admirer Bruce Springsteen. The same year he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame two years later. Rolling Stone placed Orbison at number 37 on their list of The Greatest Artists of All Time, and number 13 on their list of The 100Greatest Singers of All Time. In 2002, Billboard magazine listed Orbison at number 74 in the Top 600 recording artists
Whizzbang1698 