British novelist and poet Anne Brontë sadly died 28 May 1849 of Pulmonary Tuberculosis aged 29. She was born 17 January 1820. The daughter of a poor Irish clergyman in the Church of England, Anne Brontë was the youngest member of the Brontë literary family and lived most of her life with her family at the parish of Haworth on the Yorkshire moors. For a couple of years she went to a boarding school. At the age of 19 she left Haworth and worked as a governess between 1839 and 1845. After leaving her teaching position, she fulfilled her literary ambitions. She wrote a volume of poetry with her sisters (Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, 1846) and two novels. Agnes Grey, based upon her experiences as a governess, was published in 1847. Her second and last novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which is considered to be one of the first sustained feminist novels, appeared in 1848. Anne’s life was cut short when she died of pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 29. She is less well known than her sisters Charlotte, who was the author of four novels including Jane Eyre and Emily who was the author of Wuthering Heights, mainly because the re-publication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was prevented by Charlotte Brontë after Anne’s death on 28 May 1849. However her novels, like those of her sisters, have since become classics of English literature.
Agnes Grey was Anne Bronte’s debut novel and is largely based on Anne Brontë’s own experiences as a governess for five years. Like her sister Charlotte’s novel Jane Eyre. It follows Agnes Grey, the daughter of a minister, whose family comes to financial ruin. Desperate to earn money to care for herself, she takes one of the few jobs allowed to respectable women in the early Victorian era, as a governess to the children of the wealthy. As a governess, she works in several bourgeois families including the Bloomfields and the Murrays The novel addresses what the precarious position of governess entailed and the trouble that affects a young woman who must try to rein in unruly, spoiled children for a living, and about the ability of wealth and status to destroy social values. The novel also deals with issues of oppression and abuse of women and governesses, isolation, ideas of empathy and the fair treatment of animals. After her father’s death Agnes opens a small school with her mother and finds happiness with a man who loves her for herself. By the end of the novel they have three children, Edward, Agnes and Mary.
Anne Brontë’s second and final novel was The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which is considered to be one of the first sustained feminist novels and was an instant success. The novel is framed as a letter from Gilbert Markham to his friend and brother-in-law about the events leading to his meeting his wife. It concerns A mysterious young widow named Mrs. Helen Graham who arrives at, an Elizabethan mansion named Wildfell Hall, which has been empty for many years, with her young son and servant. She lives there under an assumed name, Helen Graham in strict seclusion, and becomes a source of curiosity for the small community, gradually the reticent Mrs Graham and her young son Arthur are drawn into the social circles of the village. Initially, Gilbert Markham casually courts Eliza Millward, despite his mother’s belief that he can do better. His interest in Eliza wanes as he comes to know Mrs. Graham. In retribution, Eliza spreads (and perhaps creates) scandalous rumours about Helen.
Before long Helen finds herself the victim of local slander. However a young black farmer named Gilbert Markham refuses to believe it and investigate. Markham discovers a dark secrets concerning her marriage to Arthur Huntingdon, a handsome, witty chap who is also spoilt, selfish, and self-indulgent, whom she has married blinded by love and whom she hopes to reform with gentle persuasion and good example. However Upon the birth of their child, Huntingdon’s behavior gets worse as he becomes increasingly jealous of their son (also called Arthur) and his claims on Helen’s attentions and affections. Huntingdon’s disreputable friends also lead him astray by frequently engaging in drunken revels at the family’s home, “Grassdale” oppressing those of finer character. Huntingdon experiences a physical and moral decline through alcohol and the world of debauchery and cruelty. Until Not surprisingly Helen decides she’s had enough of his drunken antics and flee’s with her son, eventually arriving at Wildfell Hall….
Best known as the “Empress of Soul” American singer. Songwriter, Gladys Knight was born 28th May 1944. She is best known for the hits she recorded during the 1960s and 1970s, for both the Motown and Buddah Records labels, with her group Gladys Knight & the Pips, the most famous incarnation of which also included her brother Merald “Bubba” Knight and her cousins Edward Patten and William Guest. Knight has won a total of seven Grammy awards (four as a solo artist, and three with The Pips).Gladys Knight & the Pips joined the Motown roster in 1966, and scored several hit singles, including “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, (recorded first by Marvin Gaye but released a year later), “Friendship Train” (1969), “If I Were Your Woman” (1970), “I Don’t Want To Do Wrong” (1971), the Grammy Award winning “Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye)” (1972), and “Daddy Could Swear (I Declare)” (1973).
Gladys Knight & the Pips joined the Motown roster in 1966, and, although regarded as a second-string act, scored several hit singles, including “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, (recorded first by Marvin Gaye but released a year later), “Friendship Train” (1969), “If I Were Your Woman” (1970), “I Don’t Want To Do Wrong” (1971), the Grammy Award winning “Neither One of Us (Want to Be the First to Say Goodbye)” (1972), and “Daddy Could Swear (I Declare)” (1973). In their early Motown career Gladys Knight and the Pips toured as the opening act for Diana Ross and The Supremes. Gladys Knight stated in her memoirs that Ross kicked her off the tour because the audience’s reception to Knight’s soulful performance overshadowed her. Berry Gordy later told Gladys that she was giving his act a hard time.The act left Motown for a better deal with Buddah Records in 1973, and achieved full-fledged success that year with hits such as the Grammy-winning “Midnight Train to Georgia” , I’ve Got to Use My Imagination,” and “You’re the Best Thing That Ever Happeed to Me”. In the summer of 1974, Knight and the Pips recorded the soundtrack to the successful film Claudine with producer Curtis Mayfield.
Gladys Knight and the Pips became particularly successful in Europe, and the United Kingdom. However, a number of the Buddah singles became hits in the UK long after their success in the US. Such as, “Midnight Train to Georgia” which was a hit in the UK pop charts Top 5 in the summer of 1976, three years after its success in the U.S. Knight also made her motion picture acting debut in the film Pipe Dreams, a romantic drama set in Alaska. The film failed at the box-office, although Knight did receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best New Actress. Gladys Knight and the Pips continued to have hits until the late 1970s, when they were forced to record separately due to legal issues, resulting in Knight’s first solo LP recordings–Miss Gladys Knight(1978) on Buddah and Gladys Knight (1979) on Columbia Records. Having divorced James Newman II in 1973, Knight married Barry Hankerson (future uncle of R&B singer Aaliyah), then Detroit mayor Coleman Young’s executive aide. Knight and Hankerson remained married for four years, during which time they had a son, Shanga Ali. Upon their divorce, Hankerson and Knight were embroiled in a heated custody battle over Shanga Ali.In the early 1980s, Johnny Mathis invited Gladys to record two duets – “When A Child Is Born” (previously a hit for Mathis) and “The Lord’s Prayer”.
After Signing with Columbia Records in 1980 and restored to its familiar quartet form, Gladys Knight & the Pips began releasing new material. The act enlisted former Motown producers Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson for their first two LPs–About Love (1980) and Touch (1981). During this period, Knight kicked a gambling addiction to the game baccarat.While still with The Pips, Knight joined with Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, and Elton John on the 1986 AIDS benefit single, “That’s What Friends Are For” which won a Grammy for Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal. In 1989, Gladys Knight recorded the title track for the James Bond movie Licence to Kill, a top 10 hit both in the UK, reaching #6, and Germany.In 1987, Knight decided to pursue a solo career, and she and the Pips recorded their final LP together, All Our Love (1987), for MCA Records. Its lead single, “Love Overboard”, was a successful hit and won a third Grammy for the act as well. After a successful 1988 tour, the Pips retired and Knight began her solo career. Gladys Knight & the Pips were inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
Knight’s third solo LP, Good Woman, was released featuring the songs “Men” and “Superwoman”, written by Babyface and featuring Dionne Warwick and Patti LaBelle who also collaborated on “I Don’t Do Duets”, a duet from LaBelle’s album Burnin’. Her fourth solo LP, Just for You, went gold and was nominated for the 1995 Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. In 1992 Vernon Ray Blue II, choir master of the year asked Gladys to record his first single “He Lifted Me”Knight joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1997. She had occasionally teased LDS Church president, the late Gordon B. Hinckley, that his flock needs to inject some “pep” into their music. Knight created and now directs the Mormon-themed choir Saints Unified Voices. SUV has released a Grammy Award-winning CD titled One Voice, and occasionally performs at LDS church firesides.
In 2005, Knight and Ray Charles duetted on You Were There” for Charles’ duets album Genius & Friends. In 2008, a duet between Knight and Johnny Mathis was released on Mathis’ album A Night to Remember. Knight is ranked number eighteen on VH1 network’s list of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock. In the spring of 2008, Knight appeared alongside Chaka Khan, Patti Labelle and Diana Ross at the ‘Divas with Heart’ concert in aid of cardiac research, at New York’s Radio City Hall. In 2008 Gladys, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Stiller performed on American Idol to raise money for charity. In March 2010, Randy Jackson mentioned on a new episode of the same show that he is back in the studio with Gladys Knight working on a new album.In 2009 Knight sang “His Eye Is On The Sparrow” and “The Lord’s Prayer” at the funeral service for Michael Jackson. Recently Knight has released the single “Settle” and a new, updated recording of I (Who Have Nothing).
Best known for her sympathetic and often humorous portrayal of small-town life in Ireland, her descriptive characters, her interest in human nature, and her often clever surprise endings, the Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, columnist, speaker and described as one of Ireland’s best-loved and most recognisable and well known writers Anne Maeve Binchy was born on 28 May 1939 in Dalkey, the oldest of the four children, her brother, William Binchy, became Regius Professor of Laws at Trinity College, Dublin, he also had two sisters: Irene “Renie” (who predeceased Binchy), and Joan, Mrs Ryan. Her uncle was the historian D. A. Binchy (1899–1989). Binchy was Educated at St Anne’s Dún Laoghaire, and later at Holy Child Convent, Killiney, she went on to study at University College Dublin (where she earned a bachelor’s degree in history), she worked as a teacher of French, Latin, and history at various girls’ schools, then a journalist at The Irish Times, and later became a writer of novels, short stories, and dramatic works.
In 1963, Binchy began working in a Jewish school in Dublin, teaching French with an Irish accent to kids, primarily Lithuanians. The parents there gave me a trip to Israel as a present. I had no money, so I went and worked in a kibbutz – plucking chickens, picking oranges. My parents were very nervous; here I was going out to the Middle East by myself. I wrote to them regularly, telling them about the kibbutz. My father and mother sent my letters to a newspaper, which published them. So I thought, It’s not so hard to be a writer. Just write a letter home. After that, I started writing other travel articles. Trip to Israel profoundly affected both her career and her faith.
Binchey met her future husband children’s author Gordon Snell when recording a piece for Woman’s Hour in London. Snell was working As a freelance producer with the BBC. Their friendship blossomed into a cross-border romance, with her in Ireland and him in London, until she eventually secured a job in London through The Irish Times.She and Snell married in 1977 and, after living in London for a time, moved to Ireland. They lived together in Dalkey, not far from where she had grown up, until Binchy’s death.
Binchy’s “writing career began by accident in the early 1960s, after she spent time on a kibbutz in Israel. Her father was so taken with her letters home that “he cut off the ‘Dear Daddy’ bits,”Donal Lynch observed of her first paying journalism role: the Irish Independent and commissioned her. Sadly In 1968, her mother died of cancer aged 57 Binchy also joined the staff at The Irish Times, and worked there as a writer, columnist, the first Women’s Page editor then the London editor, later reporting for the paper from London before returning to Ireland. Binchy’s first published book is a compilation of her newspaper articles titled My First Book and was Published in 1970, however it is now out of print. Binchy’s father died in 1971, so she sold the family house and moved to a bedsit in Dublin. Her literary career began with two books of short stories: Central Line (1978) and Victoria Line (1980).
Binchy published her debut novel Light a Penny Candle in 1982. In 1983, it sold for the largest sum ever paid for a first novel: £52,000. The timing was fortuitous, as Binchy and her husband were two months behind with the mortgage at the time. Most of Binchy’s stories are set in Ireland, dealing with the tensions between urban and rural life, the contrasts between England and Ireland, and the dramatic changes in Ireland between World War II and the present day. While some of Binchy’s novels are complete stories (Circle of Friends, Light a Penny Candle), many others revolve around a cast of interrelated characters (The Copper Beech, Silver Wedding, The Lilac Bus, Evening Class, and Heart and Soul). Her later novels, Evening Class, Scarlet Feather, Quentins, and Tara Road, feature a cast of recurring characters. Five further novels were published before her death: Quentins (2002), Nights of Rain and Stars (2004), Whitethorn Woods (2006), Heart and Soul (2008), and Minding Frankie (2010). Her final novel, A Week in Winter, was published posthumously in 2012. In 2014 a collection of 36 unpublished short stories that she had written over a period of decades was published under the title Chestnut Street. She also wrote several dramas specifically for radio and the silver screen. Additionally, several of her novels and short stories were adapted for radio, film, and television.
Unfortunately from 2002, Binchy began suffering health problems related to a heart condition”, this inspired her to write Heart and Soul, a novel about (what Binchy terms) “a heart failure clinic” in Dublin and the people involved with it, the book reflects many of her own experiences and observations in the hospital.
Maeve Binchy sadly died on 30 July 2012. She was 73 and had suffered from various maladies, including painful osteoarthritis. As a result of the arthritis she had a hip operation. A month before her death she suffered a severe spinal infection (acute discitis), and finally succumbed to a heart attack. Gordon was by her side when she died in a Dublin hospital. Despite being an atheist, Binchy was given a traditional Requiem Mass which took place at the Church of the Assumption, in her hometown of Dalkey. She was later cremated at Mount Jerome Cemetery and Crematorium. Binchy was a prolific writer “In all, Binchy published 16 novels, four short-story collections, a play and a novella. A 17th novel, A Week in Winter, was published posthumously. Her novels, were translated into 37 languages,and sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, she finished 3rd in a 2000 poll for World Book Day, ahead of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Stephen King. Following her passing She received tributes from many Fellow writers including Ian Rankin, Jilly Cooper, Anne Rice, Jeffrey Archer, John Banville, Roddy Doyle,and Colm Tóibín. Many Politicians also paid tribute to Maeve Binchey Including President Michael D. Higgins Who stated: “Our country mourns.” Taoiseach Enda Kenny said, “Today we have lost a national treasure.” While Minister of State for Disability, Equality and Mental Health Kathleen Lynch, said Binchy was, as worthy an Irish writer as James Joyce or Oscar Wilde.
English author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer Ian Fleming was born 28 May 1908 in Mayfair . He is best known for creating the fictional spy James Bond and the series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character. Fleming was from a wealthy family, connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co. and his father was MP for Henley from 1910 until his death on the Western Front in 1917. In 1914 Fleming was sent to Durnford School, a preparatory school on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. The school was near to the estate of a family called Bond, who could trace their ancestry back to an Elizabethan spy called John Bond and whose motto was Non Sufficit Orbis—The World Is Not Enough. From 1921 Fleming followed his brother Peter to Eton College. Although not one of the academic stars of the school, he excelled at athletics and was Victor Ludorum.He left Eton a term early for a crammer course to gain entry to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. Fleming spent less than a year at Sandhurst, leaving in 1927 without gaining a commission. He then went to a small private school, the Tennerhof, in Kitzbühel, Austria, run by a former British spy, and his American wife, the novelist Phyllis Bottome.
His language skills developed well and from the Tennerhof he studied briefly at Munich University and the University of Geneva. Foreign Office, but failed the examinations. In October 1931 he was eventually given a position as a sub-editor and journalist for the Reuters news service. in October 1933 moved into the banking world with a position at financiers Cull & Co. He was not a good banker and, in October 1935, became a stockbroker with Rowe and Pitman, headquartered on Bishopsgate, London. From 1929 onwards Fleming Also collected a library of over one thousand books of what Fleming described as “books that made things happen.”These books represented “milestones in modern science, technology and Western civilization.” He concentrated on science and technology, had a copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species but also owned other significant works ranging from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf to Baden Powell’s Scouting for Boys.
During the Second World War Fleming was recruited by the Director of Naval Intelligence of the Royal Navy to become his personal assistant with the codename “17F”. On 29 September 1939 a document comparing deception of an enemy in wartime with fly fishing was published which contained a number of schemes to be considered for use against the Axis powers, in order to lure U-boats and German surface ships towards minefields. Number 28 on the list was an idea to use a corpse, carrying misleading papers, which the enemy could find: this suggestion formed the basis of Operation Mincemeat, the successful 1943 deception plan to cover the intended invasion of Italy from North Africa. On 12 September 1940 Fleming wrote a memo instigating a plan named Operation Ruthless, aimed at obtaining details of the Enigma codes used by the German Navy. The memo suggested “obtaining” a German bomber, putting ina German-speaking crew, all dressed in Luftwaffe uniforms, and crashing the plane into the English channel. When the Germans would come to rescue the crew, they would be attacked and the boat, including its Enigma machine, would be brought back to England. Fleming also worked on intelligence co-operation between London and Washington.In May 1941 Fleming went to the United States and assisted in writing a blueprint for the Office of the Coordinator of Information, the department which turned into the Office of Strategic Services and eventually became the CIA. In 1941-42 Fleming was put in charge of Operation Golden Eye, a plan to maintain an intelligence framework in Spain in the event of a German takeover of the territory. The plan, drawn up by Fleming, involved maintaining communication with Gibraltar and launching sabotage operations against the Nazis.
During 1942 Fleming formed a unit of commandos, known as No. 30 Commando, or 30 Assault Unit (30AU), a group of specialist intelligence troops. 30 AU’s job was to be near the front line of an advance—sometimes in front of it— to seize enemy documents from HQs previously targeted. Fleming selected targets and directed operations from the rear, The unit was filled with men from other commando units and trained in unarmed combat, safe-cracking and lock-picking at the Special Operations Executive (SOE) facilities. Prior to the Normandy landings, most of 30AU’s operations were in the Mediterranean. Because of their successes in Sicily and Italy, 30AU became greatly trusted by naval intelligence. In March 1944, Fleming oversaw the distribution of intelligence through to Royal Navy units in preparation for Operation Overlord and he subsequently followed the unit into Germany after they located the German naval archives from 1870, archived in Tambach Castle. During an Intelligence fact-finding trip to the Far East on behalf of the Director of Naval Intelligence, Fleming spent Much of the trip identifying opportunities for 30AU in the Pacific.
Following the success of 30AU, it was decided to establish a “Target Force” during 1944 which became known as T-Force. The official memorandum, held at The National Archives in London described their primary role as: “T-Force = Target Force, to guard and secure documents, persons, equipment, with combat and Intelligence personnel, after capture of large towns, ports etc. in liberated and enemy territory.”It was responsible for securing targets of interest to the British military. These included nuclear laboratories, gas research centres and individual rocket scientists. The unit’s most notable coup was during the advance on the German port of Kiel, where it captured the research centre for German engines used for the V-2 rocket, Messerschmitt Me 163 fighters and high speed U-boats. Fleming Later used elements of T-Force, in his 1955 Bond novel Moonraker. In 1942 Fleming attended an Anglo-American intelligence summit in Jamaica and Fleming decided to live on the island a friend helped him find a plot of land in Saint Mary Parish and, in 1945, Fleming had a house built there, which he named Goldeneye. The name of the house and estate where he wrote his novels has many possible sources. Ian Fleming himself cited both his wartime Operation Golden Eye, but also the 1941 novel, Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers. n May 1945, he joined The Sunday Times and became Foreign Manager.
During the war Fleming mentioned to friends that he wanted to write a spy novel, but it was not until 1952 that he began to write his first novel, Casino Royale. He started writing his book at his Jamaican home Goldeneye, on 17 February 1952. On 13 April 1953 Casino Royale was released in the UK in hardcover, Three print runs were needed, all of which sold out. The novel centred on the exploits of James Bond, an intelligence officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond was also known by his code number, 007, and was a Royal Naval Reserve commander.
Bond was a composite character based on all the secret agents and commando types Fleming encountered during his time in the Naval Intelligence Division during World War II and Many of the names used in the Bond works are also from people Fleming knew: the primary villain of The Man with the Golden Gun, Scaramanga was named after a fellow schoolboy at Eton, with whom Fleming fought; Goldfinger, from the eponymous novel, was named after British architect Erno Goldfinger, whose work Fleming abhorred; Sir Hugo Drax, the protagonist from Moonraker, was named after an acquaintance of Fleming’s, Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax and one of the homosexual villains from Diamonds Are Forever, ‘Boofy’ Kidd, was named after one of Fleming’s close friends.
Much of the background to the stories also came from Fleming’s previous work in the Naval Intelligence Division or to events he knew of from the Cold War. The plot of From Russia, with Love uses a fictional Soviet Spektor decoding machine as a lure to trap Bond; the Spektor had its roots in the German World War II Enigma machine. Ths first five books —Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, Diamonds Are Forever and From Russia with Love proved to be wildly successful and In 1958 Dr. No was published. the next book Fleming produced was a collection of short stories, For Your Eyes Only. Fleming followed This up by novelizing a film script that he had worked on with others, the resulting novel being Thunderball. In April 1961, he also began working on a children’s novel, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, which was published in October 1964.
Sadly because Fleming was a heavy smoker and heavy drinker throughout his adult life he suffered from heart disease and In 1961 he suffered a heart attack and by the age of 56, Fleming was rather ill. So In January 1964 Fleming went to Goldeneye to write The Man with the Golden Gun, Sadly Five months after returning from Jamaica, on the morning of 12 August 1964, Fleming died of a heart attack. He was buried in the churchyard of Sevenhampton village, near Swindon. In 1966, two years after his death, twelve Bond novels and two short-story collections were also published, with the last two books—The Man with the Golden Gun, Octopussy and The Living Daylights—published posthumously.
During his lifetime Fleming sold thirty million books; double that number were sold in the two years following his death and The Bond books are among the biggest-selling series of fictional books of all time, having sold over 100 million copies worldwide and in observance of what would have been Fleming’s 100th birthday in 2008, Ian Fleming Publications commissioned Sebastian Faulks to write a new Bond novel entitled Devil May Care. The book, released in May 2008, was credited to Fleming. Fleming was ranked fourteenth in a list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945″. The Eon Productions series of Bond films, started in 1963 with Dr. No, continued after Fleming’s death. The lates bond movies includE Skyfall and Spectre. A further five continuation authors have also produced Bond novels including “Sebastian Faulks, writing as Ian Fleming”, who was followed by American thriller author Jeffery Deaver, whose novel, Carte Blanche, was published in May 2011, William Boyd wrote the novel “Solo” in 2013 and Anthony Horowitz hasreleased the Bond novels Trigger Mortis and Forever and a day.
Amnesty International Day takes place annaully on 28 May to commemorate the date of 28 May 1961 when British newspaper The Observer, published an article called “The Forgotten Prisoners” by the lawyer Peter Benenson; citing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights articles 18 and 19, Benenson announces an “Appeal for Amnesty, 1961” campaign and calls for “common action” – which inspires the founding of Amnesty International, a London-based non-governmental organization focused on human rights. The organization says it has more than seven million members and supporters around the world. The stated mission of the organization is to campaign for “a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments.”
Amnesty draws attention to human rights abuses and campaigns for compliance with international laws and standards. It works to mobilize public opinion to generate pressure on governments that let abuse take place. Amnesty considers capital punishment to be “the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights.” The organization was awarded the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize for its “defence of human dignity against torture,” and the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights in 1978. In the field of international human rights organizations,
Amnesty International has grown to become one of the best-known and most-effective human rights organizations in the world and has the third longest history, after the International Federation for Human Rights, and broadest name recognition, and is believed by many to set standards for the movement as a whole.
International Hamburger 🍔 day
International hamburger day takes place annually on 28 May. The hamburger, also called a burger, consists of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. The patties are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, bacon or chilis with condiments such as ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, relish or a “special sauce”, often a variation of Thousand Island dressing and are frequently placed on sesame seed buns. A hamburger patty topped with cheese is called a cheeseburger. Hamburgers are typically associated with fast-food restaurant, diners, ans other restaurants. There are numerous international and regional variations of hamburger. Some of the largest multinational fast-food chains have a burger as one of their core products: McDonald’s Big Mac and Burger King’s Whopper have become global icons of American culture.
The term hamburger originally derives from Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany; however, there is no certain connection between the food and the city. Versions of the meal have been served for over a century, but its origins remain obscure. Various people have laid claim to inventing the Burger including Louis Lassen, Charlie Nagreen, Otto Kuase, Oscar Weber Bilby, Frank and Charles Menches, Fletcher Davis, The 1758 edition of the book The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse included a recipe called “Hamburgh sausage”, suggesting that it should be served “roasted with toasted bread under it.” A similar snack was also popular in Hamburg under the name of “Rundstück warm” (“bread roll warm”) in 1869 or earlier, and was supposedly eaten by emigrants on their way to America. However this may have contained roasted beefsteak rather than Frikadelle. It has alternatively been suggested that Hamburg steak served between two pieces of bread and eaten by Jewish passengers travelling from Hamburg to New York on Hamburg America Linevessels (which began operations in 1847) became so well known that the shipping company gave its name to the dish. It is not known which of these stories actually marks the invention of the hamburger and explains the name. There is a reference to a “Hamburg steak” as early as 1884 in the Boston Journal. On July 5, 1896, the Chicago Daily Tribune made a highly specific claim regarding a “hamburger sandwich” in an article about a “Sandwich Car”: “A distinguished favorite, only five cents, is Hamburger steak sandwich, the meat for which is kept ready in small patties and ‘cooked while you wait’ on the gasoline range.”
Hamburgers are usually a feature of fast food restaurants. The hamburgers served in major fast food establishments are usually mass-produced in factories and frozen for delivery to the site. These hamburgers are thin and of uniform thickness, differing from the traditional American hamburger prepared in homes and conventional restaurants, which is thicker and prepared by hand from ground beef. Most American hamburgers are round, but some fast-food chains, such as Wendy’s, sell square-cut hamburgers. Hamburgers in fast food restaurants are usually grilled on a flat top, but some firms, such as Burger King, use a gas flame grilling process. At conventional American restaurants, hamburgers may be ordered “rare” but normally are served medium-well or well-done for food safety reasons. Fast food restaurants do not usually offer this option.
The McDonald’s fast-food chain sells the Big Mac, one of the world’s top-selling hamburgers, with an estimated 550 million sold annually in the United States. Other major fast-food chains, including Burger King (also known as Hungry Jack’s in Australia), A&W, Culver’s, Whataburger, Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s chain, Wendy’s (known for their square patties), Jack in the Box, Cook Out, Harvey’s, Hesburger, Supermac’s, Shake Shack, In-N-Out Burger, Five Guys, Fatburger, Vera’s, Burgerville, Back Yard Burgers, Lick’s Homeburger, Roy Rogers, Smashburger, and Sonic also rely heavily on hamburger sales. Fuddruckers and Red Robin are hamburger chains that specialize in the mid-tier “restaurant-style” variety of hamburgers. Some restaurants offer elaborate hamburgers using expensive cuts of meat and various cheeses, toppings, and sauces. One example is the Bobby’s Burger Palace chain founded by well-known chef and Food Network star Bobby Flay. Hamburgers are often served as a fast dinner, picnic, or party food and are often cooked outdoors on barbecue grills.
A high-quality hamburger patty is made entirely of ground (minced) beef and seasonings; these may be described as “all-beef hamburger” or “all-beef patties” to distinguish them from inexpensive hamburgers made with cost-savers like added flour, textured vegetable protein, ammonia treated defatted beef trimmings (which the company Beef Products Inc, calls “lean finely textured beef”), advanced meat recovery, or other fillers. In the 1930s, ground liver was sometimes added. Some cooks prepare their patties with binders like eggs or breadcrumbs. Seasonings may include salt and pepper and others like parsley, onions, soy sauce, Thousand Island dressing, onion soup mix, or Worcestershire sauce. Many name-brand seasoned salt products are also used.
Burgers can also be made with patties made from ingredients other than beef. For example, a turkey burger uses ground turkey meat, a chicken burger uses ground chicken meat. A buffalo burger uses ground meat from a bison, and an ostrich burger is made from ground seasoned ostrich meat. A deer burger uses ground venison from deer. Lamb and pork may also be used.
Vegetarian and vegan burgers can be formed from a meat analogue, a meat substitute such as tofu, TVP, seitan (wheat gluten), quorn, beans, grains or an assortment of vegetables, ground up and mashed into patties. Vegetable patties have existed in various Eurasian cuisines for millennia and are a commonplace item in Indian cuisine.
A steak burger is a marketing term for a hamburger claimed to be of superior quality, except in Australia, where it is a sandwich containing a steak. Use of the term “steakburger” dates to the 1920s in the United States. In the U.S. in 1934, A.H. “Gus” Belt, the founder of Steak ‘n Shake, devised a higher-quality hamburger and offered it as a “steakburger” to customers at the company’s first location in Normal, Illinois. This burger used a combination of ground meat from the strip portion of T-bone steak and sirloin steak in its preparation. Steakburgers are a primary menu item at Steak ‘n Shakerestaurants, and the company’s registered trademarks included “original steakburger” and “famous for steakburgers”. Steak ‘n Shake’s “Prime Steakburgers” are now made of choice grade brisket and chuck. Steak burgers may be cooked to various degrees of doneness and may be served with standard hamburger toppings such as lettuce, onion, and tomato plus various additional toppings such as cheese, bacon, fried egg, mushrooms, additional meats, and others. Various fast food outlets and restaurants — such as Burger King, Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, IHOP, Steak ‘n Shake, Mr. Steak, and Freddy’s — market steak burgers.Some restaurants offer high-end burgers prepared from aged beef. Additionally, many restaurants have used the term “steakburger” at various times
Some baseball parks concessions in the United States call their hamburgers steak burgers, such as Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska. Burger King introduced the Sirloin Steak sandwich in 1979 as part of a menu expansion that, in turn, was part of a corporate restructuring effort for the company. It was a single oblong patty made of chopped steak served on a sub-style sesame seed roll. Additional steak burgers that Burger King has offered are the Angus Bacon Cheddar Ranch Steak Burger, the Angus Bacon & Cheese Steak Burger, and a limited edition Stuffed Steakhouse Burger. In 2004, Steak ‘n Shake sued Burger King over the latter’s use of the term Steak Burger in conjunction with one of its menu items, claiming that such use infringed on trademark rights. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Burger King’s attorneys “grilled” Steak ‘n Shake’s CEO in court about the precise content of Steak ‘n Shake’s steakburger offering.) The case was settled out of court. Hamburgers in the UK and Ireland are very similar to those in the US, and the same big two chains dominate the High Street as in the U.S. — McDonald’s and Burger King. The menus offered to both countries are virtually identical, although portion sizes tend to be smaller in the UK. In Ireland, the food outlet Supermacs is widespread throughout the country, serving burgers as part of its menu. In Ireland, Abrakebabra (started out selling kebabs) and Eddie Rocket’s are also major chains.
An original and indigenous rival to the big two U.S. giants was the quintessentially British fast-food chain Wimpy, originally known as Wimpy Bar (opened 1954 at the Lyon’s Corner House in Coventry Street London), which served its hamburgers on a plate with British-style chips, accompanied by cutlery and delivered to the customer’s table. In the late 1970s, to compete with McDonald’s, Wimpy began to open American-style counter-service restaurants, and the brand disappeared from many UK high streets when those restaurants were re-branded as Burger Kings between 1989 and 1990 by the then-owner of both brands, Grand Metropolitan.
Hamburgers are also available from mobile kiosks, commonly known as “burger vans”, particularly at outdoor events such as football matches. Burgers from this type of outlet are usually served without any form of salad — only fried onions and a choice of tomato ketchup, mustard, or brown sauce. Chip shops, particularly in the West Midlands and North-East of England, Scotland, and Ireland, serve battered hamburgers called batter burgers. This is where the burger patty is deep-fat-fried in batter and is usually served with chips. Hamburgers and veggie burgers served with chips, and salad is standard pub grub menu items. Many pubs specialize in “gourmet” burgers. These are usually high-quality minced steak patties topped with things such as blue cheese, brie, avocado, anchovy mayonnaise, et cetera. Some British pubs serve burger patties made from more exotic meats, including venison burgers (sometimes nicknamed Bambi Burgers), bison burgers, ostrich burgers, and in some Australian-themed pubs even kangaroo burgers can be purchased. These burgers are served similarly to the traditional hamburger but are sometimes served with a different sauce, including redcurrant sauce, mint sauce, and plum sauce. In the early 21st century, “premium” hamburger chains and independent restaurants have arisen, selling burgers produced from meat stated to be of high quality and often organic, usually served to eat on the premises rather than to take away. Chains include Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Ultimate Burger, Hamburger Union and Byron Hamburgers in London. Independent restaurants such as Meatmarket and Dirty Burger developed a style of rich, juicy burger in 2012 which is known as a dirty burger or third-wave burger. In recent years Rustlers has sold pre-cooked hamburgers reheatable in a microwave oven in the United Kingdom. In the UK, as in North America and Japan, the term “burger” can refer simply to the patty, be it beef, some other kind of meat, or vegetarian.
Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter and actress Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE was born 28 May 1968 . After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role as Charlene, in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing her career as a recording artist in 1987. Her first single, “The Loco-Motion”, spent seven weeks at number one on the Australian singles chart and became the highest-selling single of the decade. This led to a contract with songwriters and producers Stock, Aitken & Waterman. Her debut album, Kylie (1988), and the single “I Should Be So Lucky”, both became huge hits particularly in Australia and the United Kingdom. Minogue was Initially presented as a “girl next door”, however She attempted to convey a more mature style in her music and public image. Her singles were well received, but after four albums her sales were declining, and she left Stock, Aitken & Waterman in 1992 to establish herself as an independent performer.
Her next single, “Confide in Me”, reached number one in Australia and was a hit in several European countries in 1994, and a duet with Nick Cave, “Where the Wild Roses Grow”, brought Minogue a greater degree of artistic credibility. Drawing inspiration from a range of musical styles and artists, Minogue took creative control over the songwriting for her next album, Impossible Princess (1997). Minogue returned with the single “Spinning Around” and the dance-oriented album Light Years, and performed during the closing ceremonies of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Her music videos showed a more sexually provocative and flirtatious personality and several hit singles followed. “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” reached number one in more than 40 countries, and the album Fever (2001) was a hit in many countries, including the US, a market in which Minogue had previously received little recognition. Sadly In 2005, in the middle of a concert tour, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, forcing her to cancel the tour. After treatment, she resumed her career in 2006 with the Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour. In 2009, she embarked upon her For You, For Me tour, her first concert tour of the US and Canada.
Minogue has achieved worldwide record sales of more than 68 million, and has received notable music awards, including multiple ARIA and Brit Awards and a Grammy Award. She has mounted several successful and critically acclaimed concert world tours and received a Mo Award for “Australian Entertainer of the Year” for her live performances. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2008 “for services to music”. In the same year she was appointed by the French Government as a Chevalier (knight) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the junior grade of France’s highest cultural honour, for her contribution to the enrichment of French culture. In 2011 her hit single “I Should Be So Lucky” was added to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia’s Sounds of Australia registry. The same year, Minogue was awarded an honorary Doctor of Health Science (D.H.Sc.) degree by Anglia Ruskin University in the United Kingdom of for her work in raising awareness for breast cancer. In November 2011, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ARIA Music Awards, Minogue was inducted by the Australian Recording Industry Association into the ARIA Hall of Fame. Among Kylie Minogue’s latest albums are Golden, Disco and Tension.
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