title: Althorp

text: A prominent feature of the Wootton Hall is its pair of Italian black and Beschia marble blackamoor torchères, originally given to the First Duke of Marlborough as a present from General Charles Churchill. In exceptionally good condition, they stand either side of the door into the Saloon. These were discovered in the silt of the River Tiber and are depictions of slaves who once served in a Roman household. Several flags stand above them, including the White Ensign. The ceiling is intricately made, featuring flowers in the plaster, each one different, the work of Colen Campbell in the early 18th century. The black and white check marble floor is also a distinguishing feature of the room, but through most of its history this floor would have been left plain as horses and carriages would enter the hall inside. In the mid-19th century Frederick, the 4th Earl, had laid down brown and blue tiles, replaced by the marble floor which was added by his son Robert in around 1910. The floor gives significant depth to the hall and provides fine acoustics, so much that Diana would once practice her tap dancing in the hall as a teenager.


title: Althorp

text: Beyond the Wootton Hall is the Saloon, which was converted from an inner courtyard and roofed in 1650 by Dorothy Spencer, Countess of Sunderland. The Saloon was the first room at Althorp to have electricity installed, and it contains an imposing oak staircase, added in the 1660s. Cosmo III noted Althorp's "spacious staircase of the wood of the walnut tree, stained, constructed with great magnificence; this staircase, dividing itself into two equal branches, leads to the grand saloon, from which is the passage into the chambers, all of them regularly disposed after the Italian manner, to which country the Earl was indented for a model of the design." Historically, the staircase was painted white. It is described as being "surprisingly shallow and delightfully uneven – a physical manifestation of the long history of the house".


title: Althorp

text: The South Drawing Room is at the front of the house on the West Wing. In earlier times the room had served as a dining room, despite it being about as far from the kitchen as possible. This section of the house was largely remodelled under Henry Holland, but it retains its Georgian elegance today, "gilded to within an inch of its life", with walls painted in a duck egg blue colour with forest green drapery and peach-patterned sofas. A large mirror with an exquisite gold frame stands between the two windows. The fireplace was added by the Chelsea stonemason Lancelot Edward Wood in 1802, and the ceiling by master builder Benjamin Broadbent of Leicester in 1865. The ceiling in the Yellow Drawing Room, also known as the Rubens Room because of its four Rubens paintings, is also attributed to Broadbent. There are numerous paintings on the walls, including fifteen Joshua Reynolds portraits and a miniature portrait in one of the alcoves of Admiral Lord Nelson, an associate of George John, Second Earl Spencer. Although Higgerson, the night watchman, guarded the place from 8 pm to 8 am, in 1954 one of the lesser valuable paintings in the South Drawing Room was stolen in the night.


title: Althorp

text: The Grandmother's Sitting Room is situated at the front of the eastern wing. It is noted for its deep blue hand-painted frescoes and formal furniture, and was the favourite room of Charles and Diana's grandmother, Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer. Nearby was the Muniment Room in which the Spencer family records were kept, described as a "musty apartment" which contained over 500 years of history, from medieval household accounts to letters from Jacobeans and accounts of Victorian house parties. The room was a favourite haunt of Spencer's grandfather, Albert Spencer, who would spend thousands of hours in it perusing over the family history. So guarded was he of the collection that when Winston Churchill once spent time in the room looking for information on his ancestor, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722), Albert immediately doused out his cigar in fear of creating a fire. The records were sold to the British Library in the 1980s, leaving the room empty, before it was converted to what is known as the "Steward's Room Flat". This part of the house once had an extensive collection of 1830s bull paintings by Richard Ansdell.


title: Althorp

text: The Sutherland Room lies at the rear east wing of the house and was once the bedroom of the Earl of Althorp in the first few centuries of the house when it was fashionable for the occupants to sleep on the ground floor and guests to sleep on the first floor. This was still the case during the Holland restoration, and as a result the room was ignored, so it retains many of the earlier mouldings not seen in many other parts of the house. It contains two fireplaces made by John Vardy and James Stuart which were originally situated in Spencer House, and the room has the original 17th-century cornice. The paintings in the room were selected by the current owner Charles Spencer to honour John, Third Earl Spencer and his passion for foxhunting. After it ceased usage as a bedroom, on special occasions the room would be full of life; on Christmas Day the room would be "transformed into a Christmas fairyland, with clockwork Santas, snowmen and angels all spinning and chiming in the candlelight". The children would have their places marked by a small cake with their names written on it in icing.


title: Althorp

text: The Marlborough Room, which contains the Great Parlour, is named after Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and is situated next to the Sunderland Room and at left angles to the Library. The Marlborough Room served as an "uncomfortable" drawing room until the 1990s when a Victorian rosewood dining table accommodating for up to 42 people was added, with 'squiggle-back' chairs attributed to George Seddon in 1800. The new room was created after alterations were made to the large drawing room by the 6th Earl Spencer in 1911, including the removal of a dividing partition from the old billiard room. Part of the restoration work attributed to the 7th Earl Spencer after 1957 includes a replacement of two Victorian chimney pieces in the Marlborough Room with those from Spencer House, one which was crafted by Peter Scheemakers. Portraits by Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, and George Romney, mostly of family members, adorn the walls, and accessions from the Spencer House are placed throughout.


title: Althorp

text: The Great Dining Room is situated in the east wing extension of the house and was added in 1877 under J. MacVicar Anderson during the time of the Red Earl. The room was inspired by the ballroom of Buckingham Palace, with walls hung with faded, red damask silk. The Spencers ate their regular meals in the Tapestry Dining Room, an inner room of the east side to the east of the Wooton Hall. Aside from the two fine vividly constructed tapestries, one of gypsies and one of farming, the room is fairly bleak in design compared to other rooms in the house; the dining table is relatively small, with a drab grey floor and open brick fireplace dated in large letters to 1683. The "sombre" oak panelling originally came from the family's other property of Wormleighton Manor in Warwickshire. Charles Spencer recalled that three generations of Spencers would eat their lunch together and that dining conditions were "silent, apart from the noises of my grandfather eating with great gusto, a napkin tucked in around his neck, hanging down over his popping-out tummy, and it was all very sad and tense".


title: Althorp

text: The ceiling of the original library at Althorp collapsed in 1773, and at the same time a new floor was put down in the Picture Gallery. Ionic columns and an Adam style ceiling were added. George John's fascination in literature began at a young age and there is a Reynolds portrait in the house of him at Trinity College, Cambridge holding a book By his later life, George John's collecting habit had become something of an obsession and he attempted to collect every volume ever published in Britain.


title: Althorp

text: The books were kept in five apartments in Althorp in the west wing, which, combined, formed the "Long Library" with books from the floor to the ceiling along much of its approximately length. He not only collected British works but imported Greek and Latin classics, and in 1790, he acquired the collection of Count Charles de Revicksky, paying an initial £1000, and then £500 annually until the count's death, only three years later. George often paid great fees for rare books, including a woodcut of St Christopher dated to 1423, believed at that time to be the oldest work in ink with a date on it, the Papal Indulgence Letters of 1452, the Mazarin Bible of 1455, the Mentz Psalter of 1457, and some of the earliest works form the printing presses of Augsburg and Nuremberg such as "Bonaventurae" and "Comestiorum Vitiorum". In 1812, George John was involved in an intense bidding war with his cousin, The Duke of Marlborough, for a copy of Boccaccio's "The Decameron" of 1471, one of only three known copies. Marlborough won the auction with a bid of £2,260 – an amount described by Charles Spencer as "ludicrous" for that time – but he later sold it to George for £750.


title: Althorp

text: In 1802, George hired Reverend Thomas Frognall Dibdin as an official librarian to look after the collection and the library contains his many catalogues entitled "Aedes Althorpianæ", documenting the books of the library. The collection became so enormous that the massive library became inadequate to hold the contents, and books began being stored along the long picture gallery on the first floor above it. By the time of George John's death in 1834, he had amassed one of the largest private collections in Europe of some 110,000 volumes. Alcoves were added to the ends of the library during the Holland restoration, creating extra room for the growing collection.


title: Althorp

text: The Billiard Room is situated between the South Drawing Room and the library, and overlooks the Deer Park. Once known as the "Rubens Room", the room was once described by Charles Spencer as a "dead space; desperately uncomfortable furniture, and Rubens's imposing portraits of several unattractive Habsburgs, against a tightly patterned silver silk, making it anything but welcoming". The room has now been "brought to life" with numerous horse and sporting paintings and portraits, including a dramatic portrait of Elisabeth, Empress of Austria hunting, and a full-sized billiard table moved from the stables in the 1990s. The chimney piece of the room was made by Derval under Holland, and the room also contains an 1893 bronze sculpture of Forager, the Red Earl's favourite foxhound. The Broadbent ceiling is dated to 1865.


title: Althorp

text: The old "Painter's Passage", parallel to the South Drawing Room was renovated after the Second World War when glass cases were installed along its length to showcase the Spencer crockery, with a range of porcelain including Meissen, Sèvres, Kangxi, Chelsea and Derby pieces. Charles Spencer remarked that his grandfather Albert was trying to say, "This part of Althorp will never be lived in again; so we may as well use it to show off the treasures in an orderly way". Today, most of the collection has been moved to the China Museum which lies on the east side of the house, between the Sutherland Room and the Great Dining Room, and the passage now contains a series of busts and paintings in its place, including a self-portrait of Sofonisba Anguisciola, and portraits of the dramatist Molière and the actor David Garrick. Charles Spencer highlights a pair of late 17th-century blue and white tulipieres, special vases to hold tulips which were fashionable at the time, as his favourite in the museum.


title: Althorp

text: The Garden Lobby of Althorp also contains a number of pieces of porcelain from reputable European manufacturers, but also several rare Oriental pieces. Of note in the Garden Lobby aside from its many plates is a Sèvres tobacco jar with double strap handles, believed to be painted by Louis Jean Thévenet in 1765, two Chelsea vases decorated with putti which metaphorically represent the four seasons, which the Red Earl had bought as a gift for his wife Charlotte, an extremely finely carved Meissen flower bowl with hundreds of tiny gilded blooms which dates to around 1745, a Meissen card box, and a blue and gold cherubic Meissen chocolate set-for-one which was believed to have been made for Marie Antoinette in 1781 as a present celebrating the birth of her son Dauphin.


title: Althorp

text: The Picture Gallery stretches for on the first floor of the west wing, wide and high. The room is one of the best remaining examples of the original Tudor woodwork and ambiance in the mansion, featuring oak panelling along its length. During the renovation of the 18th century, the oak panelling in the gallery was covered with white paint, and it was not until 1904 that it was restored to its former glory, the restoration funded by the sale of a Rubens painting in the housekeeper's room. Due to its length, during Tudor times the ladies of the mansion used the gallery for exercise on rainy days to avoid dragging their long skirts and dresses through the mud in the grounds. It was also used as a dining hall, and in 1695 the county nobility and gentry all met together and dined in the gallery to pay their respects to William III.


title: Althorp

text: The gallery has an extensive collection of about 60 portraits, including Van Dyck's "War and Peace", a John de Critz portrait of James I, a Frans Pourbus the Younger aristocratic portrait of Claude Lorraine, Duc de Chevreuse, a Mary Beale portrait of Charles II and others of him by court artist Sir Peter Lely, and portraits of George Digby, Second Earl of Bristol and William, First Duke of Bedford. Visiting the gallery in 1748, the Marchioness Grey described the gallery in a letter to a friend: "Indeed there is a gracefulness and life in the figures beyond what I ever saw, they are quite animated and a strength of colouring that strikes you from one end of that gallery to the other. It is so beautiful that a picture which hangs by it is hurt by its situation." Horace Walpole once wrote: "Althorp has several very fine pictures by the best Italian hands, and a gallery of all one's acquaintances by Vandyke and Lely. In the gallery I found myself quite at home; and surprised the housekeeper by my familiarity with the portraits." The portraits in the Picture Gallery are set in extravagant baroque gilded frames, designed by Robert Spencer, the Second Earl, which feature as "cartouche at the top and a stylised mask at the bottom, with a moulded inner edge, which softens the line between frame and painting". Albert Spencer was so protective of "War and Peace", once the most valuable item in Althorp, that he had the nearest tall window in the gallery converted into a door with hinges, so in case of a fire it could safely be lifted outside. There is also a small hidden door between "War and Peace" and "The Windsor Beauties" cut into the oak which leads to a staircase and the Pink Suite, a guest bedroom. Lady Margaret Douglas-Home, sister of Albert Spencer, lived at Althorp from 1910, and the gallery was a favourite of hers. During the renovation of the 1980s, the old-fashioned celestial and terrestrial globes dating to the George II period were moved from the gallery back to the library.


title: Althorp

text: The chapel on the upper floor became a store room in the early 1980s for pieces being sold off. The stained glass window of the chapel, with the Spencer crest, dates to 1588, and was brought to Althorp from Wormleigton. The organ on the other hand is far more recent, acquired from the parish of Meriden in the 1990s. A number of earlier occupants of Althorp, particularly George John and Frederick, were devout Christians and would preach in the chapel, and Robert, 6th Earl Spencer would hold a daily service here. It is still used for family christenings, and for services at Christmas, Easter and Harvest Thanksgiving.


title: Althorp

text: The Oak Bedroom is at the rear of the castle, on the western side between King William Bedroom and the Great Room. The marriage of the first Earl Spencer and Margaret Georgiana took place in secret here on 20 December 1755, during a ball which was taking place at Althorp to celebrate John's 21st birthday. Georgiana later recalled, "We both behaved very well, spoke distinctly and loudly but I trembled so much I could hardly stand". As of 1998 it was furnished with deep red wall paper, rug and chairs, with oak floors, bed and chairs. There are several portraits on the wall, one of them very large above the fireplace. The Spencer "S" features on the blue velvet bed cover, and above the king-sized bed and by the fireplace.


title: Althorp

text: The room to the east of the Oak Bedroom is known as The Great Room. The room was established in the mid-17th century as part of a reception suite, and was used by George John, the Second Earl for important political conferences during his period as First Lord of the Admiralty and Home Secretary. The Great Room, predominantly red and gold in design like many of the first floor rooms, contains a table and chairs with a large gilded mirror with three urns in front of it. The long mirror, designed by James Stuart, who was noted for his Athenian designs, features a tableaux at the top with the Spencer coat of arms and the pulling of chariots by cherubs, representing the love between John and Georgiana. The Great Room contains an extensive collection of miniature portraits, including a very rare Lucas de Heere portrait of Lady Jane Grey as a teenage girl at her family residence in Bradgate, Leicestershire. The "Portrait of Isaak Abrahamsz. Massa" is mentioned in the 1822 "Bibliotheca Spenceriana" as hanging in one of the bedrooms at Althorp. It was sold in 1924 to art merchant Joseph Duveen, who sold it the following year to Canadian businessman Frank P. Wood.


title: Althorp

text: The Princess of Wales Bedroom is named after the wife of the future King Edward VII, Alexandra, Princess of Wales, who stayed at Althorp in 1863 on a visit to see the Red Earl. Although the fabric of the four-poster bed was designed in 1911, the room is largely Georgian, with deep red walls and furnishings, and contains a notable portrait of a young princess by the Spanish court painter, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. The Queen Mary Bedroom is named after Mary, the wife of King George V, who visited Althorp in 1913. It contains a bed with an extremely tall structure, dated to the 18th century, draped in pea green taffet. Of particular note in the Queen Mary Bedroom are two chairs covered with needlework created by Albert, who was once the chairman of the Royal School of Needlework.


title: Althorp

text: The upper floor also contains the India Silk Bedroom and the Ante Room, which measures 23 ft 4 inches by 32 ft 6 inches. Formerly known as the Patchwork Bedroom, the Ante Room was established by Charlotte, Countess Spencer and her sister during the Victorian period, and today forms part of a suite of state chambers.


title: Althorp

text: In total, Althorp estate contains 28 listed buildings and structures, of which nine are planting stones, dotted around the park. Two are Grade I listed, including the main house; two are Grade II* listed, including the Stable Block and Gardener's House, Althorp, and the remainder have a Grade II designation, mainly garden screens, gates and gateways aside from the planting stones.


title: Althorp

text: The mustard-yellow Grade II* listed Stable Block, designed by architect Roger Morris with a Palladian influence, was ordered by Charles, Fifth Earl of Sutherland in the early 1730s. It replaced an earlier building which had long been in disrepair and could hold 30 to 40 horses. Morris designed the building with a clear Tuscan architectural design, drawing upon earlier inspiration from his stables at Inigo Jones's St Paul's Church in Covent Garden. A fountain was installed in the courtyard to provide the horse's troughs with water, although this no longer survives. Several rooms were built within the stable block, including hot and cold baths for riders after hunting, a veterinarian's room with medicines for horses, and what was once a smoking room. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough remarked at how large the structure was when it was constructed, noting that it was rather an extravagance. It was converted into an exhibition centre to celebrate the life of Princess Diana between 1998 and 2013, and the space now houses a yearly exhibition picking on a theme of the estate. 2019's was entitled 'Animals of Althorp' and explored the estate's relationship with animals throughout the centuries. .


title: Althorp

text: The Grade I listed Falconry was built in 1613 using the same local ironstone as the stables and is of similar Palladian appearance, featuring a "gabled roof with ashlar parapets, kneelers and obelisks". It is a two-storey structure, but a single storey red-brick extension was added in the 19th century. The hall of the falconry contains 2 arcaded openings with keystones, and to the left of the hall is a fireplace with Delft tiles, dated to the 19th century. Over the centuries at various times it has been the home of the park warden, the gamekeeper, and the kennelman who looked after the hounds, hosting puppy shows in the 20th century. Both the Stable Block and Falconry became listed buildings in November 1954. Nearby was the Lavender Cottage with a thatched roof and a wendy house which the Althorp children would play in, but was accidentally burned down by the son of the chauffeur of Albert, and never rebuilt.


title: Althorp

text: The Fifth Earl also built the Grade II* listed Gardener's House at the back of the park, in a similar Palladian style. The head gardener of Althorp resided at the villa in the 18th century. Princess Diana had been intent on living in the castle following her separation from Prince Charles, but due to security concerns it was considered unfeasible. Of particular note is its Victorian three-quarter life-sized marble sculpture, "The Shipwrecked Mariner", depicting a sailor reaching desperately from a raft. Charles Spencer has since moved it from the main portico of Gardener's House to the main house where it sits in the Painters Passage.


title: Althorp

text: Both of the North and South West Lodges of Althorp date to around 1730 under Roger Morris and are both built from lias ashlar with slate roofs. The North and South East Lodges date to around 1810 and are built from limestone ashlar with slate roofs. All four buildings became Grade II listed buildings in November 1954. The Grade II listed Dairy Cottage, to the northwest of the lake, dates to the late 18th century under Henry Holland, and was listed in December 1986. It is a two-storey building with an attic and hipped roof. It has a 19th-century central door and a surrounding porch "flanked by casements under flat arch heads".


title: Althorp

text: The estate of Althorp covers an area of at least , and not only includes the house grounds but areas of woodland, cottages, farms, and surrounding hamlets. The soil in the area is of a rich, dark-coloured loam, and the estate is situated mainly on Jurassic Clay between and above sea level, with the highest area lying in the southeast of Althorp on Northampton Sand. Within the grounds, there are earthworks of the lost village of Althorp on which the estate was built. To the southwest of the house is High Wood, with the Dog Pond to the east of this. Bircham Spinney is immediately to east, to the south of the pond. Hopyard Spinney lies in the north-east corner of the estate bordering the A428, and Sir John's Wood marks the northwest corner. Sir John's Wood is named after John Spencer who was responsible for the planting of a number of woods on the grounds in the latter half of the 16th century. One tablet mentions he planted one of the woods in 1567–1568 and Sir John's Wood in 1589, at a time when lords of manors around Britain grew increasingly anxious of their security following the Spanish Armada and planted woodlands around their properties. Between 1567 and 1901 at least seven stone date tablets were erected in the park commemorating the planting of trees. In the north and north-eastern part of Althorp is marshy ground which is natural feeding ground for herons, a prized delicacy historically at the house. They were harvested by the gamekeeper usually from early March, after being fattened up by meal and bullock's liver. In 1842 one hundred nests were recorded at the estate but this had fallen to ten by 1889. The herons were moved to a pond about two miles away in 1993 and are no longer produced for domestic consumption at Althorp. Northampton Golf Club, established in July 1893, is situated immediately to the southeast of Althorp.


title: Althorp

text: Robert Spencer hired the French landscape architect André Le Nôtre to lay out the park and grounds in the 1660s. A map by Jan Kip which appeared in "Britannia Illustrata" (1709) showed the result of the changes, depicting the house with a wide rectangular courtyard on the main south front, a formal walled garden structured by rectangular-shaped flower-beds and lawns to the east, and tree-lined avenues to the north and south. During the renovation under Holland in the 18th century, the lake was drained in the Deer Park, which the First Earl had used as a playground with full-sized Venetian gondolas, and remaining traces of the old moat were eradicated. From 1860 onwards the architect William Milford Teulon (1823–1900) updated the gardens at Althorp, and further additions and changes were made in the 1990s under Dan Pearson when the Diana memorial was established and many trees planted. After Teulon's additions, the Spencers began growing its own fruit and vegetables and flowers. In 1901 a variety of sweet pea, now known "Spencer type", with "flowers of exceptional size and of an exquisite shade of pink", was cultivated at Althorp by Silas Cole, the chief gardener to the Fifth Earl Spencer, and exhibited at horticultural shows.


title: Althorp

text: Diana, Princess of Wales was interred on a small island in the middle of the ornamental Round Oval lake, which was created by Teulon in 1868. The island was decided as the best place to lay her to rest because the water would, according to Spencer, "act as a buffer against the interventions of the insane and ghoulish, the thick mud presenting a further line of defence. We all agreed that, with its beauty and tranquillity, this was the place for Diana to be". The ground was consecrated by the Bishop of Peterborough prior to the burial. Her burial place is marked with a white memorial plinth and urn.


title: Althorp

text: A Doric-style temple with Diana's name inscribed on top is situated across from the lake, as a place where visitors can lay down their floral tributes to the princess. It contains a black silhouette of her in the middle, set in white marble, evocative of the Henry Holland's material preference, with a tablet on either side. One tablet displays a quote from Diana about her love of charitable work, and the other holds Charles Spencer's concluding tribute given at her funeral in Westminster Abbey.


title: Althorp

text: Following the death of Diana on 31 August 1997 and the subsequent decision to create a memorial and open the house and estate to the public, the garden designer Dan Pearson was commissioned to update the park and gardens, to accommodate for visitors. A series of 36 oak trees was planted along the access road, symbolic of the years of Diana's life. Thousands of plants were planted, including 100 white rambling roses on the island and 1000 white water lilies, donated by Stowe School, in the water around it.


title: Althorp

text: The estate stable block was converted into a public exhibition devoted to the memory of Diana, and open between 1998 and 2013, It was designed by Rasshied Ali Din, who had to seek approval from English Heritage due to it being a Grade II listed building. Din said of the result, "You have a contrast of the modern and the new with the old and the established, which is basically a metaphor for Diana. She was a very modern woman within an established environment." He created six rooms out of the former carriage houses and stabling areas, and the old tea room was transformed into a restaurant, and toilets installed for visitors.


title: Althorp

text: The first room was called "Spencer Women", placing Diana in context to the women of her family, with paintings and jewellery of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and portraits of Georgiana Spencer etc. The next room contained four minutes of edited video footage of Diana as a child to show to the world that she did not simply come into being in 1980 when she became the girlfriend of Prince Charles. It featured footage of Diana at her christening, her first winter, her first birthday, her first steps, and footage displaying her affection for animals, swimming, and leaving for boarding school. The room also contained her tuck-box, toy typewriter, ballet shoes, and a childhood photo album.


title: Althorp

text: A third room documented the Royal Wedding and its "glamour and excitement", with a display of the David Emanuel wedding dress she wore on 29 July 1981. A fourth room documented her extensive charitable and humanitarian work through video footage edited by Tim Ashton, and a fifth, known as the "Tribute Room", was an "evocation of those doom-laden days between Diana's death and burial, when the public were reduced to shocked silence in their attempt to digest the death of a much-loved icon".


title: Althorp

text: The sixth room was the Exhibition, which was a celebration of her life, and contained large glass cases at the sides with dummies of Diana wearing her notable suits and dresses, with the occasions documented on cards on the floor in front of them. A great glass case at the end underneath a stylish black and white photograph contained a selected few hundred of the thousands of condolence books the Spencers received from around the world, designed to give a "final sense of scale to the impact of Diana's life and of her death". A sleek, silk-bound copy of the incendiary address that her brother Charles delivered at Diana's funeral was available for £25.


title: Althorp

text: The estate and house are open to the public during the summer months (1 July to 30 August), although the exhibition centre in the stable block was closed in August 2013. It was believed to be due to concern about the commercial exploitation of Diana's name, and the desire to "squash the cult of Diana". The items on display have been packed up, with the intention to give them to her sons William and Harry. All profits made were donated to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, which closed in 2012.


title: Althorp

text: Although the current owner, Charles Spencer, professes to have never witnessed a ghost at Althorp or anywhere else, over the years numerous ghostly sightings have been reported in the mansion. In the mid-19th century the Dean of Lincoln was invited to stay at the property by Frederick, 4th Earl Spencer. He complained the following morning that during the night a figure dressed as a groom (believed to be the ghost of the deceased servant of the 3rd Earl) had entered his room holding candles and checking that they were snuffed out around the bed. Lady Margaret Douglas-Home professed to being aware of a ghost of a girl with grey slippers in the gallery.


title: David Seaman

text: David Andrew Seaman (born 19 September 1963) is an English former footballer who played as a goalkeeper. In a career lasting from 1981 to 2004, he is best known for his time playing for Arsenal. He won 75 caps for England, and is the country's second-most capped goalkeeper, after Peter Shilton. In 1997, he was awarded the MBE for services to football.


title: David Seaman

text: The peak of Seaman's career was during his period as Arsenal and England goalkeeper in the 1990s and early 2000s. During his time at Arsenal, he won three league championships (1991, 1998, 2002), four FA Cups (1993, 1998, 2002, 2003), the League Cup in 1993 and the European Cup Winners Cup in 1994. During this time he also played for England in the 1998 and 2002 FIFA World Cups, and Euro 96 and Euro 2000. As well as Arsenal, he also played in the Premier League for Manchester City, as well as making appearances in the Football League for Peterborough United, Birmingham City and Queens Park Rangers.


title: David Seaman

text: His save from Paul Peschisolido of Sheffield United in the 2002–03 FA Cup semi-final was described in the media as one of the best ever. Notable lows came with two costly errors, both from long-range efforts—conceding a last-minute goal in the 1995 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Final to Nayim of Real Zaragoza, and conceding to a Ronaldinho free kick against Brazil in the 2002 FIFA World Cup quarter-final. Seaman is left-handed, but threw the ball with his right arm and kicked with his right foot. He retired in 2004 due to a recurring shoulder injury. In June 2012, he was appointed goalkeeping coach of Combined Counties League club Wembley.


title: David Seaman

text: Seaman was born in Rotherham, West Riding of Yorkshire. He attended Kimberworth Comprehensive School. He began his career at Leeds United, the club he supported as a boy. However (much to his disappointment), he was not wanted by then-manager Eddie Gray, who had been his favourite player. Seaman went to Fourth Division club Peterborough United for a £4,000 fee in August 1982, where he began to make a name for himself.


title: David Seaman

text: Just over two years later, in October 1984, Second Division Birmingham City paid £100,000 for Seaman's services. They ended up being promoted at the end of that season, but were relegated again at the end of the following season. Seaman was not to follow them back to the Second Division, as in August 1986, he moved to Queens Park Rangers for £225,000. Playing for a higher profile club on a plastic pitch, he would be called up by the England national football team for the first time in November 1988. Whilst at QPR, Seaman was coached by Bob Wilson (Arsenal's double-winner in 1971), who was to work with him for more than a decade.


title: David Seaman

text: In 1990, long before the current transfer window system had come to English football, there was still a transfer deadline a few weeks before the end of the season. Arsenal, who had won the league in 1989, wanted to sign Seaman, but the deal involved Arsenal's keeper John Lukic heading the opposite way on loan. Lukic did not want to do this, and the deal broke down and remained unresolved when the deadline passed. As soon as the season ended and clubs were allowed to buy players again, Arsenal manager George Graham came back for Seaman, with £1.3 million (at the time a British record for a goalkeeper) being the agreed fee. Lukic, who was highly popular amongst Arsenal fans, left to rejoin Leeds.


title: David Seaman

text: Seaman's time at Arsenal coincided with one of the most successful periods in the club's history. The 1990–91 season saw Seaman concede only 18 goals when playing in every match of the 38-game season as Arsenal regained the league title.


title: David Seaman

text: Arsenal won both the FA Cup and the League Cup in 1993 and supplemented this a year later with the European Cup Winners' Cup. Arsenal began their victorious League Cup campaign against Millwall and after two legs the game went to a penalty shootout. Seaman saved three of the four Millwall penalties from Malcolm Allen, Jon Goodman and Colin Cooper to help his side progress.


title: David Seaman

text: In 1995, George Graham was sacked, and Arsenal came close to becoming the first club to retain the Cup Winners' Cup, with Seaman earning a reputation as a penalty-saving specialist after saving from Siniša Mihajlović, Vladimir Jugović and Attilio Lombardo in Arsenal's semi-final shoot-out against U.C. Sampdoria, all the while playing with two cracked ribs. However, Arsenal lost in the final to Real Zaragoza, at the Parc des Princes in Paris, when Nayim scored a goal in the final minute of extra time with a 40-yard lob over Seaman.


title: David Seaman

text: In August 1996, Arsène Wenger became the new manager of Arsenal. Wenger rated Seaman highly and in 1998, Seaman helped the team to the Premier League and FA Cup double. In 1998–99, Seaman played all 38 league matches, conceding only 17 league goals as Arsenal came within one point of retaining the Premier League and lost in the FA Cup semi-finals to Manchester United. The following season Seaman managed to reach the 2000 UEFA Cup Final, which Arsenal drew 0–0 with Galatasaray, but lost on penalties.


title: David Seaman

text: In 2002, Seaman won the Premier League and the FA Cup again to complete his second career double, although Arsenal's other goalkeepers Stuart Taylor (10 appearances) and Richard Wright (12 appearances) also won championship medals, due mainly to Seaman's absence through injuries. A highlight of this season was when Seaman dramatically saved a Gareth Barry penalty as Arsenal won 2–1 at Aston Villa.


title: David Seaman

text: Despite his international career ending so flatly and accusations his mobility had faded with age, the 2002–03 season—Seaman's last at Arsenal—ended on a high note. He began the season with saving a Freddie Kanoute penalty in a draw at Upton Park. In the FA Cup, he made a save against Sheffield United's Paul Peschisolido in the semi-finals, which former Manchester United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, a pundit for the BBC on the day, dubbed "the best save I've ever seen". Arsenal were defending a 1–0 lead, when with less than ten minutes to go, Peschisolido had a header towards an apparently open goal from six yards out with Seaman seemingly stranded at the near post. However, the goalkeeper leapt sideways and backwards, managing to stretch his right arm behind him and scoop the ball back and away from both his goal and the opposing players ready to pounce on a rebound. The match was Seaman's 1,000th professional career game. Seaman went on to captain the team during the 2003 FA Cup Final in the absence of injured Patrick Vieira and keep another clean sheet at the Millennium Stadium as they defeated Southampton 1–0. His final act with Arsenal was to lift the FA Cup, which was his ninth major trophy with his team. Seaman played in goal for Arsenal more times than anyone else, and is second after Ray Parlour in the all-time Premier League appearances chart for Arsenal, with 325 to his name. In June 2008 he was voted seventh in the list of 50 Gunners' Greatest Players.


title: David Seaman

text: Released by Arsenal, Seaman joined up with Kevin Keegan at Manchester City in the summer of 2003, but Seaman's career at the City of Manchester Stadium did not last long. Whilst out of action due to injury, Seaman announced his immediate retirement in January 2004 at the age of 40. His last act at City was to help Keegan select his successor in goal, David James — the man who had ousted him as England's first-choice goalkeeper a little over a year earlier.


title: David Seaman

text: In November 2005, Paul Merson and Walsall approached Seaman, and later ex-Wales goalkeeper Neville Southall and Chris Woods, to play in an FA Cup game at Merthyr Tydfil as their two first-choice keepers, Joe Murphy and Andy Oakes, were unavailable. However, Seaman was forced to turn this offer down, as it would have constituted a breach in the terms of his retirement insurance pay-out for his recurring shoulder injury.


title: David Seaman

text: Seaman made his England debut in 1988 and appeared for the side in fifteen consecutive years, a national record, since equalled by Rio Ferdinand.


title: David Seaman

text: He earned his first England cap under Bobby Robson in a friendly against Saudi Arabia in November 1988. Robson selected him as England's third-choice goalkeeper behind Peter Shilton and Chris Woods at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, but after arriving in Italy he had to pull out of the squad due to injury and was replaced by Dave Beasant.


title: David Seaman

text: Seaman remained a member of the England squad under new manager Graham Taylor, although he was not selected for Euro 92. During qualification for the 1994 World Cup, Seaman played in the crucial game against the Netherlands, which England lost 2–0; he also played in the final match against San Marino, in which Davide Gualtieri scored after 8.3 seconds before England recovered to win 7–1. England ultimately failed to qualify for the tournament.


title: David Seaman

text: Seaman cemented his place as the undisputed number-one keeper with the arrival of Terry Venables as manager, and played every minute of every match during Euro 96. Seaman saved two spot-kicks in the tournament; the first a penalty in normal play from Scotland's Gary McAllister in a group match, while England were 1–0 up (Paul Gascoigne scored soon after to make it 2–0). Then, after England's quarter-final against Spain ended scoreless, Seaman saved Miguel Ángel Nadal's kick in the shootout to knock Spain out of the tournament. England eventually were eliminated in the semi-final by Germany on penalties, after Andreas Köpke saved the penalty taken by Gareth Southgate. Seaman was named alongside Golden Boot winner Alan Shearer and winger Steve McManaman in the UEFA "Team of the Tournament". Euro 96 sponsor Philips named him "Player of the Tournament".


title: David Seaman

text: Seaman remained the first choice under the management of Glenn Hoddle for the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France. Seaman kept two clean sheets in the group stage as England finished second behind Romania. In the round of 16 England faced Argentina. Seaman conceded a penalty as the game finished 2–2, before England lost on penalties. Kevin Keegan selected him for UEFA Euro 2000, where he started against both Portugal and Germany but sustained an injury in his warm-up exercises for the third game against Romania and was replaced by Nigel Martyn. England lost the match and went out in the first round.


title: David Seaman

text: Seaman was part of Sven-Göran Eriksson's 2002 FIFA World Cup squad and played every game as England reached the quarter-finals, turning back a second-half offensive to shut out arch-rivals Argentina 1–0 in the group stage after English captain David Beckham scored a penalty. However, in the quarter-final against Brazil, Seaman was caught off his line by Ronaldinho's long-range free kick, as England lost 2–1; he blamed himself for the error.


title: David Seaman

text: The result led to a debate about whether Seaman should remain England's number one. He remained England's first-choice goalkeeper until a Euro 2004 qualifier in October 2002 against Macedonia. In this match, he let in a goal directly from a corner kick by Artim Šakiri in a 2–2 draw and brought further press criticism. This was Seaman's last appearance for the England national team, as Eriksson dropped him in favour of David James.


title: David Seaman

text: At his peak, Seaman was regarded as one of the best goalkeepers in the world during the 1990s, earning praise from other goalkeepers such as Sepp Maier and Francesco Toldo. A tall and well–rounded keeper, with a large frame, he was known for his bravery, quick reflexes, agility, and excellent positional sense, as well as his reliable handling and ability to judge the ball, which allowed him to come out and collect crosses and command his area effectively, earning him the nickname "safe hands" in the media; although he was not particularly flashy in his style of goalkeeping, he was regarded as an efficient and generally reliable goalkeeper, who was known for his cool demeanour, authoritative presence, and calm composure in goal, as well as his leadership and ability to organise his back–line, which inspired a sense of confidence in his teammates. He was also adept at stopping penalties. However, despite his ability in his prime, and his overall longevity, he was also known for being inconsistent and prone to errors on occasion, in particular in his later career, following a series of injuries, and also due to his own advancing age, which ultimately led to his physical decline and a series of less convincing performances; he also frequently struggled to deal with long–range shots throughout his career. In 2014, when recounting his famous lobbed goal against Seaman in the 1995 Cup Winners' Cup final, Nayim stated that his attempt was premeditated, as during his time in England, he came to learn that Arsenal usually played with a high defensive line, with Seaman essentially acting as a sweeper-keeper due to his tendency to stay off his line. In 2006, "The Irish Times" described Seaman as a "serial choker," due to several high-profile errors he committed in key matches, in particular at international level, and described him as one of several unreliable keepers that played for England since the end of the "tradition of solid goalkeeping which seemed unbreakable through the era of Banks, Clemence, Shilton, etc.", a notion with which Sriram Ilango of "Bleacher Report" concurred in 2009. In 2018, "Eurosport" noted that: "Since the retirement of Peter Shilton, the position of England's goalkeeper has claimed plenty of casualties. Even the most stable of its occupants, David Seaman, will be remembered for the embarrassment caused when Ronaldinho sent a free-kick floating over his head at the 2002 World Cup." Moreover, while Seaman possessed a deep goal kick and a long throw, which suited Arsenal's quick counter–attacking style of play under manager Arsène Wenger, he was not particularly adept with the ball at his feet, and his distribution was also not always reliable; as such he preferred to clear the ball away when receiving back-passes, rather than attempting to play it out from the back. Considered to be one of the greatest English goalkeepers of all time, as well as one of the best shot-stoppers in Premier League and English football history, he placed second in the IFFHS World's Best Goalkeeper of the Year award in 1996, behind Andreas Köpke, while he placed 32nd, alongside Enrico Albertosi, in the European Keeper of the Century vote, which was organised by the same organisation, the fourth–highest ranked English goalkeeper. In 2013, James McNicholas of "Bleacher Report" described Seaman as: "the greatest goalkeeper in Arsenal's history." Seaman is left-handed, but threw the ball with his right arm, and also kicked with his right foot. In addition to his goalkeeping ability, Seaman was also a highly recognisable figure on the pitch due to his moustache and the ponytail hairstyle he wore for part of his career.


title: David Seaman

text: Seaman began working on his coaching badge with a view to coaching goalkeepers but decided to pause after learning that he would first need a badge in outfield coaching in which he had no interest. His on-screen presence made him a popular choice for chat shows and televised appearances during his sporting career, and he can occasionally be spotted on British television. Whilst still a player, he acted in a cameo role in a BBC film based around the events of England's successful Euro 96 tournament, starring Rachel Weisz and Neil Morrissey, entitled "My Summer with Des". He also became the spokesman for Yorkshire Tea during the early 1990s. He briefly replaced Gary Lineker as team captain on the television quiz "They Think It's All Over" before producers decided to drop him in favour of former Arsenal teammate Ian Wright.


title: David Seaman

text: In December 2004, following his retirement from professional football, he became one of the celebrities to take part in "Strictly Ice Dancing", an ice dance version of "Strictly Come Dancing", in which celebrities are paired with professional dancers. He joined the show at late notice, replacing Paul Gascoigne. With just eight days to prepare for the show, broadcast on BBC One on 26 December, Seaman and his professional partner Zoia Birmingham managed to win the competition. The other competitors spent a month in training for the show.


title: David Seaman

text: In late 2005 he had his trademark ponytail cut off on live television for charity, which ended negotiatory talks with such companies as L'Oréal who wanted to sponsor his hair as they had with David Ginola. He returned to the ice for another ice-dancing series, "Dancing on Ice", broadcast on ITV. The series started on 14 January 2006, and Seaman ended in fourth place. He has also appeared on "All Star Family Fortunes".


title: David Seaman

text: Seaman also hosts a "Safe Hands" charity golf event annually, and has released two football-themed DVDs entitled "David Seaman's Goalkeeping Nightmares" in 2003 and "Jeepers Keepers" in 2004. Seaman has also played in all six Soccer Aid matches for England.


title: David Seaman

text: In June 2012, Seaman joined Combined Counties League club Wembley as goalkeeping coach for their 2012–13 FA Cup campaign, as part of a television documentary following the club's attempt to play at Wembley Stadium. Former international players Graeme Le Saux, Ray Parlour, Martin Keown, Claudio Caniggia and Brian McBride joined the playing squad, with former England manager Terry Venables as technical advisor.


title: David Seaman

text: In 2019 and 2020, Seaman featured in both seasons of ITV show Harry's Heroes, which featured former football manager Harry Redknapp attempting get a squad of former England international footballers back fit and healthy for a game against Germany legends.


title: David Seaman

text: In 2021, he began presenting his own podcast series Seaman Says. The series followed England throughout UEFA Euro 2020 with a second series starting at the beginning of the new season in August.


title: David Seaman

text: In October 2022, Seaman and his wife Frankie Poultney appeared in the second series of "The Masked Dancer" as "Pillar and Post". They were unmasked in the fifth episode.


title: David Seaman

text: Seaman married his first wife, Sandra, in 1985; the marriage lasted ten years. He met his second wife, Debbie Rodgers, in 1995. They were married at Castle Ashby House in Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire on 15 July 1998; the couple separated in 2009 and were divorced in 2010. On 7 February 2015, Seaman married his third wife Frankie Poultney, best known as a professional skater on "Dancing on Ice". Seaman announced their engagement in December 2013; the pair met in 2008, and had been in a relationship since 2009. He has four children: two sons from his first marriage, and a son and daughter from his second marriage.


title: Albert Hofmann

text: Albert Hofmann (11 January 1906 – 29 April 2008) was a Swiss chemist known for being the first to synthesize, ingest, and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Hofmann's team also isolated, named and synthesized the principal psychedelic mushroom compounds psilocybin and psilocin. He authored more than 100 scientific articles and numerous books, including "LSD: Mein Sorgenkind" ("LSD: My Problem Child"). In 2007, he shared first place with Tim Berners-Lee on a list of the 100 greatest living geniuses published by "The Daily Telegraph" newspaper.


title: Albert Hofmann

text: Albert Hofmann was born in Baden, Switzerland, on 11 January 1906. He was the first of four children to factory toolmaker Adolf Hofmann and Elisabeth ( Schenk) and was baptized Protestant. When his father became ill, Hofmann obtained a position as a commercial apprentice in concurrence with his studies. At age 20, Hofmann began his chemistry degree at the University of Zürich, finishing three years later, in 1929. Owing to his father's low income, Albert's godfather paid for his education. Hofmann's main interest was the chemistry of plants and animals, and he later conducted important research on the chemical structure of the common animal substance chitin, for which he received his doctorate with distinction in 1929.


title: Albert Hofmann

text: Of his decision to pursue a career as a chemist, Hofmann provided insight during a speech he delivered to the 1996 Worlds of Consciousness Conference in Heidelberg, Germany:


title: Albert Hofmann

text: In 1929 Hofmann became an employee of the pharmaceutical/chemical department of Sandoz Laboratories (now a subsidiary of Novartis) as a coworker of Arthur Stoll, founder and director of the pharmaceutical department. He began studying the medicinal plant (squill) and the fungus ergot as part of a program to purify and synthesize active constituents for use as pharmaceuticals. His main contribution was to elucidate the chemical structure of the common nucleus of the glycosides (an active principle of Mediterranean squill). While researching lysergic acid derivatives, Hofmann first synthesized LSD on 16 November 1938. The main intention of the synthesis was to obtain a respiratory and circulatory stimulant (analeptic) with no effects on the uterus in analogy to nikethamide (which is also a diethylamide) by introducing this functional group to lysergic acid. It was set aside for five years, until 16 April 1943, when Hofmann decided to reexamine it. While re-synthesizing LSD, he accidentally absorbed a small amount of the drug through his fingertips and discovered its powerful effects. He described what he felt as being:


title: Albert Hofmann

text: Three days later, on 19 April 1943, Hofmann intentionally ingested 250 micrograms of LSD. This trip was not as pleasant, as he said those around him appeared to become demons, furniture shifted into wicked creatures and he himself felt demonically possessed. This day is now known as "Bicycle Day", because he began to feel the effects of the drug as he rode home on a bike. This was the first intentional LSD trip.


title: Albert Hofmann

text: Hofmann's research with LSD influenced several psychiatrists, including Ronald A. Sandison, who developed its use in psychotherapy. Sandison's treatment at Powick Hospital in England received international acclaim.


title: Albert Hofmann

text: Hofmann continued to take small doses of LSD throughout his life, and always hoped to find a use for it. In his memoir, he emphasized it as a "sacred drug": "I see the true importance of LSD in the possibility of providing material aid to meditation aimed at the mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive reality."


title: Albert Hofmann

text: Hofmann later discovered 4-Acetoxy-DET, a hallucinogenic tryptamine. He first synthesized 4-AcO-DET in 1958 in the Sandoz lab. Hofmann became director of Sandoz's natural products department and continued studying hallucinogenic substances found in Mexican mushrooms and other plants used by aboriginal people there. This led to the isolation and synthesis of psilocybin, the active agent of many "magic mushrooms". Hofmann also became interested in the seeds of the Mexican morning glory species , called by natives. He was surprised to find the active compound of , ergine (LSA, lysergic acid amide), to be closely related to LSD.


title: Albert Hofmann

text: In 1962, Hofmann and his wife Anita Hofmann traveled to Mexico to search for the psychoactive plant "Ska Maria Pastora" (Leaves of Mary the Shepherdess), later known as . He was able to obtain samples of it, but never succeeded in identifying its active compound, which has since been identified as salvinorin A. In 1963, Hofmann attended the annual convention of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences (WAAS) in Stockholm.


title: Albert Hofmann

text: Interviewed shortly before his 100th birthday, Hofmann called LSD "medicine for the soul" and was frustrated by its worldwide prohibition. "It was used very successfully for ten years in psychoanalysis," he said, adding that the drug was misused by the counterculture of the 1960s, and then criticized unfairly by the political establishment of the day. He conceded that it could be dangerous if misused, because a relatively high dose of 500 micrograms has an extremely powerful psychoactive effect, especially if administered to a first-time user without adequate supervision.


title: Albert Hofmann

text: In December 2007, Swiss medical authorities allowed psychotherapist Peter Gasser to perform psychotherapeutic experiments on patients with terminal-stage cancer and other terminal diseases. Completed in 2011, these represent the first study of the therapeutic effects of LSD on humans in 35 years; other studies had examined the drug's effects on consciousness and body. Hofmann acclaimed the study and reiterated his belief in LSD's therapeutic benefits. In 2008, he wrote to Steve Jobs, asking him to support this research; it is not known whether Jobs responded. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) has supported psychoanalytic research using LSD, carrying on Hofmann's legacy and setting the groundwork for future studies.


title: Albert Hofmann

text: Hofmann was a longtime friend and correspondent of German author and entomologist Ernst Jünger, whom he met in 1949. Jünger experimented with LSD with Hofmann; in 1970, Jünger published a book of his experiences taking several types of drugs, "Approaches: Drugs and Intoxication" ().


title: Albert Hofmann

text: After retiring from Sandoz in 1971, Hofmann was allowed to take his papers and research home. He gave his archives to the Albert Hofmann Foundation, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, but the documents mostly sat in storage for years. The archives were sent to the San Francisco area in 2002 to be digitized, but that process was never completed. In 2013, the archives were sent to the Institute of Medical History in Bern, Switzerland, where they are being organized. Hofmann felt that everyone should try his drug.


title: Albert Hofmann

text: The "Swiss Federal Institute of Technology" (ETH Zurich) honored him with the title DSc (honoris causa) in 1969 together with Gustav Guanella, his brother-in-law. In 1971 the Swedish Pharmaceutical Association granted him the Scheele Award, which commemorates the skills and achievements of the Swedish Pomerania chemist and pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele.


title: Alder Lake

text: Alder Lake is Intel's codename for the 12th generation of Intel Core processors based on a hybrid architecture utilizing Golden Cove performance cores and Gracemont efficient cores. It is fabricated using Intel's Intel 7 process, previously referred to as Intel 10 nm Enhanced SuperFin (10ESF). The 10ESF has a 10%-15% boost in performance over the 10SF used in the mobile Tiger Lake processors. Intel officially announced 12th Gen Intel Core CPUs on October 27, 2021. Intel officially announced 12th Gen Intel Core mobile CPUs and non-K series desktop CPUs on January 4, 2022. Intel officially announced the launch of Alder Lake-P and -U series on February 23, 2022, and Alder Lake-HX series on May 10, 2022.


title: Alder Lake

text: Fabricated using Intel's Intel 7 process, which was previously referred to as Intel 10 nm Enhanced SuperFin (10ESF), Intel officially announced 12th Gen Intel Core CPUs on October 27, 2021. Intel then officially announced 12th Gen Intel Core mobile CPUs and non-K series desktop CPUs on January 4, 2022.


title: Alder Lake

text: It further was announced in January 2022 that Intel Alder Lake would use a hybrid architecture combining performance and efficiency cores, similar to big.LITTLE which had been created by the semiconductor firm Arm in the United Kingdom. This was the second Intel's hybrid architecture, after the mobile-only Lakefield released in June 2020. While the desktop Alder Lake processors were already on the market by January 2022, the mobile processors were not, although release was expected early that year. Starting cost were USD $289 for the Core i5-12600K. Gracemont was the name given to the efficiency cores, while Golden Cove cores were set for tasks such as gaming and video processing. First laptop tests were performed later that month, with PCMag positively reviewing the Core i9-12900HK, stating the H series represented "Intel's enthusiast line," with "the same hybrid designs" also in the P-series and U-series chips to come out later that year.


title: Alder Lake

text: In April 2022, press reported on "hints" that Intel was working on Alder Lake-X. Intel officially announced the HX processor series on May 10, 2022, including Core i5, Core i7 and Core i9 models, when Intel announced "seven new mobile processors for the 12th Gen Intel Core mobile family at its Intel Vision event. With the lineup based on Intel's desktop Alder Lake chips, it was named the Alder Lake-HX series, or 12th-gen Core HX, with the Core i9-12950HX as the flagship and Intel's first 16-core chip designed for laptops.


title: Alder Lake

text: For the Alder Lake generation, Intel will initially produce 4 different dies. Each die has a different number of P-cores (P) and E-cores (E) and GPU Execution Units.


title: Alder Lake

text: Alder Lake requires special support from the operating system due to its relatively unusual-for-x86 hybrid nature. For software unable to be upgraded, a UEFI-provided compatibility mode may be used to disable the E cores; it is enabled by the user turning on scroll lock.


title: Alder Lake

text: The P and E cores of early versions of Alder Lake CPUs reported different CPUID models. This has caused issues with digital rights management systems that perceive the P and E cores as being separate computers, and falsely enforce license restrictions preventing a particular piece of software from being executed on more than one device at a time. Intel published a list of PC games it identified as having this compatibility issue, and stated that it was working with publishers to develop patches. Some of the games were identified by Intel as only having this bug on Windows 10, and functioning correctly on Windows 11 (with some of them dependent on Windows 11 patches scheduled to be released in November 2021). ExamSoft similarly stated that its monitoring software for educational assessments (such as the bar examination) was similarly incompatible with Alder Lake CPUs due to checks detecting virtual machines.


title: Alder Lake

text: This problem has been fixed in a microcode update. The P and E cores now return the same CPUID when both are enabled. A different CPUID is reported when E cores are disabled and only P cores are enabled. The AVX-512 instruction set extension is implemented in the P cores but disabled due to incompatibility with the E cores. Hackers have shown that it is possible to enable the AVX-512 instructions on the P cores when the E cores are disabled and an old microcode version is used.


title: Alder Lake

text: There are minor differences between the behavior of the two cores with regard to an undefined overflow flag in certain bitwise operations.


title: Alder Lake

text: Alder Lake's CPU topology has performance implications, especially for gaming environments where the developers are not used to NUMA setups. Microsoft added support for Intel Thread Director (ITD) in Windows 11. A wide variety of inputs, including whether a process' window is in the foreground, feeds into the ITD. The ITD can function to a lesser extent with the OS providing less or no cooperation. Support in Linux is merged in kernel 5.18 but this alone is not sufficient until the kernel gets hints from userspace in order to schedule tasks to run on certain types of cores.


title: Alder Lake

text: The CPU family no longer features Intel SGX which is a requirement for playing UltraHD Blu-Ray disks.


title: Alder Lake

text: Most of these processors are identical to the corresponding Alder Lake-H and Alder Lake-U processors (without the L suffix) listed above.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The Soviet Navy () was the naval warfare uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet (), the Soviet Navy made up a large part of the Soviet Union's strategic planning in the event of a conflict with the opposing superpower, the United States, during the Cold War period between the two countries. The Soviet Navy played a large role during the Cold War (1945-1991), either confronting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in western Europe or power projection to maintain its sphere of influence in eastern Europe.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The Soviet Navy was divided into four major fleets: the Northern, Pacific, Black Sea, and Baltic Fleets, in addition to the Leningrad Naval Base, which was commanded separately. It also had a smaller force, the Caspian Flotilla, which operated in the Caspian Sea and was followed by a larger fleet, the 5th Squadron, in the Middle East. The Soviet Navy included Naval Aviation, Naval Infantry, and the Coastal Artillery.


title: Soviet Navy

text: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation inherited the largest part of the Soviet Navy and reformed it into the Russian Navy, with smaller parts becoming the basis for navies of the newly independent post-Soviet states.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The Soviet Navy was based on a republican naval force formed from the remnants of the Imperial Russian Navy, which had been almost completely destroyed in the two Revolutions of 1917 (February and October/November) during World War I (1914–1918), the following Russian Civil War (1917–1922), and the Kronstadt rebellion in 1921. During the revolutionary period, Russian sailors deserted their ships at will and generally neglected their duties. The officers were dispersed (some were killed by the Red Terror, some joined the "White" (anti-communist) opposing armies, and others simply resigned) and most of the sailors walked off and left their ships. Work stopped in the shipyards, where uncompleted ships deteriorated rapidly.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The Black Sea Fleet fared no better than the Baltic. The Bolshevik (Communist) revolution entirely disrupted its personnel, with mass murders of officers; the ships were allowed to decay to unserviceability. At the end of April 1918, Imperial German troops moved along the Black Sea coast and entered Crimea and started to advance towards the Sevastopol naval base. The more effective ships were moved from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk where, after an ultimatum from Germany, they were scuttled by Vladimir Lenin's order.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The ships remaining in Sevastopol were captured by the Germans and then, after the later Armistice of 11 November 1918 on the Western Front which ended the War, additional Russian ships were confiscated by the British. On 1 April 1919, during the ensuing Russian Civil War when Red Army forces captured Crimea, the British Royal Navy squadron had to withdraw, but before leaving they damaged all the remaining battleships and sank thirteen new submarines.


title: Soviet Navy

text: When the opposing Czarist White Army captured Crimea in 1919, it rescued and reconditioned a few units. At the end of the civil war, Wrangel's fleet, a White flotilla, moved south through the Black Sea, Dardanelles straits and the Aegean Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to Bizerta in French Tunisia on the North Africa coast, where it was interned.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The first ship of the revolutionary navy could be considered the rebellious Imperial Russian cruiser , built 1900, whose crew joined the communist Bolsheviks. Sailors of the Baltic fleet supplied the fighting force of the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky during the October Revolution of November 1917 against the democratic provisional government of Alexander Kerensky established after the earlier first revolution of February against the Czar. Some imperial vessels continued to serve after the revolution, albeit with different names.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The Soviet Navy, established as the "Workers' and Peasants' Red Fleet" () by a 1918 decree of the new Council of People's Commissars, installed as a temporary Russian revolutionary government, was less than service-ready during the interwar years of 1918 to 1941.


title: Soviet Navy

text: As the country's attentions were largely directed internally, the Navy did not have much funding or training. An indicator of its reputation was that the Soviets were not invited to participate in negotiations for the Washington Naval Treaty of 1921–1922, which limited the size and capabilities of the most powerful navies - British,


title: Soviet Navy

text: American, Japanese, French, Italian. The greater part of the old fleet was sold by the Soviet government to post-war Germany for scrap.


title: Soviet Navy

text: In the Baltic Sea there remained only three much-neglected battleships, two cruisers, some ten destroyers, and a few submarines. Despite this state of affairs, the Baltic Fleet remained a significant naval formation, and the Black Sea Fleet also provided a basis for expansion. There also existed some thirty minor-waterways combat flotillas.


title: Soviet Navy

text: During the 1930s, as the industrialization of the Soviet Union proceeded, plans were made to expand the Soviet Navy into one of the most powerful in the world. Approved by the Labour and Defence Council in 1926, the Naval Shipbuilding Program included plans to construct twelve submarines; the first six were to become known as the . Beginning 4 November 1926, "Technical Bureau Nº 4" (formerly the Submarine Department, and still secret), under the leadership of B.M. Malinin, managed the submarine construction works at the Baltic Shipyard.


title: Soviet Navy

text: In subsequent years, 133 submarines were built to designs developed during Malinin's management. Additional developments included the formation of the Pacific Fleet in 1932 and the Northern Fleet in 1933. The forces were to be built around a core of powerful s. This building program was only in its initial stages by the time the German invasion forced its suspension in 1941.


title: Soviet Navy

text: By the end of 1937, the biggest fleet was the Baltic Fleet based at Leningrad, with two battleships, one training cruiser, eight destroyers including one destroyer leader, five patrol ships, two minesweepers, and some more older minesweepers. The Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol included one battleship, three cruisers, one training cruiser, five destroyers, two patrol ships, and four minesweepers. The Northern Fleet operating from the shores of Kola Bay and Polyarny was made up of three destroyers and three patrol ships, while the Pacific Fleet had two destroyers, transferred east in 1936, and six patrol ships assembled in the Far East.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The Soviet Navy had some minor action in the Winter War against Finland in 1939–1940, on the Baltic Sea. It was limited mainly to cruisers and battleships fighting artillery duels with Finnish forts.


title: Soviet Navy

text: Building a Soviet fleet was a national priority, but many senior officers were killed in Stalinist purges in the late 1930s. The naval share of the national armaments budget fell from 11.5% in 1941 to 6.6% in 1944.


title: Soviet Navy

text: When Nazi Germany invaded in June 1941 and initially captured millions of soldiers, many sailors and naval guns were detached to reinforce the Red Army; these reassigned naval forces had especially significant roles on land in the battles for Odessa, Sevastopol, Stalingrad, Novorossiysk, Tuapse, and Leningrad. The Baltic fleet was blockaded in Leningrad and Kronstadt by minefields, but the submarines escaped. The surface fleet fought with the anti-aircraft defence of the city and bombarded German positions.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The U.S. and Britain through the Lend Lease program gave the USSR several of their ships with a total displacement of 810,000 tons.


title: Soviet Navy

text: In various stages of completion were another 219 vessels including 3 battleships, 2 heavy and 7 light cruisers, 45 destroyers, and 91 submarines.


title: Soviet Navy

text: Included in the totals above are some pre-World War I ships (-class destroyers, some of the cruisers, and all the battleships), some modern ships built in the USSR and Europe (like the Italian-built destroyer and the partially completed German cruiser Lützow). During the war, many of the vessels on the slips in Leningrad and Nikolayev were destroyed (mainly by aircraft and mines), but the Soviet Navy received captured Romanian destroyers and Lend-Lease small craft from the U.S., as well as the old Royal Navy battleship (renamed "Arkhangelsk") and the United States Navy cruiser (renamed "Murmansk") in exchange for the Soviet part of the captured Italian navy.


title: Soviet Navy

text: In the Baltic Sea, after Tallinn's capture, surface ships were blockaded in Leningrad and Kronstadt by minefields, where they participated with the anti-aircraft defence of the city and bombarded German positions. One example of Soviet resourcefulness was the battleship , an ageing pre-World War I ship sunk at anchor in Kronstadt's harbour by German Junkers Ju 87 aircraft in 1941. For the rest of the war, the non-submerged part of the ship remained in use as a grounded battery. Submarines, although suffering great losses due to German and Finnish anti-submarine actions, had a major role in the war at sea by disrupting Axis navigation in the Baltic Sea.


title: Soviet Navy

text: In the Black Sea, many ships were damaged by minefields and Axis aviation, but they helped defend naval bases and supply them while besieged, as well as later evacuating them. Heavy naval guns and sailors helped defend port cities during long sieges by Axis armies. In the Arctic Ocean, Soviet Northern Fleet destroyers ("Novik" class, Type 7, and Type 7U) and smaller craft participated with the anti-aircraft and anti-submarine defence of Allied convoys conducting Lend-Lease cargo shipping. In the Pacific Ocean, the Soviet Union was not at war with Japan before 1945, so some destroyers were transferred to the Northern Fleet.


title: Soviet Navy

text: From the beginning of hostilities, Soviet Naval Aviation provided air support to naval and land operations involving the Soviet Navy. This service was responsible for the operation of shore-based floatplanes, long-range flying boats, catapult-launched and vessel-based planes, and land-based aircraft designated for naval use.


title: Soviet Navy

text: As post-war spoils, the Soviets received several Italian and Japanese warships and much German naval engineering and architectural documentation.


title: Soviet Navy

text: In February 1946, the Red Fleet was renamed and became known as the Soviet Navy (). After the war, the Soviets concluded that they needed a navy that could disrupt supply lines, and display a small naval presence to the developing world. As the natural resources the Soviet Union needed were available on the Eurasian landmass, it did not need a navy to protect a large commercial fleet, as the western navies were configured to do. Later, countering seaborne nuclear delivery systems became another significant objective of the navy, and an impetus for expansion.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The Soviet Navy was structured around submarines and small, maneuverable, tactical vessels. The Soviet shipbuilding program kept yards busy constructing submarines based upon World War II German "Kriegsmarine" designs, which were launched with great frequency during the immediate post-war years. Afterwards, through a combination of indigenous research and technology obtained through espionage from Nazi Germany and the Western nations, the Soviets gradually improved their submarine designs.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The Soviets were quick to equip their surface fleet with missiles of various sorts. Indeed, it became a feature of Soviet design to place large missiles onto relatively small, but fast, missile boats, while in the West such an approach would never have been considered tactically feasible. The Soviet Navy did also possess several very large and well-armed guided-missile cruisers, like those of the and classes. By the 1970s, Soviet submarine technology was in some respects more advanced than in the West, and several of their submarine types were considered superior to their American rivals.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The 5th Operational Squadron () operated in the Mediterranean Sea. The squadron's main function was to prevent largescale naval ingress into the Black Sea, which could bypass the need for any invasion to be over the Eurasian land mass. The flagship of the squadron was for a long period the "Zhdanov".


title: Soviet Navy

text: In the strategic planning laid by the Soviet strategists, the aircraft carriers had little importance and received little attention in a view of supporting the naval strategy of disrupting sea lines of communication— nonetheless, the program of aircraft carriers pursued as way of keeping up the competition with the U.S. Navy.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The Soviet Navy still had the mission of confronting Western submarines, creating a need for large surface vessels to carry anti-submarine helicopters. During 1968 and 1969 the s were first deployed, succeeded by the first of four aircraft-carrying cruisers of the in 1973. Both of these types were capable of operating ASW helicopters, and the "Kiev" class also operated V/STOL aircraft ("e.g.", the Yak-38 'Forger'); they were designed to operate for fleet defense, primarily within range of land-based Soviet Naval Aviation aircraft.


title: Soviet Navy

text: During the 1970s the Soviets began Project 1153 Orel (Eagle), whose stated purpose was to create an aircraft carrier capable of basing fixed-wing fighter aircraft in defense of the deployed fleet. The project was canceled during the planning stages when strategic priorities shifted once more.


title: Soviet Navy

text: It was during the 1980s that the Soviet Navy acquired its first true aircraft carrier, "Tbilisi", subsequently renamed "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov", which carries Sukhoi Su-33 'Flanker-D' and MiG-29 fighters, and Ka-27 helicopters.


title: Soviet Navy

text: A distinctive feature of Soviet aircraft carriers has been their offensive missile armament (as well as long-range anti-aircraft warfare armament), again representing a fleet-defense operational concept, in distinction to the Western emphasis on shore-strike missions from distant deployment. A second carrier (pre-commissioning name "Varyag") was under construction when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. Construction stopped and the ship was sold later, incomplete, to the People's Republic of China by Ukraine, which inherited part of the old Soviet fleet after the break-up of the USSR. It was commissioned into the People's Liberation Army Navy in 2012 as the .


title: Soviet Navy

text: Soon after the launch of this second "Kuznetsov"-class ship, the Soviet Navy began the construction of an improved aircraft carrier design, , which was to have been slightly larger than the "Kuznetsov" class and nuclear-powered. The project was terminated, and what little structure had been initiated in the building ways was scrapped.


title: Soviet Navy

text: In part to perform the functions usual to carrier-borne aircraft, the Soviet Navy deployed large numbers of strategic bombers in a maritime role, with the "Aviatsiya Voenno-Morskogo Flota" (AV-MF, or Naval Aviation service). Strategic bombers like the Tupolev Tu-16 'Badger' and Tu-22M 'Backfire' were deployed with high-speed anti-shipping missiles. Previously believed to be interceptors of NATO supply convoys traveling the sea lines of communication across the North Atlantic Ocean between Europe and North America, the primary role of these aircraft was to protect the Soviet mainland from attacks by U.S. carrier task forces.


title: Soviet Navy

text: Due to the Soviet Union's geographic position, submarines were considered the capital ships of the Navy. Submarines could penetrate attempts at blockade, either in the constrained waters of the Baltic and Black Seas or in the remote reaches of the USSR's western Arctic, while surface ships were clearly much easier to find and attack. The USSR had entered the Second World War with more submarines than Germany, but geography and the speed of the German attack precluded it from effectively using its more numerous fleet to its advantage. Because of its opinion that "quantity had a quality of its own" and at the insistence of Admiral of the Fleet Sergey Gorshkov, the Soviet Navy continued to operate many first-generation missile submarines, built in the early 1960s, until the end of the Cold War in 1991.


title: Soviet Navy

text: In some respects, including speed and reactor technology, Soviet submarines achieved unique successes, but for most of the era lagged their Western counterparts in overall capability. In addition to their relatively high speeds and great operating depths they were difficult anti-submarine warfare (ASW) targets to destroy because of their multiple compartments, their large reserve buoyancy, and especially their double-hulled design.


title: Soviet Navy

text: Their principal shortcomings were insufficient noise-damping (American boats were quieter) and primitive sonar technology. Acoustics was a particularly interesting type of information that the Soviets sought about the West's submarine-production methods, and the long-active John Anthony Walker spy ring may have made a major contribution to their knowledge of such.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The Soviet Navy possessed numerous purpose-built guided missile submarines, such as the , as well as many ballistic missile and attack submarines; their are the world's largest submarines. While Western navies assumed that the Soviet attack submarine force was designed for interception of NATO convoys, the Soviet leadership never prepared their submarines for such a mission. The force also targeted American aircraft carrier battle groups.


title: Soviet Navy

text: Over the years Soviet submarines suffered a number of accidents, most notably on several nuclear boats. The most famous incidents include the , and the "Komsomolets", both lost to fire, and the far more menacing nuclear reactor leak on the , narrowly averted by her captain. Inadequate nuclear safety, poor damage control, and quality-control issues during construction (particularly on the earlier submarines) were typical causes of accidents. On several occasions there were alleged collisions with American submarines. None of these, however, has been confirmed officially by the U.S. Navy. On 28 August 1976, "K-22" (Echo II) collided with frigate in the Mediterranean Sea.


title: Soviet Navy

text: After the dissolution of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Navy, like other branches of Armed Forces, eventually lost some of its units to former Soviet Republics, and was left without funding. Some ships were transferred to former Soviet states:


title: Soviet Navy

text: The regular Soviet naval aviation units were created in 1918. They participated in the Russian Civil War, cooperating with the ships and the army during the combats at Petrograd, on the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, the Volga, the Kama River, Northern Dvina and on the Lake Onega. The newborn Soviet Naval Air Force consisted of only 76 obsolete hydroplanes. Scanty and technically imperfect, it was mostly used for resupplying the ships and the army.


title: Soviet Navy

text: In the second half of the 1920s, the Naval Aviation order of battle began to grow. It received new reconnaissance hydroplanes, bombers, and fighters. In the mid-1930s, the Soviets created the Naval Air Force in the Baltic Fleet, the Black Sea Fleet and the Soviet Pacific Fleet. The importance of naval aviation had grown significantly by 1938–1940, to become one of the main components of the Soviet Navy. By this time, the Soviets had created formations and units of the torpedo and bomb aviation.


title: Soviet Navy

text: During World War II, about 350,000 Soviet sailors fought on land. At the beginning of the war, the navy had only one naval brigade in the Baltic fleet, but began forming and training other battalions. These eventually were:


title: Soviet Navy

text: The military situation demanded the deployment of large numbers of marines on land fronts, so the Naval Infantry contributed to the defense of Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa, Sevastopol, Stalingrad, Novorossiysk, and Kerch. The Naval Infantry conducted over 114 landings, most of which were carried out by platoons and companies. In general, however, Naval Infantry served as regular infantry, without any amphibious training.


title: Soviet Navy

text: They conducted four major operations: two during the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula, one during the Caucasus Campaign and one as part of the Landing at Moonsund, in the Baltic. During the war, five brigades and two battalions of naval infantry were awarded Guards status. Nine brigades and six battalions were awarded decorations, and many were given honorary titles. The title Hero of the Soviet Union was bestowed on 122 members of naval infantry units.


title: Soviet Navy

text: The Soviet experience in amphibious warfare in World War II contributed to the development of Soviet combined arms operations. Many members of the Naval Infantry were parachute trained, conducting more drops and successful parachute operations than the Soviet Airborne Troops (VDV).


title: Soviet Navy

text: The Naval Infantry was disbanded in 1947, with some units being transferred to the Coastal Defence Forces.


title: Soviet Navy

text: In 1961, the Naval Infantry was re-formed and became one of the active combat services of the Navy. Each Fleet was assigned a Marine unit of regiment (and later brigade) size. The Naval Infantry received amphibious versions of standard Armoured fighting vehicle, including tanks used by the Soviet Army.


title: Soviet Navy

text: By 1989, the Naval Infantry numbered 18,000 marines, organized into a Marine Division and 4 independent Marine brigades;


title: Soviet Navy

text: By the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Navy had over eighty landing ships, as well as two s. The latter could transport one infantry battalion with 40 armoured vehicles and their landing craft. (One of the "Rogov" ships has since been retired.)


title: Soviet Navy

text: At 75 units, the Soviet Union had the world's largest inventory of combat air-cushion assault craft. In addition, many of the 2,500 vessels of the Soviet merchant fleet ("Morflot") could off-load weapons and supplies during amphibious landings.


title: Soviet Navy

text: On 18 November 1990, on the eve of the Paris Summit where the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty and the Vienna Document on Confidence and Security-Building Measures (CSBMs) were signed, Soviet data was presented under the so-called initial data exchange. This showed a rather sudden emergence of three so-called coastal defence divisions (including the 3rd at Klaipėda in the Baltic Military District, the 126th in the Odessa Military District and seemingly the 77th Guards Motor Rifle Division with the Northern Fleet), along with three artillery brigades/regiments, subordinate to the Soviet Navy, which had previously been unknown as such to NATO.


title: Soviet Navy

text: Much of the equipment, which was commonly understood to be treaty limited (TLE) was declared to be part of the naval infantry. The Soviet argument was that the CFE excluded all naval forces, including its permanently land-based components. The Soviet Government eventually became convinced that its position could not be maintained.


title: Soviet Navy

text: A proclamation of the Soviet government on 14 July 1991, which was later adopted by its successor states, provided that all "treaty-limited equipment" (tanks, artillery, and armored vehicles) assigned to naval infantry or coastal defense forces, would count against the total treaty entitlement.


title: Presidencies and provinces of British India

text: The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another, they existed between 1612 and 1947, conventionally divided into three historical periods:


text: "British India" did not include the many princely states which continued to be ruled by Indian princes, though by the 19th century under British suzerainty—their defence, foreign relations, and communications relinquished to British authority and their internal rule closely monitored. At Indian Independence in 1947 there were over 500 of these (most extremely small, but with a few very large ones). In the British Raj, the provinces comprised approximately three-quarters of the population and three-fifths of the land area of India, the princely states comprising the remainders.


text: In 1608, Mughal authorities allowed the English East India Company to establish a small trading settlement at Surat (now in the state of Gujarat), and this became the company's first headquarters town. It was followed in 1611 by a permanent factory at Machilipatnam on the Coromandel Coast, and in 1612 the company joined other already established European trading companies in Bengal in trade. However, the power of the Mughal Empire declined from 1707, first at the hands of the Marathas and later due to invasion from Persia (1739) and Afghanistan (1761); after the East India Company's victories at the Battle of Plassey (1757), and Battle of Buxar (1764)—both within the Bengal Presidency established in 1765—and the abolition of local rule (Nizamat) in Bengal in 1793, the company gradually began to formally expand its territories across India. By the mid-19th century, and after the three Anglo-Maratha Wars the East India Company had become the paramount political and military power in south Asia, its territory held in trust for the British Crown.


text: Company rule in Bengal (after 1793) was terminated by the Government of India Act 1858, following the events of the Bengal Rebellion of 1857. Henceforth known as British India, it was thereafter directly ruled as a colonial possession of the United Kingdom, and India was officially known after 1876 as the Indian Empire. India was divided into British India, regions that were directly administered by the British, with acts established and passed in the British parliament, and the princely states, ruled by local rulers of different ethnic backgrounds. These rulers were allowed a measure of internal autonomy in exchange for recognition of British suzerainty. British India constituted a significant portion of India both in area and population; in 1910, for example, it covered approximately 54% of the area and included over 77% of the population. In addition, there were Portuguese and French exclaves in India. Independence from British rule was achieved in 1947 with the formation of two nations, the Dominions of India and Pakistan, the latter including East Bengal, present-day Bangladesh.


text: The term "British India" also applied to Burma for a shorter time period: beginning in 1824, a small part of Burma, and by 1886, almost two thirds of Burma had been made part of British India. This arrangement lasted until 1937, when Burma was reorganized as a separate British colony. "British India" did not apply to other countries in the region, such as Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), which was a British Crown colony, or the Maldive Islands, which were a British protectorate. At its greatest extent, in the early 20th century, the territory of British India extended as far as the frontiers of Persia in the west; Afghanistan in the northwest; Nepal in the north, Tibet in the northeast; and China, French Indochina and Siam in the east. It also included the Aden Province in the Arabian Peninsula.


text: The East India Company, which was incorporated on 31 December 1600, established trade relations with Indian rulers in Masulipatam on the east coast in 1611 and Surat on the west coast in 1612. The company rented a small trading outpost in Madras in 1639. Bombay, which was ceded to the British Crown by Portugal as part of the wedding dowry of Catherine of Braganza in 1661, was in turn granted to the East India Company to be held in trust for the Crown.


text: Meanwhile, in eastern India, after obtaining permission from the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to trade with Bengal, the company established its first factory at Hoogly in 1640. Almost a half-century later, after Mughal Emperor Aurengzeb forced the company out of Hooghly for its tax evasion, Job Charnock purchased three small villages, later renamed Calcutta, in 1686, making it the company's new headquarters. By the mid-18th century, the three principal trading settlements including factories and forts, were then called the Madras Presidency (or the Presidency of Fort St. George), the Bombay Presidency, and the Bengal Presidency (or the Presidency of Fort William)—each administered by a governor.


text: After Robert Clive's victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the puppet government of a new Nawab of Bengal, was maintained by the East India Company. However, after the invasion of Bengal by the Nawab of Oudh in 1764 and his subsequent defeat in the Battle of Buxar, the Company obtained the "Diwani" of Bengal, which included the right to administer and collect land-revenue (land tax) in "Bengal", the region of present-day Bangladesh, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar beginning from 1772 as per the treaty signed in 1765. By 1773, the Company obtained the "Nizāmat" of Bengal (the "exercise of criminal jurisdiction") and thereby full sovereignty of the expanded Bengal Presidency. During the period, 1773 to 1785, very little changed; the only exceptions were the addition of the dominions of the "Raja" of Banares to the western boundary of the Bengal Presidency, and the addition of Salsette Island to the Bombay Presidency.


text: Portions of the Kingdom of Mysore were annexed to the Madras Presidency after the Third Anglo-Mysore War ended in 1792. Next, in 1799, after the defeat of Tipu Sultan in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War more of his territory was annexed to the Madras Presidency. In 1801, Carnatic, which had been under the suzerainty of the company, began to be directly administered by it as a part of the Madras Presidency.


text: By 1851, the East India Company's vast and growing holdings across the sub-continent were still grouped into just four main territories:


text: By the time of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and the end of Company rule, the developments could be summarised as follows:


text: The British Raj began with the idea of the presidencies as the centres of government. Until 1834, when a General Legislative Council was formed, each presidency under its governor and council was empowered to enact a code of so-called 'regulations' for its government. Therefore, any territory or province that was added by conquest or treaty to a presidency came under the existing regulations of the corresponding presidency. However, in the case of provinces that were acquired but were not annexed to any of the three presidencies, their official staff could be provided as the governor-general pleased, and was not governed by the existing regulations of the Bengal, Madras, or Bombay presidencies. Such provinces became known as 'non-regulation provinces' and up to 1833 no provision for a legislative power existed in such places.


text: The same two kinds of management applied for districts. Thus Ganjam and Vizagapatam were non-regulation districts. Non-regulation provinces included:


text: At the turn of the 20th century, British India consisted of eight provinces that were administered either by a governor or a lieutenant-governor. The following table lists their areas and populations (but does not include those of the dependent native states): During the partition of Bengal (1905–1912), a new lieutenant-governor's province of Eastern Bengal and Assam existed. In 1912, the partition was partially reversed, with the eastern and western halves of Bengal re-united and the province of Assam re-established; a new lieutenant-governor's province of Bihar and Orissa was also created.


text: Upon the partition of British India into the Dominion of India and Dominion of Pakistan, eleven provinces (Ajmer-Merwara-Kekri, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Bihar, Bombay, Central Provinces and Berar, Coorg, Delhi, Madras, Panth-Piploda, Orissa, and the United Provinces) joined India, three (Baluchistan, North-West Frontier and Sindh) joined Pakistan, and three (Punjab, Bengal and Assam) were partitioned between India and Pakistan.


text: In 1950, after the new Indian constitution was adopted, the provinces in India were replaced by redrawn states and union territories. Pakistan, however, retained its five provinces, one of which, East Bengal, was renamed East Pakistan in 1956 and became the independent nation of Bangladesh in 1971.


text: The movie RRR (released in 2022) is a movie where Alluri Sita Rama Raju and Komaram Bheem fight a governor named Scott to reclaim a young girl from the Gond tribe, (based on the Gondi tribe) Malli.


title: Herring

text: Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, including the Baltic Sea, as well as off the west coast of South America. Three species of "Clupea" (the type genus of the herring family Clupeidae) are recognised, and comprise about 90% of all herrings captured in fisheries. The most abundant of these species is the Atlantic herring, which comprises over half of all herring capture. Fish called herring are also found in the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, and Bay of Bengal.


title: Herring

text: Herring played an important role in the history of marine fisheries in Europe, and early in the 20th century, their study was fundamental to the development of fisheries science. These oily fish also have a long history as an important food fish, and are often salted, smoked, or pickled.


title: Herring

text: A number of different species, most belonging to the family Clupeidae, are commonly referred to as herrings. The origins of the term "herring" is somewhat unclear, though it may derive from the Old High German "heri" meaning a "host, multitude", in reference to the large schools they form.


title: Herring

text: The type genus of the herring family Clupeidae is "Clupea". "Clupea" contains only two species: the Atlantic herring (the type species) found in the North Atlantic, and the Pacific herring mainly found in the North Pacific. Subspecific divisions have been suggested for both the Atlantic and Pacific herrings, but their biological basis remains unclear.