After reading the complete Arthurian saga, TheGrandma wants to visit Wales,where all the Arthurian legend began.
She has decided to visit Cardiff, the capital of Wales to assist to The Six Nations Championship in Stadiwm y Mileniwm.
Wales vs England is one of the best rugby matches that you can enjoy nowadays.
The Six Nations Championship (known as the Six Nations, branded as Guinness M6N) is anannual international rugby union competition between the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales.
It is the oldest sports tournament contested by the Home Nations. The championship holders are Ireland, who won the 2024 tournament.
The tournament is organised by the unions of the six participatingnations under the banner of Six Nations Rugby, which is responsible for the promotion and operation of the men's, women's and under-20s tournaments, and the Autumn International Series, as well as the negotiation and management of their centralised commercial rights.
The Six Nations is the successor to the Home Nations Championship (1883-1909 and 1932-39), played between teams from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, which was the first international rugby union tournament. With the addition of France, this became the Five Nations Championship (1910-31 and 1947-99), which in turn became the Six Nations Championship with the addition of Italy in 2000.
England and Wales have won the championship the most times, both with 39 titles, but England have won the most outright titles with 29 (28 for Wales). Since the Six Nations era started in 2000, only Italy and Scotland have failed to win the Six Nations title.
The women's tournament started as the Women's Home Nations in the 1996 season. The men's Six Nations Under 20s Championship is the successor to the Under 21s tournament which began in 2004.
The tournament was first played in 1883 as the Home Nations Championship among the then four Home Nations of the United Kingdom -England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. However, England was excluded from the 1888 and 1889 tournaments due to their refusal to join the International Rugby Football Board. The tournament then became the Five Nations Championship in 1910 with the addition of France. The tournament was expanded in 2000 to become the Six Nations Championship with the addition of Italy.
Following the relative success of the Tier 2 nations in the 2015 Rugby World Cup, there were calls by Octavian Morariu, the president of Rugby Europe, to let Georgia and Romania join the Six Nations due to their consistent success in the European Nations Cup and ability to compete in the Rugby World Cup.
The tournament begins on the first weekend in February and culminates on the second or third Saturday in March. Each team plays every other team once (a total of 15 matches), with home ground advantage alternating from one year to the next. Before the 2017 tournament, two points were awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss. Unlike many other rugby union competitions, a bonus point system had not previously been used.
A bonus point system was first used in the 2017 Championship. The system is similar to the one used in most rugby championships (0 points for a loss, 2 for a draw, 4 for a win, 1 for scoring four or more tries in a match, and 1 for losing by 7 points or fewer). The only difference is that a team that wins all their games (a Grand Slam) are automatically awarded 3 extra points -to ensure they cannot be overtaken by a defeated team on bonus points.
Before 1994, teams equal on match points shared the championship. Since then, ties have been broken by considering the points difference (total points scored minus total points conceded) of the teams. The rules of the championship further provide that if teams tie on both match points and points difference, the team that scored the most tries wins the championship. Were this decider to be a tie, the tying teams would share the championship. To date, however, match points and points difference have been sufficient to decide the championship.
The Wooden Spoon is a metaphorical award given to the team that finishes in last place; a team which loses all their matches is said to have been whitewashed. Since the inaugural Six Nations tournament in 2000, only England and Ireland have avoided finishing last. Italy have finished last 18 times in the Six Nations era, and have lost all their matches in 12 tournaments.
Today, The Fosters and The Grandma have received the greatest news they could imagine. Carlos and MartaFoster have been found after three anguishing days without knowing anything about them.
Marta is a prospector and Carlos is a diver and they had decided to search some hidden Roman treasures in the deep of the Thames river. They are fine, and they have shared their discoveries with the rest of the family.
Carlos has announced that he was going to start a new adventure without The Fosters. He has decided to join Henry Morgan'sexpedition in the Caribbean Sea and enjoy new adventures in the American continent.
Good luck brother! We are going to miss you a lot!
Sir Henry Morgan, in Welsh Harri Morgan, (c. 1635-25 August 1688) was a Welshprivateer, plantationowner, and, later, LieutenantGovernor of Jamaica.
From his base in Port Royal, Jamaica, heraided settlements and shipping on theSpanish Main,becoming wealthy as he did so. With the prize money from the raids he purchased three large sugar plantations on the island.
Much of Morgan's early life is unknown. He was born in Monmouthshire, but it is not known how he made his way to the West Indies, or how he began his career as a privateer.
He was probably a member of a group of raiders led by Sir Christopher Myngs in the early 1660s during the Anglo-Spanish War. Morgan
became a close friend of Sir Thomas Modyford, the Governor of Jamaica.
When diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of England and Spain
worsened in 1667, Modyford gave Morgan a letter of marque, a licence to attack and seize Spanish vessels.
Morgan subsequently conducted successful and highly lucrative raids on Puerto Principe (now Camagüey in modern Cuba) and Porto Bello (now Portobelo in modern Panama).
In
1668, he sailed for Maracaibo and Gibraltar, both on Lake Maracaibo in
modern-day Venezuela. He raided both cities and stripped them of their
wealth before destroying a large Spanish squadron as he escaped.
In 1671, Morgan attacked Panama City,
landing on the Caribbean coast and traversing the isthmus before he
attacked the city, which was on the Pacific coast. The battle was a
rout, although the privateers profited less than in other raids. To
appease the Spanish, with whom the English had signed a peace treaty, Morgan
was arrested and summoned to London in 1672, but was treated as a hero
by the general populace and the leading figures of government and
royalty including Charles II.
Morgan
was appointed a Knight Bachelor in November 1674 and returned to the
Colony of Jamaica shortly afterward to serve as the territory's
Lieutenant Governor. He served on the Assembly of Jamaica until 1683 and
on three occasions he acted as Governor of Jamaica in the absence of
the post-holder.
A memoir published by Alexandre Exquemelin, a former shipmate of Morgan's,accused him of widespread torture and other offences; Morgan won a libel suit against the book's English publishers, but Exquemelin's portrayal has affected history's view of Morgan.
He died in Jamaica on 25 August 1688. His life was romanticised after
his death and he became the inspiration for pirate-themed works of
fiction across a range of genres.
Henry Morgan was born around 1635 in Wales,
either in Llanrumney or Pencarn, (both in Monmouthshire, between
Cardiff and Newport). The historian David Williams, writing in the
Dictionary of Welsh Biography, observes that attempts to identify his
parents and antecedents have all proved unsatisfactory,although his will referred to distant relations. Several sources state Morgan'sfather was Robert Morgan, a farmer.
Nuala Zahedieh, writing for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, states that details of Morgan's early life and career are uncertain, although in later life he stated that he had left school early and was much more used to the pike than the book.
It is probable that in the early 1660s Morgan
was active with a group of privateers led by Sir Christopher Myngs
attacking Spanish cities and settlements in the Caribbean and Central
America when England was at war with Spain. It is likely that in 1663 Morgan
captained one of the ships in Myngs' fleet, and took part in the attack
on Santiago de Cuba and the Sack of Campeche on the Yucatán Peninsula.
In
1669 Mariana, the Queen Regent of Spain, ordered attacks on English
shipping in the Caribbean. The first action took place in March 1670
when Spanish privateers attacked English trade ships.
In response Modyford commissioned Morganto do and perform all manner of exploits, which may tend to the preservation and quiet of this island.
By December Morgan was sailing toward the Spanish Main with a fleet of over 30
English and French ships carrying a large number of privateers.
Zahedieh observes that the army of privateers was the largest that had
gathered in the Caribbean at the time, which was a mark of Morgan's renown.
Morgan's
first action was to take the connected islands of Old Providence and
Santa Catalina in December 1670. From there his fleet sailed to Chagres,
the port from which ships were loaded with goods to transport back to
Spain. Morgan took the town and occupied Fort San Lorenzo, which he garrisoned to protect his line of retreat.
On
9 January 1671, with his remaining men, he ascended the Chagres River
and headed for Old Panama City, on the Pacific Coast. Much of the
journey was on foot, through dense rainforests and swamps.
The governor of Panama had been forewarned of a potential attack, and had sent Spanish troops to attack Morgan
and his men along the route. The privateers transferred to canoes to
complete part of the journey, but were still able to beat off the
ambushes with ease.
After three days, with the river difficult to navigate in places, and with the jungle thinning out, Morgan landed his men and travelled overland across the remaining part of the isthmus.
The
privateers, including Captain Robert Searle, arrived at Old Panama City
on 27 January 1671; they camped overnight before attacking the
following day. They were opposed by approximately 1,200 Spanish infantry
and 400 cavalry; most were inexperienced.
Morgan
sent a 300-strong party of men down a ravine that led to the foot of a
small hill on the Spanish right flank. As they disappeared from view,
the Spanish front line thought the privateers were retreating, and the
left wing broke rank and chased, followed by the remainder of the
defending infantry. They were met with well-organised firing from
Morgan's main force of troops. When the party came into view at the end
of the ravine, they were charged by the Spanish cavalry, but organised
fire destroyed the cavalry and the party attacked the flank of the main
Spanish force.
In an effort to disorganise Morgan's
forces, the governor of Panama released two herds of oxen and bulls
onto the battlefield; scared by the noise of the gunfire, they turned
and stampeded over their keepers and some of the remaining Spanish
troops. The battle was a rout: the Spanish lost between 400 and 500 men,
against 15 privateers killed.
Panama's
governor had sworn to burn down the city if his troops lost to the
privateers, and he had placed barrels of gunpowder around the largely
wooden buildings. These were detonated by the captain of artillery after
Morgan'svictory; the resultant fires lasted until the following day.
Only
a few stone buildings remained standing afterwards. Much of Panama's
wealth was destroyed in the conflagration, although some had been
removed by ships, before the privateers arrived.
The privateers spent three weeks in Panama and plundered what they could from the ruins. Morgan's second-in-command, Captain Edward Collier, supervised the torture of some of the city's residents; Morgan's fleet surgeon, Richard Browne, later wrote that at Panama, Morganwas noble enough to the vanquished enemy.
The value of treasure Morgan
collected during his expedition is disputed. Talty writes that the
figures range from 140,000 to 400,000 pesos, and that owing to the large
army Morgan assembled, the prize-per-man was relatively low, causing discontent.
There were accusations, particularly in Exquemelin's memoirs, that Morgan left with the majority of the plunder.
He
arrived back in Port Royal on 12 March to a positive welcome from the
town's inhabitants. The following month he made his official report to
the governing Council of Jamaica, and received their formal thanks and
congratulations.
Morgan died on 25 August 1688; Albemarle ordered a state funeral, and laid Morgan's
body at King's House for the public to pay respects. An amnesty was
declared so that pirates and privateers could pay their respects without
fear of arrest. He was buried at Palisadoes cemetery, Port Royal,
followed by a 22-gun salute from the ships moored in the harbour. Morgan was a wealthy man when he died. His personal wealth was valued at £5,263.
His
will initially left his plantations and slaves to his wife, Mary
Elizabeth, but because they were childless, on her death his estate was
to pass to his nephews, the children of his brother-in-law Byndloss. The
burial of Lady Morgan was recorded in Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica on 3
March 1696.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about an amazing figure, Henry Morgan, the Welsh privateer and Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica, who captured Panama on a day like today in 1670.
Sir Henry Morgan, in Welsh Harri Morgan, (c. 1635-25 August 1688) was a Welshprivateer, plantationowner, and, later, LieutenantGovernor of Jamaica.
From his base in Port Royal, Jamaica, heraided settlements and shipping on theSpanish Main,becoming wealthy as he did so. With the prize money from the raids he purchased three large sugar plantations on the island.
Much of Morgan's early life is unknown. He was born in Monmouthshire, but it is not known how he made his way to the West Indies, or how he began his career as a privateer.
He was probably a member of a group of raiders led by Sir Christopher Myngs in the early 1660s during the Anglo-Spanish War. Morgan became a close friend of Sir Thomas Modyford, the Governor of Jamaica. When diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of England and Spain worsened in 1667, Modyford gave Morgan a letter of marque, a licence to attack and seize Spanish vessels.
Morgan subsequently conducted successful and highly lucrative raids on Puerto Principe (now Camagüey in modern Cuba) and Porto Bello (now Portobelo in modern Panama).
In 1668, he sailed for Maracaibo and Gibraltar, both on Lake Maracaibo in modern-day Venezuela. He raided both cities and stripped them of their wealth before destroying a large Spanish squadron as he escaped.
In 1671, Morgan attacked Panama City, landing on the Caribbean coast and traversing the isthmus before he attacked the city, which was on the Pacific coast. The battle was a rout, although the privateers profited less than in other raids. To appease the Spanish, with whom the English had signed a peace treaty, Morgan was arrested and summoned to London in 1672, but was treated as a hero by the general populace and the leading figures of government and royalty including Charles II.
Morgan was appointed a Knight Bachelor in November 1674 and returned to the Colony of Jamaica shortly afterward to serve as the territory's Lieutenant Governor. He served on the Assembly of Jamaica until 1683 and on three occasions he acted as Governor of Jamaica in the absence of the post-holder.
A memoir published by Alexandre Exquemelin, a former shipmate of Morgan's,accused him of widespread torture and other offences; Morgan won a libel suit against the book's English publishers, but Exquemelin's portrayal has affected history's view of Morgan. He died in Jamaica on 25 August 1688. His life was romanticised after his death and he became the inspiration for pirate-themed works of fiction across a range of genres.
Henry Morgan was born around 1635 in Wales, either in Llanrumney or Pencarn, (both in Monmouthshire, between Cardiff and Newport). The historian David Williams, writing in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, observes that attempts to identify his parents and antecedents have all proved unsatisfactory,although his will referred to distant relations. Several sources state Morgan'sfather was Robert Morgan, a farmer.
Nuala Zahedieh, writing for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, states that details of Morgan's early life and career are uncertain, although in later life he stated that he had left school early and was much more used to the pike than the book.
It is probable that in the early 1660s Morgan was active with a group of privateers led by Sir Christopher Myngs attacking Spanish cities and settlements in the Caribbean and Central America when England was at war with Spain. It is likely that in 1663 Morgan captained one of the ships in Myngs' fleet, and took part in the attack on Santiago de Cuba and the Sack of Campeche on the Yucatán Peninsula.
In 1669 Mariana, the Queen Regent of Spain, ordered attacks on English shipping in the Caribbean. The first action took place in March 1670 when Spanish privateers attacked English trade ships.
In response Modyford commissioned Morganto do and perform all manner of exploits, which may tend to the preservation and quiet of this island.
By December Morgan was sailing toward the Spanish Main with a fleet of over 30
English and French ships carrying a large number of privateers.
Zahedieh observes that the army of privateers was the largest that had
gathered in the Caribbean at the time, which was a mark of Morgan's renown.
Morgan's first action was to take the connected islands of Old Providence and Santa Catalina in December 1670. From there his fleet sailed to Chagres, the port from which ships were loaded with goods to transport back to Spain. Morgan took the town and occupied Fort San Lorenzo, which he garrisoned to protect his line of retreat.
On 9 January 1671, with his remaining men, he ascended the Chagres River and headed for Old Panama City, on the Pacific Coast. Much of the journey was on foot, through dense rainforests and swamps.
The governor of Panama had been forewarned of a potential attack, and had sent Spanish troops to attack Morgan and his men along the route. The privateers transferred to canoes to complete part of the journey, but were still able to beat off the ambushes with ease.
After three days, with the river difficult to navigate in places, and with the jungle thinning out, Morgan landed his men and travelled overland across the remaining part of the isthmus.
The privateers, including Captain Robert Searle, arrived at Old Panama City on 27 January 1671; they camped overnight before attacking the following day. They were opposed by approximately 1,200 Spanish infantry and 400 cavalry; most were inexperienced.
Morgan sent a 300-strong party of men down a ravine that led to the foot of a small hill on the Spanish right flank. As they disappeared from view, the Spanish front line thought the privateers were retreating, and the left wing broke rank and chased, followed by the remainder of the defending infantry. They were met with well-organised firing from Morgan's main force of troops. When the party came into view at the end of the ravine, they were charged by the Spanish cavalry, but organised fire destroyed the cavalry and the party attacked the flank of the main Spanish force.
In an effort to disorganise Morgan's
forces, the governor of Panama released two herds of oxen and bulls
onto the battlefield; scared by the noise of the gunfire, they turned
and stampeded over their keepers and some of the remaining Spanish
troops. The battle was a rout: the Spanish lost between 400 and 500 men,
against 15 privateers killed.
Panama's
governor had sworn to burn down the city if his troops lost to the
privateers, and he had placed barrels of gunpowder around the largely
wooden buildings. These were detonated by the captain of artillery after
Morgan'svictory; the resultant fires lasted until the following day.
Only a few stone buildings remained standing afterwards. Much of Panama's wealth was destroyed in the conflagration, although some had been removed by ships, before the privateers arrived.
The privateers spent three weeks in Panama and plundered what they could from the ruins. Morgan's second-in-command, Captain Edward Collier, supervised the torture of some of the city's residents; Morgan's fleet surgeon, Richard Browne, later wrote that at Panama, Morganwas noble enough to the vanquished enemy.
The value of treasure Morgan collected during his expedition is disputed. Talty writes that the figures range from 140,000 to 400,000 pesos, and that owing to the large army Morgan assembled, the prize-per-man was relatively low, causing discontent.
There were accusations, particularly in Exquemelin's memoirs, that Morgan left with the majority of the plunder.
He arrived back in Port Royal on 12 March to a positive welcome from the town's inhabitants. The following month he made his official report to the governing Council of Jamaica, and received their formal thanks and congratulations.
Morgan died on 25 August 1688; Albemarle ordered a state funeral, and laid Morgan's body at King's House for the public to pay respects. An amnesty was declared so that pirates and privateers could pay their respects without fear of arrest. He was buried at Palisadoes cemetery, Port Royal, followed by a 22-gun salute from the ships moored in the harbour. Morgan was a wealthy man when he died. His personal wealth was valued at £5,263.
His will initially left his plantations and slaves to his wife, Mary Elizabeth, but because they were childless, on her death his estate was to pass to his nephews, the children of his brother-in-law Byndloss. The burial of Lady Morgan was recorded in Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica on 3 March 1696.
Today, The Grandma is still relaxing at home. She has decided to read about Gresford Collery, a Welsh coal mine where a terrible disaster occurred on a day like today in 1934, after an underground explosion.
Gresford Colliery was a coal mine located a mile from the North Wales village of Gresford, nearWrexham.
The North Wales Coalfield, of which Gresford was part, runs from Point of Ayr, on the Flintshire coast, to the Shropshire border. Although coalmining records date back to the 15th century, it was not heavily exploited until the 18th century. By 1900, more than 12,500 miners produced three million tonnes a year.
Industrialist Henry Dennis of Ruabon, and his son Henry Dyke Dennis, began the colliery near Gresford in 1907.
The site was on the edge of the Alyn Valley, between the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway, later the Great Western Railway's Birkenhead to London Paddington line, and the old main road between Wrexham and Chester.
The Dennis' company United Westminster & Wrexham Collieries took four years to sink two deep shafts, the Dennis (downcast) and the Martin (upcast), located 46 m apart.
It was one of the deepest coal mines in the Denbighshire coalfield, the Dennis shaft reaching a depth of about 690 m and the Martin shaft about 686 m.
The first coal was produced in June 1911 and full production reached before the outbreak of World War I.
Three seams were worked: the Crank, the Brassey (named after engineer Thomas Brassey), and the Main. House coal was produced from the Crank seam, the Brassey seam was virtually gas free whilst the Main seam was very gaseous. Working conditions at the colliery were dusty, and very hot, the temperature often more than 32 °C.
The Dennis section was divided into six districts: the 20s, 61's, 109's, 14's and 29's districts, along with a very deep district known as "95's and 24's". These districts were worked by the longwall system but the 20s and 61's, which were furthest from the shaft, were worked by hand when the remaining districts were mechanized. The coal was renowned as being of very good quality and hot burning.
In 1934, 2,200 men were employed at the colliery, with 1,850 working underground and 350 on the surface.
The government passed the Coal Mines Act 1911 requiring every new colliery to have two intake airways into the mine, to allow air to circulate in the workings and only one air intake be allowed for the movement of coal.
Gresford Colliery was in operation before the law came into force and was exempt. Retro digging a new shaft made little commercial sense, and not much profit had ever come out of the pit, so the Dennis didn't undertake the work.
After the General Strike, cost-cutting measures were introduced in all mines, including in safety provision. Five local collieries -Westminster, Wrexham & Acton, Vauxhall and Gatewen - shut in quick succession during the 1920s and 1930s.
Mechanization, believed by the workers and unions to improve working conditions, created more dust and explosions, in an economic climate where the government were reluctant to enforce regulation.
By 1934, there were two main sections to Gresford Colliery, the Dennis and the South-east, which were both part mechanized. 2,200 miners worked in three eight-hour shifts. Some miners worked double shifts to earn extra money, despite it being illegal. The Dennis family owned a residual 45% stake in the colliery, and wanting additional profitability put manager, William Bonsall, under pressure to increase the productivity of the whole colliery.
One of Britain's worst coal mining disasters occurred at the colliery. TheGresford Disaster occurred on Saturday 22 September 1934, when 266men died following an underground explosion.
As there was a football match on the Saturday afternoon between Wrexham andTranmere Rovers, on Friday, 21 September, many miners doubled up their shifts, so they could attend the match. This meant there were more miners down the pit than there ordinarily would have been.
The explosion occurred in the Dennis district at around 2am, the time when the men would be having their mid-shift snack.
Only six men survived theblast. A fire followed the explosion, and the mine was sealed off at the end ofthe following day.
On 25 September, rescuer George Brown was killed on the surface when another explosion blew a seal off the Dennis shaft, and he was hit by flying debris. Only eleven bodies were ever recovered. The mine owners docked the men half a day's pay, as they had not completed a full day's shift.
Sir Henry Walker, the Chief Inspector of Mines, chaired the inquiry which opened on 25 October 1934, at Church House, Regent Street, Wrexham. Walker was assisted by John Brass, for the mine owners; and Joseph Jones for the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). Both sides employed barristers, Hartley Shawcross for the owners; while the MFGB were offered pro bono publico the services of Labour MP and barrister Sir Stafford Cripps.
Walker wanted access to the evidence, and although the pit was reopened in March 1935, for safety reasons the Dennis section remained closed, and was eventually sealed. Having adjourned the inquiry in December 1934, by December 1936, Walker legally had to make his final report.
The report noted that before the accident, ventilation in some districts waspossibly inadequate: in particular, it was noted that 14's and 29's districts were poorly ventilated. The report after the accident, considered that the main return airway for the 109's, 14's and 29's districts was far too small at 4 feet by 4, according to one witness.
Evidence was given that 95's and 24's district, at 792 m deep, was uncomfortably hot. There were numerous breaches of regulations regarding the firing of explosive charges in 14's district, taking of dust samples, and other matters.
The colliery had made an operating loss in 1933, and the manager, William Bonsall, had been under pressure from the Dennis family to increase profitability. He had spent little time in the Dennis section of the pit in the months before the disaster, as he was overseeing the installation of new machinery in the mine's other section, the South-Eastern or Slant.
The disaster left 591 widows, children, parents and other dependants. In addition, over 1500 miners were temporarily without work, until the colliery was re-opened in January 1936. After each newspaper opened its own fund, they and national donations by September 1935 totalled £565,000.
The mine remained sealed off for six months after the explosion. Districts of the mine were gradually reopened, although the Dennis district, where the explosion occurred, remained sealed. Coal production restarted in January 1936, and by 1945 there were 1,743 men employed.
Gresford was officially closed on 10 November 1973 due to a combination of exhaustion of existing coal reserves and geological problems.
To this day, Wrexham Library has the memorial book on display with a list of the poor souls still buried underground. There is also a painting in All Saint's church, Gresford, depicting scenes from the disaster and rescue.
Nine years after the closure of the pit, in 1982 the headgear wheel was preserved as part of the Gresford Disaster Memorial.
On the 75th anniversary in 2009, various memorials took place, including Wrexham Football Club delaying their match by 15 minutes -as they would normally have done in the days when the mine was working.
Mining is a dangerous profession. There's no way to make a mine completely safe: These are the words owners have always used to excuse needless deaths and the words miners use to prepare for them.
Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of George Gruffudd, one of her closest friends.
George is Welsh, and they have been talking about Welsh culture and language to remember how PlaidCymru was formed on a day like today in 1925, with the aim of disseminating knowledge of the Welsh language that was at the time in danger of dying out.
The
Grandma often visits George in his hometown, but due to COVID-19, she has not
seen him for two years, and it has been a great surprise this visit
and a great opportunity to talk about one of the oldest European
nations, Wales, and one of the most amazing and incredible European languages, Welsh.
If Europe wants to grow in harmony and respect, it must protect and preserve its national minorities, these old countries that today are a part of big states, but they were, and they are, historical nations with their own cultures and languages. Wales is one of them.
George was born in Llanfairpwll-gwyngyllgogerychwyrndrob-wllllantysiliogogogoch, a large village and local government community on the island of Anglesey, Wales, on the Menai Strait next to the Britannia Bridge and across the strait from Bangor.
Plaid Cymru is a Welsh nationalist and social democratic political party inWales, which advocates for Welsh independence from the United Kingdom.
Plaid was formed in 1925 and won its first seat in the UK Parliament in 1966. The party holds three of 40 Welsh seats in the UK Parliament, 13 of 60 seats in the Senedd, and 202 of 1,264 principal local authority councillors. It is a member of the European Free Alliance.
Plaid Cymru's goals as set out in its constitution are:
-To promote the constitutional advancement of Wales with a view to attaining independence within the European Union;
-To ensureeconomic prosperity, social justice and the health of the natural environment, based on decentralize socialism;
-To build a national community based on equal citizenship, respect for different traditions and cultures and the equal worth of all individuals, whatever their race, nationality, gender, colour, creed, sexuality, age, ability or social background;
-To create a bilingual society by promoting use of the Welsh language;
-To promote Wales' contribution to the global community and to attain membership of the United Nations.
In September 2008, a senior Plaid assembly member spelled out her party's continuing support for an independent Wales. The Welsh Minister for Rural Affairs, Elin Jones, began Plaid's annual conference by pledging to uphold the goal of making Wales a European Union member state. She told the delegates in Aberystwyth that the party would continue its commitment to independence under the coalition with Welsh Labour.
While both the Labour and Liberal parties of the early 20th century had accommodated demands for Welsh home rule, no political party existed for the purpose of establishing a Welsh government.
Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru was formed on 5 August 1925, by Moses Gruffydd, H. R. Jones and Lewis Valentine, members of Byddin Ymreolwyr Cymru; and Fred Jones, Saunders Lewis and David John Williams of Y Mudiad Cymreig.
Initially, home rule for Wales was not an explicit aim of the new movement; keepingWales Welsh-speaking took primacy, with the aim of making Welsh the only official language of Wales.
In the 1929 general election the party contested its first parliamentary constituency, Caernarvonshire, polling 609 votes, or 1.6% of the vote for that seat. The party contested few such elections in its early years, partly due to its ambivalence towards Westminster politics. Indeed, the candidate Lewis Valentine, the party's first president, offered himself in Caernarvonshire on a platform of demonstrating Welsh people's rejection of English dominion.
By 1932, the aims of self-government and Welsh representation at the League of Nations had been added to that of preserving Welsh language and culture. However, this move, and the party's early attempts to develop an economic critique, did not broaden its appeal beyond that of an intellectual and socially conservative Welsh language pressure group. The alleged sympathy of the party's leading members, including President Saunders Lewis, towards Europe's totalitarian regimes compromised its early appeal further.
Saunders Lewis, David John Williams and Lewis Valentine set fire to the newly constructed RAF Penyberth air base on the Llŷn Peninsula in Gwynedd in 1936, in protest at its siting in the Welsh-speaking heartland. The leaders' treatment, including the trial judge's dismissal of the use of Welsh and their subsequent imprisonment in Wormwood Scrubs, led to The Three becoming a cause célèbre. This heightened the profile of the party dramatically, and its membership had doubled to nearly 2,000 by 1939.
Before the 2019 general election, it was announced that it would set up a commission to look at the practicality of Welsh independence, and how a Plaid Government would hold an independence referendum. It recommends five key aims for Plaid Cymru:
-Says an independent Wales should seek membership of the European Union, with a possible intermediate step being membership of the European Free Trade Area.
-Recommends that Wales explores a confederal relationship with England and Scotland.
-Proposes improvements to the operation of the Welsh Government and civil service.
-Points the way to drawing up a Welsh Constitution and sets out a framework for a Self-Determination Bill to take the independence process forward.
-A statutory National Commission should provide the people of Wales with a clear understanding of the option for their political future -including through Citizens' Assemblies and an initial referendum to test a range of constitutional options.
It also recommends that there should be one multiple choice referendum to gauge views and to persuade a UK Westminster government to agree to a referendum on the preferred option.
Growing up in Wales, there was a lot of fervour about being Welsh. But the more that I travelled, I realized that people aren't always interested in where you're from, but who you are. I'm determined not to lose my name. It's who I am. It has neither aided my progress nor hampered it. It's just who I am.
Today, The Grandma has been relaxing at home. She has been reading about sports and she has paid attention about the commemoration of a great event. On a day like today in 1882, Wales and England contest the first HomeNations, now Six Nations, rugby union match.
The Six Nations Championship is an annual international men's rugby union competition between the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales.
The Six Nations is the successor to the Home Nations Championship (1883-1909 and 1932-39), played between teams from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, which was the first international rugby union tournament. With the addition of France, this became the Five Nations Championship (1910-31 and 1947-99), which in turn became the Six Nations Championship with the addition of Italy.
England hold the record for outright wins with 29. Since the Six Nations era started in 2000, only Italy and Scotland have failed to win the Six Nations title.
The women's tournament started as the Women's Home Nations in the 1996 season.
The tournament was first played in 1883 as the Home Nations Championship among the four Home Nations -England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. However, England was excluded from the 1888 and 1889 tournaments due to their refusal to join the International Rugby Football Board.
The tournament then became the Five
Nations Championship in 1910 with the addition of France. The tournament
was expanded in 2000 to become the Six Nations Championship with the addition of Italy.
Following the relative success of the Tier 2 nations in the 2015 Rugby World Cup, there were calls by Octavian Morariu, the president of Rugby Europe, to let Georgia and Romania join the Six Nations due to their consistent success in the European Nations Cup and ability to compete in the Rugby World Cup.
The winners of the Six Nations are presented with the Championship Trophy.This was originally conceived by the Earl of Westmorland, and was first presented to the winners of the 1993 championship, France. It is a sterling silver trophy, designed by James Brent-Ward and made by a team of eight silversmiths from the London firm William Comyns.
It has 15 side panels representing the 15 members of the team and with three handles to represent the three officials, referee and two touch judges. The cup has a capacity of 3.75 litres -sufficient for five bottles of champagne. Within the mahogany base is a concealed drawer which contains six alternative finials, each a silver replica of one of the team emblems, which can be screwed on the detachable lid.
A new trophy was introduced for the 2015 Championship. The new trophy was designed and crafted by Thomas Lyte silversmiths and replaces the 1993 edition, which is being retired as it represented the nations that took part in the Five Nations Championship. Ireland were the last team to win the old trophy, and coincidentally, the first team to win the new one.
Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of one of her closest friends, Jordi Santanyí.
Jordi loves literature and climatology and they have been talking about TheGreatStorm, a destructive extratropical cyclone that struck central and southern England on a day like today in 1703.
The Great Storm of 1703 was a destructive extratropical cyclone that struck central and southern England on 26 November 1703 or 7 December 1703 in the Gregorian calendar in use today.
High winds caused 2,000 chimney stacks to collapse in London and damaged the New Forest, which lost 4,000 oaks. Ships were blown hundreds of miles off-course, and over 1,000 seamen died on the Goodwin Sands alone. News bulletins of casualties and damage were sold all over England –a novelty at that time.
The Church of England declared that the storm was God's vengeance for the sins of the nation. Daniel Defoe thought it was a divine punishment for poor performance against Catholic armies in the War of the Spanish Succession.
Contemporary observers recorded barometric readings as low as 973 millibars but it has been suggested that the storm deepened to 950 millibars over the Midlands. Retrospective analysis conjectures that the storm was consistent with a Category 2 hurricane.
In London alone, approximately 2,000 massive chimney stacks were blown down. The lead roofing was blown off Westminster Abbey and Queen Anne had to shelter in a cellar at St James's Palace to avoid collapsing chimneys and part of the roof.
On the Thames, some 700 ships were heaped together in the Pool of London,the section downstream from London Bridge. HMS Vanguard was wrecked at Chatham. Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell's HMS Association was blown from Harwich to Gothenburg in Sweden before way could be made back to England. Pinnacles were blown from the top of King's College Chapel, in Cambridge.
There was extensive and prolonged flooding in the West Country, particularly around Bristol. Hundreds of people drowned in flooding on the SomersetLevels, along with thousands of sheep and cattle, and one ship was found 24 km inland. Approximately 400 windmills were destroyed, with the wind driving their wooden gears so fast that some burst into flames.
At Wells, Bishop Richard Kidder and his wife were killed when two chimneystacks in the palace fell on them, asleep in bed. This same storm blew in part of the great west window in Wells Cathedral. Major damage occurred to the southwest tower of Llandaff Cathedral at Cardiff in Wales.
At sea, many ships were wrecked, some of which were returning from helping Archduke Charles, the claimed King of Spain, fight the French in the War of the Spanish Succession. These ships included HMS Stirling Castle, HMS Northumberland, HMS Mary and HMS Restoration, with about 1,500 seamen killed particularly on the Goodwin Sands. Between 8,000 and 15,000 lives were lost overall.
The first Eddystone Lighthouse of Plymouth was destroyed on 27 November 1703 (Old Style), killing six occupants, including its builder Henry Winstanley. John Rudyard was later contracted to build the second lighthouse on the site. A ship torn from its moorings in the Helford River in Cornwall was blown for 320 km before grounding eight hours later on the Isle of Wight. The number of oak trees lost in the New Forest alone was 4,000.
The storm of 1703 caught a convoy of 130 merchant ships sheltering at MilfordHaven, along with their man of war escorts Dolphin, Cumberland, Coventry, Looe, Hastings and Hector. By 3:00pm the next afternoon, losses included 30 vessels.
The storm was unprecedented in ferocity and duration and was generally reckoned by witnesses to represent the anger of God, in recognition of the crying sins of this nation. The government declared 19 January 1704 a day of fasting, saying that it loudly calls for the deepest and most solemn humiliation of our people. It remained a frequent topic of moralising in sermons well into the 19th century.
The Great Storm also coincided with the increase in English journalism, and was the first weather event to be a news story on a national scale. Special issue broadsheets were produced detailing damage to property and stories of people who had been killed.
Daniel Defoe produced his full-length book The Storm (July 1704) in response to the calamity, calling it the tempest that destroyed woods and forests all over England. He wrote: No pen could describe it, nor tongue express it, nor thought conceive it unless by one in the extremity of it.
Coastal towns such as Portsmouthlooked as if the enemy had sackt them and were most miserably torn to pieces. Winds of up to 130 km/h destroyed more than 400 windmills.
Defoe reported that the sails in some turned so fast that the friction caused the wooden wheels to overheat and catch fire. He thought that the destruction of the sovereign fleet was a punishment for their poor performance against the Catholic armies of France and Spain during the first year of the War of the Spanish Succession.
Castanyada,Magosto orMagüestu,Samhaínand Halloween are popular festivals mainly on All Saints' Day.In Catalonia, Andorra and Occitania, celebrations involve eating roast chestnuts, panellets or baked sweet potato and preserved fruit, candied or glazed fruit, typically with moscatell to drink.
It seems that the tradition of eating these foods comes from the fact that during All Saints' night, on the eve of All Souls' Day in the Christian tradition, bell ringers would ring bells in commemoration of the dead into the early morning. Friends and relatives would help with this task, and everyone would eat these foods for sustenance.
Other versions of the story state that the Castanyada originates at the end of the 18th century and comes from the old funeral meals, where other foods, such as vegetables and dried fruit were not served. The meal had the symbolic significance of a communion with the souls of the departed: while the chestnuts were roasting, prayers would be said for the person who had just died.
The festival is usually depicted with the figure of a castanyera: an old lady, dressed in peasant's clothing and wearing a headscarf, sitting behind a table, roasting chestnuts for street sale.
The Magostoor Magüestu is the essential Galician, Asturian and Portugueseautumn pagan festival. In addition to chestnuts and local young wine, various foods have been incorporated such as sausages and other products made from the pig slaughter, which occurs precisely at that time.
Chestnut festival is traditionally celebrated in the same grove, starting early in the afternoon to collect firewood and chestnuts. One or more bonfires are lit with sticks and pine needles. Young people took to the streets. It was customary for the girls to bring the chestnuts, and for the boys to bring the wine. Chestnuts are roasted on the floor, directly in the fire. Children play to dirt their faces with soot and ash. The adults dance and sing, jumping over the remains of the fire.
Samhain is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter, or the "darker half" of the year. Traditionally, it is celebrated from the very beginning of one Celtic day to its end, or in the modern calendar, from sunset on 31 October to sunset on 1 November, this places it about halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. It is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals, along with Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh.
Joseph de Ca'th Lon celebrates Samhaín
Historically, it was widely observed throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. Similar festivals are held at the same time of year in other Celtic lands; for example the Brythonic Calan Gaeaf in Wales, KalanGwav in Cornwall, and Kalan Goañv in Brittany.
Samhain is believed to have Celtic pagan origins, and there is evidence it has been an important date since ancient times. The Mound of the Hostages, a Neolithic passage tomb at the Hill of Tara, is aligned with the Samhain sunrise. It is mentioned in some of the earliest Irish literature, and many important events in Irish mythology happen or begin on Samhain.
Halloween or Hallowe'en, a contraction of All Hallows' Evening, also known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve, is a celebration observed in a number of countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It begins the three-day observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints, hallows, martyrs, and all the faithful departed.
Claire Fontaine celebrates Halloween
Halloween's activities include trick-or-treating, attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories and watching horror films.
In many parts of the world, the Christian religious observances of All Hallows' Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead, remain popular, although elsewhere it is a more commercial and secular celebration. Some Christians historically abstained from meat on All Hallows' Eve, a tradition reflected in the eating of certain foods on this vigil day, including apples, potato pancakes and soul cakes.
It was not until mass Irish and Scottish immigration in the 19th century that Halloween became a major holiday in North America. Confined to the immigrant communities during the mid-19th century, it was gradually assimilated into mainstream society and by the first decade of the 20th century it was being celebrated coast-to-coast by people of all social, racial and religious backgrounds.
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