THE NEWTONS & ROSALIA AT THE MET CERIMONY IN NYC

Today, The Newtons & The Grandma have arrived to New York City. They are going to spend some weeks in this amazing city, enoying its people, history and places.

They have arrived with enough time to assist to the Met Gala, where they were some of the main guests. They have arrived with another compatriot, Rosalia, and they have spent a wonderful night together discovering the last tendencies infashion and design.

During their travel by plane from Barcelona to New York City, they have been studying some English grammar. They have started with the ABC, the numbers and the articles.

 

More information: Numbers, Letters & The Articles

The Met Gala, or Met Ball, formally called the Costume Institute Gala or the Costume Institute Benefit, is an annual fundraising gala held for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York City.

 

It is popularly regarded as the world's most prestigious fashion event, and an invitation is highly sought after. Celebrities from various professional spheres, such as fashion, film, television, theater, music, business, sports, social media, and politics, are invited to the gala, organized by American fashion magazine Vogue.

The gala is held annually on the first Monday of May. It marks the opening of the Costume Institute's annual fashion exhibit on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Many of the attendees are depicted on the covers and pages of Vogue. Each year's event celebrates the specific theme of that year's Costume Institute exhibition, which sets the tone for the formal attire of the night. Guests are expected to curate their fashion to match the theme of the exhibit, which is generally haute couture. American journalist Anna Wintour, who is the editor-in-chief of Vogue, has chaired or co-chaired the Met Gala since 1995.

The Met Gala was established in 1948 by fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert as a fundraiser for the newly founded Costume Institute to mark the opening of its annual exhibit. The first gala was a dinner and tickets were fifty dollars each.

Over the first few decades of its existence, the Gala was simply one of many annual benefits held for New York charitable institutions. Accordingly, the attendees of the early galas were almost entirely members of New York high society or the city's fashion industry. From 1948 to 1971, the event was held at venues including the Waldorf Astoria, Central Park, and the Rainbow Room.

When Diana Vreeland became consultant to the Costume Institute in 1972, the Gala began to evolve into a more global and glamorous affair, although one that was still aimed at the societal set.

More information: BBC

The event started to become higher profile celebrity-oriented with attendees like Elizabeth Taylor, Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, Diana Ross, Elton John, Liza Minnelli, Madonna, and Cher intermixing with the city's elite. It was during the Vreeland years that the Gala was first held at the Met and that Gala themes were introduced.

The Gala is widely regarded as among the most prominent and most exclusive social events in the world. It is also one of the biggest fundraising nights in New York City, with US$9 million raised in 2013 and a record of $12 million the following year.

The Met Gala is one of the most notable sources of funding for the Institute, with total contributions surpassing $200 million for the first time after the 2019 event. Anna Wintour, the chairperson of the event, assumed the chairmanship of the Institute in 1995. Also, The Met Gala is held on the first Monday in May, according to Wintour. Her guest list grew to include celebrities globally from the worlds of fashion, entertainment, business, sports, and politics who would eventually grace the pages of Vogue.

Since 1948, the Met Gala has occurred consecutively each year, except in 2000 and 2002.

The 2020, the Met Gala was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Gala resumed in 2021, but was held in September rather than in May that year.

In 2022, the Gala returned to holding its traditional May ceremony.

More information: Vogue

Music is a language in itself
and the songs have their own soul,
every song has its soul.

Rosalia

CHAITÉN VOLCANO ERUPTS IN CHAITÉN, PALENA (CHILE)

The Grandma loves volcanoes, and she has been reading about Chaitén, the Chilean volcano that began erupting on a day like today in 2008.

Chaitén is a volcanic caldera 3 kilometres in diametre, 17 kilometres west of the elongated ice-capped Michinmahuida volcano and 10 kilometres northeast of the town of Chaitén, near the Gulf of Corcovado in southern Chile. 

The most recent eruptive phase of the volcano erupted on 2008. Originally, radiocarbon dating of older tephra from the volcano suggested that its last previous eruption was in 7420 BC ± 75 years. However, recent studies have found that the volcano is more active than thought. According to the Global Volcanism Program, its last eruption was in 2011.

The caldera rim reaches 1,122 metres above sea level. Before the current eruption, it was mostly filled by a rhyolite obsidian lava dome that reached a height of 962 metres, partly devoid of vegetation. Two small lakes occupied the caldera floor on the west and north sides of the lava dome.

The translucent grey obsidian which had erupted from the volcano was used by pre-Columbian cultures as a raw material for artifacts and has been found as far away as 400 kilometres to the south and north, for example in Chan-Chan.

The Chaitén volcano entered a new eruptive phase for the first time since around 1640 on the morning of May 2, 2008.

The Chilean government began an evacuation of the nearby town of Chaitén, population 4,200, and the surrounding area the same day, the main phase of which was completed by May 3, 2008.

One elderly person died while at sea en route to Puerto Montt. By the afternoon of May 3, the plume of ash from the eruption had spread across Chile and Argentina to the Atlantic Ocean, contaminating water supplies, and reportedly coating the town of Futaleufú located 75 kilometres southeast to a depth of 30 centimetres.

More information: Andean Geology

Ash thickness estimates are often exaggerated during volcanic crises; later field investigations suggest that the average ash thickness deposited across Futaleufú was less than 5–10 cm.

A team of scientists from the US was dispatched to the area to assess the air quality and the risks from chemicals in the falling ash.

The initial phase of the actual eruption in 2008 was characterised by ash emissions and seismic activity; local seismic measurements in 2005 registered earthquakes up to magnitude 3.6 MW below the Chaitén volcano.

On May 6, 2008, the force of eruption increased significantly, producing pyroclastic flows and possibly some lava explosions, and raising the eruption column to a height of perhaps 30,000 metres. The remaining personnel and almost all inhabitants of Chaitén and nearby villages were evacuated, as was Futaleufú.

In the early phase of the eruption on May 2, 2008, two separate vents had developed in the old lava dome.

An overflight on May 6, 2008, found that these had fused into one vent roughly 800 metres across. OVDAS warned of possible major pyroclastic incidents, and the likelihood of prolonged activity.

On May 8, 2008, the government said it would force the last residents from the danger area, but this was later legally challenged by some residents and left to no effect by the Supreme Court. Government personnel later returned to attend to livestock and rescue dogs and other animals.

Through the remainder of May and June 2008 the eruption continued as a variable but gradually decreasing emission of ash, with intermittent seismic activity and pyroclastic flows.

More information: Global Volcanism Program

On May 21, a new lava dome was observed to be forming in the crater, which by May 24 exceeded the height of the old dome.

Initially, the dome extended towards the north side of the caldera, but following the emergence of two new vents in the south of the old dome around June 11 and a later one to the west, the expansion moved to the south, eventually blocking the drainage from the caldera floor.

As of July 3, 2008, Chaitén continued to erupt, with associated seismic activity, an eruptive column of ash up to 3,000 metres, and a growing lava dome. Whether the dome will be stable remains uncertain, and there is an ongoing risk of collapse and explosive pyroclastic eruption.

In August 2008, an expedition reached the summit of Chaiten volcano. The summit crater contained a 120 metres high lava dome. Earthquakes were felt at the summit. The lava dome was loudly degassing, and avalanches of lava boulders fell from the dome side to the crater floor.

On February 19, 2009, a partial dome collapse caused pyroclastic flows to descend through the Chaitén river valley reaching down to approximately 5 kilometres from the town of Chaitén.

The ash once again reached Futaleufú and parts of Chubut province in neighboring Argentina. The approximately 160 people that were in Chaitén were strongly urged to leave, and all but 25 people who refused to leave were evacuated that day.

This eruption is known as the first major explosive eruption of rhyolite magma in nearly a century, since the 1912 eruption of Novarupta, in Alaska. 

Although there have been rhyolitic eruptions in the southern section of the Southern Volcanic Zone in the past, these are relatively scarce and there is no historic rhyolitic eruption of the magnitude of Chaitén.

More information: EAG

I experienced the California Northridge Earthquake of 1994
and the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980,
and I have thus seen firsthand how terrible
and awesomely devastating a force of nature can be.

Paul Watson

PENNY BLACK, FIRST BRITISH ADHESIVE POSTAGE STAMP

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Penny Black, the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system, that was issued in the United Kingdom in 1840.

The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. 

It was first issued in the United Kingdom, referred to in philatelic circles as Great Britain, on 1 May 1840, but was not valid for use until 6 May. The stamp features a profile of Queen Victoria.

In 1837, British postal rates were high, complex and anomalous. To simplify matters, Sir Rowland Hill proposed an adhesive stamp to indicate pre-payment of postage. 

At the time it was normal for the recipient to pay postage on delivery, charged by the sheet and on distance travelled. By contrast, the Penny Black allowed letters of up to 14 grams to be delivered at a flat rate of one penny, regardless of distance.

On 13 February 1837, Sir Rowland Hill proposed to a government enquiry both the idea of a pre-paid stamp and a pre-paid envelope, a separate sheet folded to form an enclosure for carrying letters. Hill was given a two-year contract to run the new system, and together with Henry Cole he announced a competition to design the new stamps. 

There were some 2,600 entries, but none was considered suitable; instead a rough design endorsed by Hill was chosen, featuring an easily recognisable profile of the former Princess Victoria. Hill believed this would be difficult to forge. An envelope bearing a reproduction of a design created by the artist William Mulready was also issued.

The portrait of Victoria was engraved by Charles Heath and his son Frederick, based on a sketch provided by Henry Corbould. Corbould's sketch was in turn based on the 1834 cameo-like head by William Wyon, which was used on a medal to commemorate the Queen's visit to the City of London in 1837.

This portrait of Victoria remained on British stamps until her death in 1901, although by then she was 81 years old. All British stamps still bear a portrait or silhouette of the monarch somewhere on the design. The first stamps did not need to show the issuing country, so no country name was included on them. The UK remains the only country in the world to omit its name on postage stamps; the monarch's image signifies the UK as the country of origin.

Initially, Hill specified that the stamps should be 3/4 inch square, but altered the dimensions to approx 19 x 22 mm to accommodate the writing at the bottom. The word POSTAGE at the top of the design distinguishes it from a revenue stamp, which had long been used in the UK; ONE PENNY. at the bottom shows the amount pre-paid for postage of the stamped letter. The background to the portrait consists of finely engraved engine turnings.

More information: The Postal Museum

The two upper corners hold Maltese crosses with radiant solar discs at their centres; the lower corner letters show the position of the stamp in the printed sheet, from A A at top left to T L at bottom right. The sheets, printed by Perkins Bacon, consisted of 240 stamps in 20 rows of 12 columns. One full sheet cost 240 pence or one pound; one row of 12 stamps cost a shilling. As the name suggests, the stamp was printed in black ink. A two penny stamp printed in blue and covering the double-letter rate (up to 1 oz or 28 g) was issued on 8 May 1840.

Although the stamps were not officially issued for sale until 6 May 1840, some offices such as those in Bath sold the stamps unofficially before that date. There are covers postmarked 2 May, and a single example is known on cover dated 1 May 1840.

All London post offices received official supplies of the new stamps but other offices throughout the United Kingdom did not, continuing to accept payments for postage in cash for a period.

The Penny Black lasted less than a year. A red cancellation was hard to see on the black design and the red ink was easy to remove; both made it possible to re-use cancelled stamps. 

In February 1841, the Treasury switched to the Penny Red and began using black ink for cancellations instead, which was more effective and harder to remove. However, people still reused stamps by combining the uncancelled parts of two stamps to form an unused whole, so in 1864 as a further safeguard the top corner stars on the Penny Red were replaced by the lower corner check letters in reverse order.

Imprimatur sheets are from among the first sheets of stamps printed from a finished printing plate. The actual imprimatur (Let it be printed) refers to the written permission of the Inland Revenue officials entered on the back of the sheet of stamps. In the 19th century, it was common for officials to remove some stamps from each sheet to present as gifts to dignitaries and other important people. Individual stamps from an Imprimatur sheet can thus be found for sale on the open market.

More information: BBC

A complete sheet of the Penny Black without check letters is held by the British Postal Museum. This unique item is in fact a plate proof, and by definition not an imprimatur sheet.

The Penny Black was printed from 11 plates, but as Plate 1 was completely overhauled due to excessive wear, it is generally considered to be two separate plates, 1a and 1b. Plate 11 was originally intended solely for the printing of new red stamps, but a small number were printed in black. These are scarce.

The stamps were printed in imperforate sheets, to be carefully cut with scissors for sale and use. As a result, stamps with badly cut margins, or no margins, are common and worth very little, while examples with four clear margins are rare and valuable, and fetch very high prices, especially if in mint condition.

An original printing press for the Penny Black, the D cylinder press invented by Jacob Perkins and patented in 1819, is on display at the British Library in London.

The total print run was 286,700 sheets, containing a total of 68,808,000 stamps. Many were saved, and in used condition they remain readily available to stamp collectors.

The only known complete sheets of the Penny Black are owned by the British Postal Museum.

Considered a British cultural icon, the Penny Black design features in the innovations section of the new British passport in 2015. 

Also in 2015, the search engine Google marked the 175th anniversary of the postage stamp with a Google doodle of the Penny Black.

More information: Age of Revolution

A penny saved is a penny earned.

Benjamin Franklin

CARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS, 'PRINCEPS MATHEMATICORUM'

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss, the German mathematician and physicist, who was born on a day like today in 1777.

Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (30 April 1777-23 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science.

Sometimes referred to as the Princeps mathematicorum, in Latin for the foremost of mathematicians, and the greatest mathematician since antiquity, Gauss had an exceptional influence in many fields of mathematics and science, and is ranked among history's most influential mathematicians.

Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was born on 30 April 1777 in Brunswick (Braunschweig), in the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, now part of Lower Saxony, Germany, to poor, working-class parents.

His mother was illiterate and never recorded the date of his birth, remembering only that he had been born on a Wednesday, eight days before the Feast of the Ascension, which occurs 39 days after Easter.

Gauss later solved this puzzle about his birthdate in the context of finding the date of Easter, deriving methods to compute the date in both past and future years. He was christened and confirmed in a church near the school he attended as a child.

Gauss was a child prodigy. In his memorial on Gauss, Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen wrote that when Gauss was barely three years old he corrected a math error his father made; and that when he was seven, solved an arithmetic series problem faster than anyone else in his class of 100 pupils.

Gauss's intellectual abilities attracted the attention of the Duke of Brunswick, who sent him to the Collegium Carolinum, now Braunschweig University of Technology, which he attended from 1792 to 1795, and to the University of Göttingen from 1795 to 1798.

More information: Story of Mathematics

While at university, Gauss independently rediscovered several important theorems. His breakthrough occurred in 1796 when he showed that a regular polygon can be constructed by compass and straightedge if the number of its sides is the product of distinct Fermat primes and a power of 2. This was a major discovery in an important field of mathematics; construction problems had occupied mathematicians since the days of the Ancient Greeks, and the discovery ultimately led Gauss to choose mathematics instead of philology as a career.

Gauss was so pleased with this result that he requested that a regular heptadecagon be inscribed on his tombstone. The stonemason declined, stating that the difficult construction would essentially look like a circle.

The year 1796 was productive for both Gauss and number theory. He discovered a construction of the heptadecagon on 30 March. He further advanced modular arithmetic, greatly simplifying manipulations in number theory.

On 8 April he became the first to prove the quadratic reciprocity law. This remarkably general law allows mathematicians to determine the solvability of any quadratic equation in modular arithmetic. The prime number theorem, conjectured on 31 May, gives a good understanding of how the prime numbers are distributed among the integers.

Gauss also discovered that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers on 10 July and then jotted down in his diary the note: ΕΥΡΗΚΑ! num = Δ + Δ + Δ.

On 1 October he published a result on the number of solutions of polynomials with coefficients in finite fields, which 150 years later led to the Weil conjectures.

Gauss remained mentally active into his old age, even while suffering from gout and general unhappiness. For example, at the age of 62, he taught himself Russian.

More information: Studious Guy

In 1840, Gauss published his influential Dioptrische Untersuchungen, in which he gave the first systematic analysis on the formation of images under a paraxial approximation (Gaussian optics). Among his results, Gauss showed that under a paraxial approximation an optical system can be characterized by its cardinal points and he derived the Gaussian lens formula.

In 1845, he became an associated member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands; when that became the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1851, he joined as a foreign member.

In 1854, Gauss selected the topic for Bernhard Riemann's inaugural lecture Über die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen (About the hypotheses that underlie Geometry). On the way home from Riemann's lecture, Weber reported that Gauss was full of praise and excitement.

He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1853.

On 23 February 1855, Gauss died of a heart attack in Göttingen, then Kingdom of Hanover and now Lower Saxony; he is interred in the Albani Cemetery there. Two people gave eulogies at his funeral: Gauss's son-in-law Heinrich Ewald, and Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen, who was Gauss's close friend and biographer.

Gauss's brain was preserved and was studied by Rudolf Wagner, who found its mass to be slightly above average, at 1,492 grams, and the cerebral area equal to 219,588 square millimetres. Highly developed convolutions were also found, which in the early 20th century were suggested as the explanation of his genius.

More information: 10 Facts About

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning,
not the possession of but the act of getting there,
which grants the greatest enjoyment.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

HAIR, HIPPIE COUNTER-CULTURE & SEXUAL REVOLUTION

Today, The Grandma has been watching the film Hair based on the Broadway musical, symbol of hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution, that opened at the Biltmore Theatre on a day like today in 1968.

Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado and music by Galt MacDermot.

The work reflects the creators' observations of the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the late 1960s, and several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement.

The musical's profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag, and its nude scene caused much comment and controversy.

The work broke new ground in musical theatre by defining the genre of rock musical, using a racially integrated cast, and inviting the audience onstage for a Be-In finale.

Hair tells the story of the tribe, a group of politically active, long-haired hippies of the Age of Aquarius living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War. 

After an off-Broadway debut on October 17, 1967, at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and a run at the Cheetah nightclub from December 1967 through January 1968, the show opened on Broadway in April 1968 and ran for 1,750 performances.

Simultaneous productions in cities across the United States and Europe followed shortly thereafter, including a successful London production that ran for 1,997 performances. Since then, numerous productions have been staged around the world, spawning dozens of recordings of the musical, including the 3 million-selling original Broadway cast recording.

More information: Hair, The Musical

Some of the songs from its score became Top 10 hits, and a feature film adaptation was released in 1979. 

A Broadway revival opened in 2009, earning strong reviews and winning the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Musical. In 2008, Time wrote, Today Hair seems, if anything, more daring than ever.

Hair was conceived by actors James Rado and Gerome Ragni. The two met in 1964 when they performed together in the Off-Broadway flop Hang Down Your Head and Die, and they began writing Hair together in late 1964. The main characters were autobiographical, with Rado's Claude being a pensive romantic and Ragni's Berger an extrovert. Their close relationship, including its volatility, was reflected in the musical.

Many cast members (Shelley Plimpton in particular) were recruited right off the street.

Rado and Ragni came from different artistic backgrounds. In college, Rado wrote musical revues and aspired to be a Broadway composer in the Rodgers and Hammerstein tradition. He went on to study acting with Lee Strasberg.

Ragni, on the other hand, was an active member of The Open Theater, one of several groups, mostly Off-off Broadway, that were developing experimental theatre techniques.  He introduced Rado to the modern theatre styles and methods being developed at The Open Theater.

In 1966, while the two were developing Hair, Ragni performed in The Open Theater's production of Megan Terry's play, Viet Rock, a story about young men being deployed to the Vietnam War.

More information: NPR

In addition to the war theme, Viet Rock employed the improvisational exercises being used in the experimental theatre scene and later used in the development of Hair.

Rado and Ragni brought their drafts of the show to producer Eric Blau who, through common friend Nat Shapiro, connected the two with Canadian composer Galt MacDermot.

MacDermot had won a Grammy Award in 1961 for his composition African Waltz, recorded by Cannonball Adderley. He first wrote Aquarius as an unconventional art piece, but later rewrote it into an uplifting anthem.

Hair opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London on September 27, 1968, led by the same creative team as the Broadway production. The opening night was delayed until the abolition of theatre censorship in England under the Theatres Act 1968 so that the show could include nudity and profanity. As with other early productions, the London show added a sprinkling of local allusions and other minor departures from the Broadway version.

The original London tribe included Sonja Kristina, Peter Straker, Paul Nicholas, Melba Moore, Annabel Leventon, Elaine Paige, Paul Korda, Marsha Hunt, Floella Benjamin, Alex Harvey, Oliver Tobias, Richard O'Brien and Tim Curry. This was Curry's first full-time theatrical acting role, where he met future Rocky Horror Show collaborator O'Brien.

Hair's engagement in London surpassed the Broadway production, running for 1,997 performances until its closure was forced by the roof of the theatre collapsing in July 1973.

More information: BBC

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius,

the age of Aquarius!

 

Hair

WEMBLEY STADIUM IS OPENED AS THE EMPIRE STADIUM

Today, The Grandma has been watching the two Champion League finals played by Barça in Wembley in 1992 and 2011, a stadium that was opened on a day like today in 1923.

The original Wembley Stadium (originally known as the Empire Stadium) was a stadium in Wembley, London, best known for hosting important football matches. It stood on the same site now occupied by its successor.

Wembley hosted the FA Cup final annually, the first in 1923, which was its inaugural event, the League Cup final annually, five European Cup finals, the 1966 World Cup Final, and the final of Euro 1996.

The stadium also hosted many other sports events, including the 1948 Summer Olympics, rugby league's Challenge Cup final, and the 1992 and 1995 Rugby League World Cup Finals. It was also the venue for numerous music events, including the 1985 Live Aid charity concert. In what was the first major WWF pay-per-view to take place outside North America, it hosted the 1992 SummerSlam.

The stadium's first turf was cut by King George V, and it was first opened to the public on 28 April 1923. Much of Humphry Repton's original Wembley Park landscape was transformed in 1922-23 during preparations for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924-25.

First known as the British Empire Exhibition Stadium or simply Empire Stadium, it was built by Sir Robert McAlpine for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924 (extended to 1925).

More information: Wembley Stadium

The stadium cost £750,000, equivalent to approximately £46 million in 2020, and was constructed on the site of an earlier folly called Watkin's Tower. The architects were Sir John Simpson and Maxwell Ayrton and the head engineer Sir Owen Williams. It was originally intended to demolish the stadium at the end of the Exhibition, but it was saved at the suggestion of Sir James Stevenson, a Scot who was chairman of the organising committee for the Empire Exhibition. The ground had been used for football as early as the 1880s.

At the end of the exhibition, which proved to be a financial disappointment, the site at Wembley was considered by many to be a vast white elephant. It was bought by a property speculator, James White, who planned to sell off the buildings for redevelopment, including the stadium which had been the centrepiece of the exhibition. Arthur Elvin, an ex-RFC officer who had worked in a tobacco kiosk at the exhibition and had previous experience working for a scrap metal firm, was employed by White to oversee the selling off of the buildings and the clearance of the Wembley site.

The stadium had gone into liquidation after it was pronounced financially unviable. After nine months, having earnt a good sum from selling various buildings on the site, Elvin agreed to buy the stadium from White for a total of £127,000, using a £12,000 downpayment and the balance plus interest payable over ten years.

However, facing personal bankruptcy, White suddenly took his own life at his home King Edward's Place in 1927. This caused financial complications for Elvin, necessitating him to raise money within two weeks to commit to buy the stadium before it too was demolished.

More information: The Engineer

He was able to finance this by forming the Wembley Stadium and Greyhound Racecourse Company. He raised the money to buy the stadium at the original price he had agreed with White, and then immediately sold it back to the company, leaving him with a healthy personal profit. Instead of cash, he received shares in the company, which gave him the largest individual stake in Wembley Stadium, and he subsequently became chairman.

The electric scoreboard and the all-encircling roof, made from aluminium and translucent glass, were added in 1963.

The stadium's distinctive Twin Towers became its trademark and nickname. Also well known were the 39 steps needed to be climbed to reach the Royal box and collect a trophy and winners'/losers' medals.

Wembley was the first pitch to be referred to as Hallowed Turf, with many stadia around the world borrowing this phrase.

In 1934, the Empire Pool was built nearby. The Wembley Stadium Collection is held by the National Football Museum. The stadium closed in October 2000 and demolition commenced in December 2002, completing in 2003 for redevelopment. The top of one of the twin towers was erected as a memorial in the park on the north side of Overton Close in the Saint Raphael's Estate.

Wembley is best known for hosting football matches, having hosted the FA Cup Final annually as well as numerous England International fixtures.

More information: Standard

Wembley is the cathedral of football.

It is the capital of football and it is the heart of football.

Pelé

1981, XEROX PARC INTRODUCES THE COMPUTER MOUSE

Today, The Grandma has been working with her PC, and she has remember when Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse, on a day like today in 1981.

PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California.

Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. Jack Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xerox, tasked with creating computer technology-related products and hardware systems.

Xerox PARC has been at the heart of numerous revolutionary computer developments, including laser printing, Ethernet, the modern personal computer, graphical user interface (GUI) and desktop paradigm, object-oriented programming, ubiquitous computing, electronic paper, amorphous silicon (a-Si) applications, the computer mouse, and very-large-scale integration (VLSI) for semiconductors.

A computer mouse is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. 

This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows a smooth control of the graphical user interface of a computer.

The first public demonstration of a mouse controlling a computer system was in 1968. Mice originally used two separate wheels to track movement across a surface: one in the X-dimension and one in the Y.

Later, the standard design shifted to utilize a ball rolling on a surface to detect motion. Most modern mice use optical sensors that have no moving parts. Though originally all mice were connected to a computer by a cable, many modern mice are cordless, relying on short-range radio communication with the connected system.

In addition to moving a cursor, computer mice have one or more buttons to allow operations such as the selection of a menu item on a display. Mice often also feature other elements, such as touch surfaces and scroll wheels, which enable additional control and dimensional input.

The earliest known written use of the term mouse in reference to a computer pointing device is in Bill English's July 1965 publication, Computer-Aided Display Control, likely originating from its resemblance to the shape and size of a mouse, a rodent, with the cord resembling its tail. The popularity of wireless mice without cords makes the resemblance less obvious.

More information: Objective

According to Roger Bates, a hardware designer under English, the term also came about because the cursor on the screen was for some unknown reason referred to as CAT and was seen by the team as if it would be chasing the new desktop device.

The plural for the small rodent is always mice in modern usage. The plural for a computer mouse is either mice or mouses according to most dictionaries, with mice being more common.

The first recorded plural usage is mice; the online Oxford Dictionaries cites a 1984 use, and earlier uses include J. C. R. Licklider's The Computer as a Communication Device of 1968.

Other uses of the mouse's input occur commonly in special application domains. In interactive three-dimensional graphics, the mouse's motion often translates directly into changes in the virtual objects' or camera's orientation. For example, in the first-person shooter genre of games, players usually employ the mouse to control the direction in which the virtual player's head faces: moving the mouse up will cause the player to look up, revealing the view above the player's head. A related function makes an image of an object rotate so that all sides can be examined.

3D design and animation software often modally chord many different combinations to allow objects and cameras to be rotated and moved through space with the few axes of movement mice can detect.

When mice have more than one button, the software may assign different functions to each button. 

Often, the primary (leftmost in a right-handed configuration) button on the mouse will select items, and the secondary (rightmost in a right-handed) button will bring up a menu of alternative actions applicable to that item.

More information: Wired

 When Steve Jobs toured Xerox PARC
and saw computers running the first operating system
that used Windows and a mouse,
he assumed he was looking at a new way
to work a personal computer.
He brought the concept back
to Cupertino and created the Mac,
then Bill Gates followed suit,
and the rest is history.

Douglas Rushkoff