Our Party & Wedding Venue | St Nicolas Place | Kings Norton | Wedding Caterers Birmingham
Wedding Caterers Birmingham has a new venue for parties and weddings at Saint Nicholas' Place, 81 The Green, Kings Norton, Birmingham B38 8RU.
Saint Nicholas' Place is the largest complex of medieval buildings in Birmingham that have been sympathetically restored to their former glory.
With ample attractive open spaces providing great photogenic background opportunities, Saint Nicholas Place is an ideal venue for meetings, parties, weddings and civil ceremonies.
Eight rooms are available for hire and several are licensed for civil ceremonies:
The Queens Room (Tudor Style)
North Hall (Tudor Style)
Ashford Hall (Modern Style)
Youth Room (Modern Style)
Gable Room (Tudor Style)
Friends Hall (Tudor Style)
Old Grammar School -- Upper Floor (Tudor Style) No Disabled Access
Old Grammar School -- Lower Floor (Tudor Style)
If you are looking for a party or wedding venue in Birmingham that's unique, convenient, peaceful and romantic this is the ideal choice. For more information please visit their website
Cater for me specialises in providing naturally tasty food for weddings, civil ceremonies and parties at a price you can easliy afford. For more information call us on 0121 649 6280 or visit our website Please also check out our other videos while you are here
st nicholas place kings norton investigator at mid night full movie & history
st nicholas place kings norton..
Birmingham’s largest collection of Tudor buildings
Kings Norton derives its origin from the basic Early English Nor + tun, meaning North settlement and belonging to or held by the king, when Kings Norton was the northernmost of the berewicks or outlying manors of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire. Before 1066 these manors with many others in Birmingham had belonged to Earl Edwin, the Anglo-Saxon Earl of Mercia. When in that year a Viking army sailed up the River Humber to invade England, Edwin went to do battle, but was heavily defeated at the Battle of Fulford Bridge near York. King Harold arrived the next day, and after defeating the Vikings at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, immediately marched back south to be himself defeated at the Battle of Hastings. Edwin and his broken remnant of an army were unable go with him. Thus, after the Norman Conquest, when William punished Harold's supporters, Edwin was not amongst them and did not forfeit his lands. Two years later, however, Edwin revolted against William who confiscated his holdings to give as rewards to his followers. Bromsgrove and its berewicks he kept, with himself both as tenant-in-chief and manorial lord. Thus the manor became Kings Norton remained royal from Domesday until 1804
Over 900 years of history
Saint Nicolas' Place with its Tudor Merchant’s House, Old Grammar School and Church have survived virtually intact since the 15th Century and are among the Midlands' historic gems.
Now a growing tourist attraction, and a venue for private and corporate events, Saint Nicolas' Place also runs educational visits for schools. Our heritage buildings are complemented by modern facilities including a welcoming café, toilets and gift shop.
Anglo-Saxon in origin, Kings Norton, named Nortune in the Doomsday Book, grew into a prosperous medieval village and in the 19th century became part of the UK’s growing, dynamic second city, Birmingham.
The Tudor Merchant’s House
Humphrey Rotsey’s house is a large, high status merchant’s house with five hundred year old original timbers. Exposed wattle and daub has survived and can still be clearly seen together with evidence of the building’s former history as a Georgian and Victorian public house, remembered locally as the Saracen’s Head.
The Queen’s Room is where Queen Henrietta Maria is reputed to have spent the night in 1643 during the English Civil War. It is a beautiful example of a Tudor interior where an original fireplace, faint remains of Tudor interior décor and window frame grooves can be seen. As the Queen slept, 3000 Royalist Horse troops and 30 companies of foot soldiers camped in Kings Norton.
In the Gable Room you can see the original, newly-exposed Tudor gable, hidden for decades behind a later extension. The gable end, once the front of the house, looked out onto The Green.
By prior arrangement, visitors with an academic interest can view the extensive hidden roof timber work of the east range and our large archive.
The Old Grammar School
One of the oldest school buildings in the country.
Massive oak roof timbers felled between 1434 and 1460.
Faint but visible, remnants of Tudor decoration thought to have been scratched into the woodwork to ward off evil spirits.
Fletcher marks where yeomen of the village sharpened their arrow heads and marks on the window mullions where generations of students sharpened their pen knives to cut nibs into quill pens.
Saint Nicolas Church
The much-loved and heavily-used parish church of Kings Norton.
Norman in origin. Largely 13th century and first documented in 1231.
A 15th century tower and a spire 60 metres high.
Two 12th century chancel windows.
The 16th century tombs of the Lyttleton and Grevis families.
A memorial to a murdered 17th Century tax collector.
Extensive & beautiful 19th century stained glass windows by Kempe and Hardman.
follow us and join our community on facebook..
The RP English Accent – What is it, how does it sound, and who uses it?
In this lesson, you will learn about Received Pronunciation, or RP for short. It's also known as BBC English, Oxford English, and The Queen's English. I'll teach you what this accent means and signifies in England today. You may be surprised to learn that it's not entirely positive. Some people even try to hide their RP accent. I will also give you the history of RP. You'll learn where it comes from and how it developed. You will be able to hear for yourself what this accent sounds like, and how it has changed over time.
Check my channel for lots more videos about accent, speaking, and other aspects of English:
Go to EngVid for over 1000 more free English lesson videos:
TRANSCRIPT
Hi there. I'm going to be talking to you today about Received Pronunciation, often shortened to RP, which is an accent of Great Britain, probably most widely taught as the accent that you're meant to learn in language schools around the world. So I'm going to be talking about the relevance, the place of RP who actually speaks with an RP accent in Britain.
Okay, so RP is defined as the regionally neutral middle-class accent of England. Regionally neutral. What that means is by hearing this accent I don't know where in the UK the speaker is from. So they might be from Devon, Wales, London, Yorkshire, anywhere. This accent is not from a particular place. Now, it has also been called over the last 50-100 years the Queen's English because people assume that the Queen speaks with Received Pronunciation. She actually doesn't. The Queen speaks in a very unique accent, which differs from Received Pronunciation. She has a very smart accent. It's not quite the same.
BBC English, yes there did used to be a time when most of the news presenters on the BBC were required to have a Received Pronunciation accent, but now society has changed and it is more inclusive, so people from different parts of the United Kingdom, people who have gone to less privileged schools are able to get jobs in the BBC and all other sectors and industries.
It's also referred to as Oxford English. So there was a time 30-40 years ago when all the professors at Oxford and when all the students at Oxford and Cambridge would speak with RP. But again, that's changed and there is a drive in schools to try and get the best school... The best students from the government schools into these top universities.
What is it, Benjamin? It's an accent. Okay? It's used with Standard English. So if someone is using a lot of slang, a lot of abbreviation, mixing where their words are from, from rap music and stuff, that wouldn't be Standard English. It avoids slang and dialect. Dialect is the language particular to a certain place. For example, a West Country dialect would be particular words from that place.
This accent reveals, shows someone's background. Okay? So it shows what kind of life they have had so far. It doesn't show where they are from in the United Kingdom. In fact, only 2 to 3% of the UK population have this accent. You might be wondering: Do you have this accent, Benjamin? and the answer to that is: To some degree, but not entirely. So my accent has influences from some Estuary English, and it sort of depends who I am speaking to as to how... How my accent is placed. I'm from Devon and sometimes I will veer towards a Devonian sound, but most of the time I will sound like someone from the southeast of England because that is where I have lived most.
So, a history of this accent. In the... Up until the 20th century this accent was associated with wealth and power, but then after World War II society changed in the United Kingdom. We had a Labour Government for the first time, the NHS was created, and people started getting different types of jobs. They started getting better jobs, you started getting a mix of people. And with that, regional accents have become more important. In fact, some people like to disguise an RP accent, so they'll start trying to speak a little bit like this, and start dropping their t's, and say: Lil and innit and stuff. I'm exaggerating, but it does have negative connotations, the RP accent so some people try to change their voice to fit in.
Still not sure what it is? Well, it's speaking in clipped, precise tones. Okay? It sounds quite a sort of serious accent. Maybe some people feel that it sounds quite cold.
How has it evolved? It's not the same accent, Received Pronunciation, that it was a hundred years ago. Okay? The accent changes, just as an accent from Yorkshire, or from Wales, and Ireland will change over time. It's not a fixed: This is the accent.
How it's been changed recently? The long vowel sounds have become shortened. Why is that? To... As a feeling of self-protection. You don't want to expose yourself by speaking in this ridiculous manner.
Queen Elizabeth II visits a retirement home in Yorkshire
On a visit to the north of England, Queen Elizabeth II visits a retirement home in Heckmondwike, Yorkshire in 1990.
00025.m2ts
Katie dances as the Ley Hill School act the Night before Christmas
Brawl for Nepal 2012 - Jimmy White vs Gavin King
fight 3
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside London with 1,085,400 residents , and its population increase of 88,400 residents between the 2001 and 2011 censuses was greater than that of any other British local authority. The city lies within the West Midlands Built-up Area, the third most populous built-up area in the United Kingdom with 2,440,986 residents , and its metropolitan area is the United Kingdom's second most populous with 3,701,107 residents .
This video targeted to blind users.
Attribution:
Article text available under CC-BY-SA
Creative Commons image source in video
Birmingham | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
00:04:50 1 History
00:05:00 1.1 Pre-history and medieval
00:08:45 1.2 Early modern
00:12:49 1.3 Industrial Revolution
00:17:15 1.4 Regency and Victorian
00:20:16 1.5 20th century and contemporary
00:26:51 2 Government
00:29:04 3 Geography
00:31:33 3.1 Geology
00:32:44 3.2 Climate
00:36:08 3.3 Environment
00:38:34 4 Demography
00:45:30 5 Religion
00:48:51 6 Economy
00:55:55 7 Culture
00:56:04 7.1 Music
01:01:10 7.2 Theatre and performing arts
01:03:48 7.3 Literature
01:05:56 7.4 Art and design
01:08:29 7.5 Museums and galleries
01:10:41 7.6 Nightlife and festivals
01:15:20 7.7 Food and drink
01:17:47 7.8 Entertainment and leisure
01:18:24 7.9 Dialect
01:18:38 8 Architecture
01:22:45 9 Transport
01:27:40 10 Education
01:27:50 10.1 Further and higher education
01:31:10 10.2 Primary and secondary education
01:33:20 11 Public services
01:34:34 11.1 Library services
01:36:10 11.2 Emergency services
01:37:08 11.3 Healthcare
01:38:23 11.4 Water supply
01:39:09 11.5 Energy from waste
01:40:16 12 Sport
01:46:12 12.1 Commonwealth Games
01:47:33 13 Media
01:51:09 14 Notable people
01:51:19 15 Sister cities
01:51:34 16 See also
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
Listen on Google Assistant through Extra Audio:
Other Wikipedia audio articles at:
Upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
Speaking Rate: 0.7304391628422703
Voice name: en-GB-Wavenet-C
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Birmingham ( (listen), locally also: ) is the second-most populous city in the United Kingdom, after London, and the most populous city in the English Midlands. It is also the most populous metropolitan district in the United Kingdom, with an estimated 1,137,123 inhabitants, and is considered the social, cultural, financial, and commercial centre of the Midlands. It is the main local government of the West Midlands conurbation, which is the third most populated urban area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2,897,303 in 2017. The wider Birmingham metropolitan area is the second largest in the United Kingdom with a population of over 4.3 million. It is frequently referred to as the United Kingdom's second city.A market town in the medieval period, Birmingham grew in the 18th-century Midlands Enlightenment and subsequent Industrial Revolution, which saw advances in science, technology, and economic development, producing a series of innovations that laid many of the foundations of modern industrial society. By 1791 it was being hailed as the first manufacturing town in the world. Birmingham's distinctive economic profile, with thousands of small workshops practising a wide variety of specialised and highly skilled trades, encouraged exceptional levels of creativity and innovation and provided an economic base for prosperity that was to last into the final quarter of the 20th century. The Watt steam engine was invented in Birmingham.The resulting high level of social mobility also fostered a culture of political radicalism which, under leaders from Thomas Attwood to Joseph Chamberlain, was to give it a political influence unparalleled in Britain outside London, and a pivotal role in the development of British democracy. From the summer of 1940 to the spring of 1943, Birmingham was bombed heavily by the German Luftwaffe in what is known as the Birmingham Blitz. The damage done to the city's infrastructure, in addition to a deliberate policy of demolition and new building by planners, led to extensive urban regeneration in subsequent decades.
Birmingham's economy is now dominated by the service sector. The city is a major international commercial centre, ranked as a beta- world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network the joint highest ranking with Edinburgh and Manchester of all British cities outside of London; and an important transport, retail, events and conference hub. Its metropolitan economy is the second largest in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $121.1bn (2014), and its six universities make it the largest centre of higher educat ...
Bristol | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Bristol
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Bristol ( (listen)) is a city and county in South West England with a population of 459,300. The wider district has the 10th-largest population in England. The urban area population of 724,000 is the 8th-largest in the UK. The city borders North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, with the cities of Bath and Gloucester to the south-east and north-east, respectively. South Wales lies across the Severn estuary.
Iron Age hill forts and Roman villas were built near the confluence of the rivers Frome and Avon, and around the beginning of the 11th century the settlement was known as Brycgstow (Old English the place at the bridge). Bristol received a royal charter in 1155 and was historically divided between Gloucestershire and Somerset until 1373, when it became a county of itself. From the 13th to the 18th century, Bristol was among the top three English cities after London in tax receipts. Bristol was surpassed by the rapid rise of Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool in the Industrial Revolution.
Bristol was a starting place for early voyages of exploration to the New World. On a ship out of Bristol in 1497 John Cabot, a Venetian, became the first European since the Vikings to land on mainland North America. In 1499 William Weston, a Bristol merchant, was the first Englishman to lead an exploration to North America. At the height of the Bristol slave trade, from 1700 to 1807, more than 2,000 slave ships carried an estimated 500,000 people from Africa to slavery in the Americas. The Port of Bristol has since moved from Bristol Harbour in the city centre to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Dock.
Bristol's modern economy is built on the creative media, electronics and aerospace industries, and the city-centre docks have been redeveloped as centres of heritage and culture. The city has the largest circulating community currency in the U.K.—the Bristol pound, which is pegged to the Pound sterling. The city has two universities, the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England, and a variety of artistic and sporting organisations and venues including the Royal West of England Academy, the Arnolfini, Spike Island, Ashton Gate and the Memorial Stadium. It is connected to London and other major UK cities by road and rail, and to the world by sea and air: road, by the M5 and M4 (which connect to the city centre by the Portway and M32); rail, via Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway mainline rail stations; and Bristol Airport.
One of the UK's most popular tourist destinations, Bristol was selected in 2009 as one of the world's top ten cities by international travel publishers Dorling Kindersley in their Eyewitness series of travel guides. The Sunday Times named it as the best city in Britain in which to live in 2014 and 2017, and Bristol also won the EU's European Green Capital Award in 2015.
University Challenge S45E16 Southhampton vs Queen Mary - London
Original air date 26.10.2015
Annual Conference 2016 - Tuesday Afternoon
Tom Watson, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, addresses Labour's Annual Conference 2016 in Liverpool.
Watch other speeches from Annual Conference 2016 -
Click here to see our channel-
Click here to subscribe -
Click here to get involved -
Want to know more about Labour?
Website –
Facebook -
Twitter -
Manchester | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
00:03:05 1 Name
00:04:06 2 History
00:04:15 2.1 Early history
00:09:08 2.2 Industrial Revolution
00:16:40 2.3 Blitz
00:18:28 2.4 Post-Second World War
00:21:01 2.5 Since 2000
00:23:48 3 Governance
00:27:59 4 Geography
00:31:22 4.1 Climate
00:33:30 4.2 Green belt
00:34:34 5 Demography
00:41:44 6 Economy
00:46:31 7 Landmarks
00:50:12 8 Transport
00:50:21 8.1 Rail
00:51:57 8.2 Metrolink (tram)
00:53:01 8.3 Bus
00:54:21 8.4 Air
00:56:20 8.5 Canal
00:56:56 9 Culture
00:57:05 9.1 Music
01:01:46 9.2 Performing arts
01:03:53 9.3 Museums and galleries
01:06:17 9.4 Literature
01:09:52 9.5 Nightlife
01:12:31 9.6 Gay Village
01:13:10 10 Education
01:17:18 11 Sport
01:20:59 12 Media
01:26:17 13 Twin cities and consulates
01:27:49 14 Honorary citizens
01:28:14 15 See also
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
Listen on Google Assistant through Extra Audio:
Other Wikipedia audio articles at:
Upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
Speaking Rate: 0.8000024885116066
Voice name: en-GB-Wavenet-C
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Manchester () is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 545,500 as of 2017. It lies within the United Kingdom's third-most populous metropolitan area, with a population of 3.2 million. It is fringed by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and an arc of towns with which it forms a continuous conurbation. The local authority is Manchester City Council.
The recorded history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort of Mamucium or Mancunium, which was established in about AD 79 on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. It was historically a part of Lancashire, although areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated in the 20th century. The first to be included, Wythenshawe, was added to the city in 1931. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorial township, but began to expand at an astonishing rate around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city.Manchester achieved city status in 1853. The Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, creating the Port of Manchester and directly linking the city to the Irish Sea, 36 miles (58 km) to the west. Its fortune declined after the Second World War, owing to deindustrialisation, but the IRA bombing in 1996 led to extensive investment and regeneration.In 2014, the Globalisation and World Cities Research Network ranked Manchester as a beta world city, the highest-ranked British city apart from London. Manchester is the third-most visited city in the UK, after London and Edinburgh.
It is notable for its architecture, culture, musical exports, media links, scientific and engineering output, social impact, sports clubs and transport connections. Manchester Liverpool Road railway station was the world's first inter-city passenger railway station; scientists first split the atom, developed the stored-program computer and produced graphene in the city. Manchester hosted the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
Benjamin Franklin | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Benjamin Franklin
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705] – April 17, 1790) was an American polymath and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, humorist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among other inventions. He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia's first fire department and the University of Pennsylvania.Franklin earned the title of The First American for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity, initially as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies. As the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation. Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment. In the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat. To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become.Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette at the age of 23. He became wealthy publishing this and Poor Richard's Almanack, which he authored under the pseudonym Richard Saunders. After 1767, he was associated with the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of British policies.
He pioneered and was first president of Academy and College of Philadelphia which opened in 1751 and later became the University of Pennsylvania. He organized and was the first secretary of the American Philosophical Society and was elected president in 1769. Franklin became a national hero in America as an agent for several colonies when he spearheaded an effort in London to have the Parliament of Great Britain repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a major figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. His efforts proved vital for the American Revolution in securing shipments of crucial munitions from France.
He was promoted to deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies in 1753, having been Philadelphia postmaster for many years, and this enabled him to set up the first national communications network. During the revolution, he became the first United States Postmaster General. He was active in community affairs and colonial and state politics, as well as national and international affairs. From 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. He initially owned and dealt in slaves but, by the 1750s, he argued against slavery from an economic perspective and became one of the most prominent abolitionists.
His colorful life and legacy of scientific and political achievement, and his status as one of America's most influential Founding Fathers, have seen Franklin honored more than two centuries after his death on coinage and the $100 bill, warships, and the names of many towns, counties, educational institutions, and corporations, as well as countless cultural references.
Benjamin Franklin | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Benjamin Franklin
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705] – April 17, 1790) was an American polymath and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, humorist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among other inventions. He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia's first fire department and the University of Pennsylvania.Franklin earned the title of The First American for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity, initially as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies. As the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation. Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment. In the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat. To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become.Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette at the age of 23. He became wealthy publishing this and Poor Richard's Almanack, which he authored under the pseudonym Richard Saunders. After 1767, he was associated with the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of British policies.
He pioneered and was first president of Academy and College of Philadelphia which opened in 1751 and later became the University of Pennsylvania. He organized and was the first secretary of the American Philosophical Society and was elected president in 1769. Franklin became a national hero in America as an agent for several colonies when he spearheaded an effort in London to have the Parliament of Great Britain repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a major figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. His efforts proved vital for the American Revolution in securing shipments of crucial munitions from France.
He was promoted to deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies in 1753, having been Philadelphia postmaster for many years, and this enabled him to set up the first national communications network. During the revolution, he became the first United States Postmaster General. He was active in community affairs and colonial and state politics, as well as national and international affairs. From 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. He initially owned and dealt in slaves but, by the 1750s, he argued against slavery from an economic perspective and became one of the most prominent abolitionists.
His colorful life and legacy of scientific and political achievement, and his status as one of America's most influential Founding Fathers, have seen Franklin honored more than two centuries after his death on coinage and the $100 bill, warships, and the names of many towns, counties, educational institutions, and corporations, as well as countless cultural references.
Ludwig Wittgenstein | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (; German: [ˈluːtvɪç ˈvɪtgənˌʃtaɪn]; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge. During his lifetime he published just one slim book, the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), one article, one book review and a children's dictionary. His voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously. Philosophical Investigations appeared as a book in 1953, and has since come to be recognised as one of the most important works of philosophy in the twentieth century. His teacher, Bertrand Russell, described Wittgenstein as the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived; passionate, profound, intense, and dominating.Born in Vienna into one of Europe's richest families, he inherited a fortune from his father in 1913. He initially made some donations to artists and writers and then, in a period of severe personal depression after the First World War, he gave away his entire fortune to his brothers and sisters. Three of his brothers committed suicide, with Wittgenstein contemplating it too. He left academia several times—serving as an officer on the front line during World War I, where he was decorated a number of times for his courage; teaching in schools in remote Austrian villages where he encountered controversy for hitting children when they made mistakes in mathematics; and working as a hospital porter during World War II in London where he told patients not to take the drugs they were prescribed while largely managing to keep secret the fact that he was one of the world's most famous philosophers. He described philosophy as the only work that gives me real satisfaction.His philosophy is often divided into an early period, exemplified by the Tractatus, and a later period, articulated in the Philosophical Investigations. The early Wittgenstein was concerned with the logical relationship between propositions and the world and believed that by providing an account of the logic underlying this relationship, he had solved all philosophical problems. The later Wittgenstein rejected many of the assumptions of the Tractatus, arguing that the meaning of words is best understood as their use within a given language-game.A survey among American university and college teachers ranked the Investigations as the most important book of 20th-century philosophy, standing out as the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations. The Investigations also ranked 54th on a list of most influential twentieth-century works in cognitive science prepared by the University of Minnesota's Center for Cognitive Sciences. However, in the words of his friend Georg Henrik von Wright, he believed his ideas were generally misunderstood and distorted even by those who professed to be his disciples. He doubted he would be better understood in the future. He once said he felt as though he was writing for people who would think in a different way, breathe a different air of life, from that of present-day men.
J. R. R. Tolkien | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
00:01:58 1 Biography
00:02:07 1.1 Family origins
00:04:18 1.2 Childhood
00:09:37 1.3 Youth
00:12:15 1.4 Courtship and marriage
00:16:37 1.5 First World War
00:18:07 1.5.1 France
00:19:57 1.5.2 Battle of the Somme
00:23:07 1.5.3 Home front
00:25:10 1.6 Academic and writing career
00:26:55 1.6.1 iBeowulf/i
00:29:29 1.6.2 Second World War
00:31:05 1.7 Family
00:32:08 1.8 Retirement and later years
00:34:30 1.9 Final years
00:36:49 2 Views
00:40:03 2.1 Religion
00:41:22 2.2 Politics and race
00:41:32 2.2.1 Anti-communism
00:42:25 2.2.2 Opposition to National Socialism
00:45:05 2.2.3 Total war
00:47:19 2.3 Nature
00:48:01 3 Writing
00:48:32 3.1 Influences
00:48:41 3.1.1 British adventure stories
00:50:26 3.1.2 European mythology
00:55:57 3.1.3 Catholicism
00:58:39 3.2 Publications
00:58:48 3.2.1 iBeowulf/i: The Monsters and the Critics
01:00:01 3.2.2 On Fairy-Stories
01:00:54 3.2.3 Children's books and other short works
01:01:39 3.2.4 iThe Hobbit/i
01:02:10 3.2.5 iThe Lord of the Rings/i
01:04:37 3.3 Posthumous publications
01:04:47 3.3.1 iThe Silmarillion/i
01:05:59 3.3.2 iUnfinished Tales/i and iThe History of Middle-earth/i
01:07:07 3.3.3 iMr. Bliss/i
01:08:20 3.3.4 iThe Children of Húrin/i
01:08:54 3.3.5 iThe Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún/i
01:10:27 3.3.6 iThe Fall of Arthur/i
01:11:21 3.3.7 iBeowulf: A Translation and Commentary/i
01:12:21 3.3.8 iThe Story of Kullervo/i
01:12:46 3.3.9 iBeren and Lúthien/i
01:13:17 3.3.10 iThe Fall of Gondolin/i
01:13:45 3.4 Manuscript locations
01:14:46 4 Languages and philology
01:14:57 4.1 Linguistic career
01:16:59 4.2 Language construction
01:19:08 5 Artwork
01:20:15 6 Legacy
01:20:24 6.1 Adaptations
01:22:48 6.1.1 Film adaptations
01:25:54 6.1.2 Television
01:26:36 6.2 Memorials
01:30:45 6.3 Commemorative plaques
01:31:57 6.4 Artwork
01:32:24 6.5 Autographs
01:33:07 6.6 Canonization process
01:34:13 7 See also
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
Listen on Google Assistant through Extra Audio:
Other Wikipedia audio articles at:
Upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
Speaking Rate: 0.902753193969051
Voice name: en-GB-Wavenet-A
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and academic, who is best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.
He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, from 1945 to 1959. He was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.
After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and Middle-earth within it. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings.While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the father of modern fantasy literature—or, more precisely, of high fantasy. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of The 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Forbes ranked him the fifth top-earning dead celebrity in 2009.
Auburn Coach Wife Kristi Malzahn Agrees with Match & eHarmony: Men are Jerks
My advice is this: Settle! That's right. Don't worry about passion or intense connection. Don't nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling Bravo! in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It's hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who's changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)
Obviously, I wasn't always an advocate of settling. In fact, it took not settling to make me realize that settling is the better option, and even though settling is a rampant phenomenon, talking about it in a positive light makes people profoundly uncomfortable. Whenever I make the case for settling, people look at me with creased brows of disapproval or frowns of disappointment, the way a child might look at an older sibling who just informed her that Jerry's Kids aren't going to walk, even if you send them money. It's not only politically incorrect to get behind settling, it's downright un-American. Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize (while our mothers, who know better, tell us not to be so picky), and the theme of holding out for true love (whatever that is—look at the divorce rate) permeates our collective mentality.
Even situation comedies, starting in the 1970s with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and going all the way to Friends, feature endearing single women in the dating trenches, and there's supposed to be something romantic and even heroic about their search for true love. Of course, the crucial difference is that, whereas the earlier series begins after Mary has been jilted by her fiancé, the more modern-day Friends opens as Rachel Green leaves her nice-guy orthodontist fiancé at the altar simply because she isn't feeling it. But either way, in episode after episode, as both women continue to be unlucky in love, settling starts to look pretty darn appealing. Mary is supposed to be contentedly independent and fulfilled by her newsroom family, but in fact her life seems lonely. Are we to assume that at the end of the series, Mary, by then in her late 30s, found her soul mate after the lights in the newsroom went out and her work family was disbanded? If her experience was anything like mine or that of my single friends, it's unlikely.
And while Rachel and her supposed soul mate, Ross, finally get together (for the umpteenth time) in the finale of Friends, do we feel confident that she'll be happier with Ross than she would have been had she settled down with Barry, the orthodontist, 10 years earlier? She and Ross have passion but have never had long-term stability, and the fireworks she experiences with him but not with Barry might actually turn out to be a liability, given how many times their relationship has already gone up in flames. It's equally questionable whether Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw, who cheated on her kindhearted and generous boyfriend, Aidan, only to end up with the more exciting but self-absorbed Mr. Big, will be better off in the framework of marriage and family. (Some time after the breakup, when Carrie ran into Aidan on the street, he was carrying his infant in a Baby Björn. Can anyone imagine Mr. Big walking around with a Björn?)