who plays m in the james bond movies

Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA (born 9 December 1934)[1] is an English actress and author.[2][3] Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years, she performed in several of Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Although most of her work during this period was in theatre, she also branched into film work and won a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer. She drew strong reviews for her leading role in the musical Cabaret in 1968.

Judi Dench

Over the next two decades, Dench established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She achieved success in television during this period, in the series A Fine Romance from 1981 until 1984, and in 1992 with a starring role in the romantic comedy series As Time Goes By. Her film appearances were infrequent and included supporting roles in major films such as A Room with a View (1986) supporting Maggie Smith, before she rose to international fame as M in GoldenEye (1995), a role she continued to play in James Bond films until Skyfall (2012).

A seven-time Oscar nominee, Dench won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love and has received nominations for her roles in Mrs Brown (1997), Chocolat (2000), Iris (2001), Mrs Henderson Presents (2005), Notes on a Scandal (2006), and Philomena (2013). She has also received many award nominations for her acting in theatre, film and television; her competitive awards include six British Academy Film Awards, four BAFTA TV Awards, seven Olivier Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globes, and a Tony Award. She has also received the BAFTA Fellowship (2001) and the Special Olivier Award (2004). In June 2011, she received a fellowship from the British Film Institute (BFI).[4] Dench is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).

Dench was born in Heworth, North Riding of Yorkshire. Her mother, Eleanora Olive (nÃ©e Jones), was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her father, Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor, was born in Dorset, England, and later moved to Dublin, where he was raised.[5] He met Dench's mother while he was studying medicine at Trinity College, Dublin.[6][7]

Dench attended The Mount School, a Quaker independent secondary school in York, and became a Quaker.[8][9] Her brothers, one of whom was actor Jeffery Dench, were born in Tyldesley, Lancashire.[8][9] Her niece, Emma Dench, is a Roman historian and professor previously at Birkbeck, University of London, and currently at Harvard University.[10]

In Britain, Dench has developed a reputation as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, primarily through her work in theatre, which has been her forte throughout her career. She has more than once been named number one in polls for Britain's best actor.[11][12]

Through her parents, Dench had regular contact with the theatre. Her father, a physician, was also the GP for the York theatre, and her mother was its wardrobe mistress.[13] Actors often stayed in the Dench household. During these years, Judi Dench was involved on a non-professional basis in the first three productions of the modern revival of the York Mystery Plays in the 1950s. In 1957, in one of the last productions in which she appeared during this period, she played the role of the Virgin Mary, performed on a fixed stage in the Museum Gardens.[14] Though she initially trained as a set designer, she became interested in drama school as her brother Jeff attended the Central School of Speech and Drama.[13] She applied and was accepted by the School, then based at the Royal Albert Hall, London, where she was a classmate of Vanessa Redgrave, graduating with a first class degree in drama and four acting prizes, one being the Gold Medal as Outstanding Student.[13]

In September 1957, she made her first professional stage appearance with the Old Vic Company, at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, as Ophelia in Hamlet. A history of Britain in the years 1957-1962, one volume in a series, cites a contemporaneous review of her performance: ".. has talent which will be shown to better advantage when she acquires some technique to go with it."[citation needed] Dench then made her London debut in the same production at the Old Vic. She remained a member of the company for four seasons, 1957â€“1961, her roles including Katherine in Henry V in 1958 (which was also her New York debut), and as directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli. During this period, she toured the United States and Canada and appeared in Yugoslavia and at the Edinburgh Festival. She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in December 1961 playing Anya in The Cherry Orchard at the Aldwych Theatre in London and made her Stratford-upon-Avon debut in April 1962 as Isabella in Measure for Measure. She subsequently spent seasons in repertory both with the Playhouse in Nottingham from January 1963 (including a West African tour as Lady Macbeth for the British Council) and with the Playhouse Company in Oxford from April 1964. That same year, she made her film debut in The Third Secret.[citation needed]

The 1966 BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles was made to Dench for her performance in Four in the Morning and this was followed in 1968 by a BAFTA Television Best Actress Award for her role in John Hopkins' 1966 BBC drama Talking to a Stranger.[15]

In 1968, she was offered the role of Sally Bowles in the musical Cabaret. As Sheridan Morley later reported: "At first she thought they were joking. She had never done a musical and she has an unusual croaky voice which sounds as if she has a permanent cold. So frightened was she of singing in public that she auditioned from the wings, leaving the pianists alone on stage".[16] But when it opened at the Palace Theatre in February 1968, Frank Marcus, reviewing for Plays and Players, commented that: "She sings well. The title song, in particular, is projected with great feeling."

After a long run in Cabaret, she rejoined the RSC making numerous appearances with the company in Stratford and London for nearly twenty years, winning several "best actress" awards. Among her roles with the RSC, she was the Duchess in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi in 1971. In the Stratford 1976 season, and then at the Aldwych in 1977, she gave two comedy performances, first in Trevor Nunn's musical staging of The Comedy of Errors as Adriana, then partnered with Donald Sinden as Beatrice and Benedick in John Barton's "British Raj" revival of Much Ado About Nothing. As Bernard Levin wrote in The Sunday Times: "...demonstrating once more that she is a comic actress of consummate skill, perhaps the very best we have."[17] One of her most notable achievements with the RSC was her performance as Lady Macbeth in 1976. Nunn's acclaimed production of Macbeth was first staged with a minimalist design at The Other Place theatre in Stratford. Its small round stage focused attention on the psychological dynamics of the characters, and both Ian McKellen in the title role, and Dench, received exceptionally favourable notices. "If this is not great acting I don't know what is", wrote Michael Billington in The Guardian. "It will astonish me if the performance is matched by any in this actress's generation", commented J C Trewin in The Lady. The production transferred to London, opening at the Donmar Warehouse in September 1977, and was adapted for television, later released on VHS and DVD. Dench won the SWET Best Actress Award in 1977.

Dench was nominated for a BAFTA for her role as Hazel Wiles in the 1979 BBC drama On Giant's Shoulders.[18] In 1989, she was cast as Pru Forrest, the long-time silent wife of Tom Forrest, in the BBC soap opera The Archers on its 10,000th edition.[19] She had a romantic role in the BBC television film Langrishe, Go Down (1978), with Jeremy Irons and a screenplay by Harold Pinter from the Aidan Higgins novel, directed by David Jones, in which she played one of three spinster sisters living in a fading Irish mansion in the Waterford countryside. Dench made her debut as a director in 1988 with the Renaissance Theatre Company's touring season, Renaissance Shakespeare on the Road, co-produced with the Birmingham Rep, and ending with a three-month repertory programme at the Phoenix Theatre in London. Dench's contribution was a staging of Much Ado About Nothing, set in the Napoleonic era, which starred Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson as Benedick and Beatrice. She has made numerous appearances in the West End including the role of Miss Trant in the 1974 musical version of The Good Companions at Her Majesty's Theatre. In 1981, Dench was due to play Grizabella in the original production of Cats, but was forced to pull out due to a torn Achilles tendon, leaving Elaine Paige to play the role.[20] She has acted with the National Theatre in London where she played an unforgettable Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (1987). In September 1995, she played Desiree Armfeldt in a major revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, for which she won an Olivier Award.

After the long period between James Bond films Licence to Kill (1989) and GoldenEye (1995), the producers brought in Dench to take over as the role of M, James Bond's boss. The character was reportedly modeled on Dame Stella Rimington, the real-life head of MI5 between 1992 and 1996,[21][full citation needed][22][full citation needed]; Dench became the first woman to portray M, succeeding Robert Brown.[23][24] The seventeenth spy film in the series and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 officer, GoldenEye marked the first Bond film made after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, which provided the plot's back story. The film earned a worldwide gross of US$350.7 million,[25] with critics viewing the film as a modernisation of the series.[26][27]

In 1997, Dench appeared in her first starring film role as Queen Victoria in John Madden's teleplay Mrs Brown, which depicts Victoria's relationship with her personal servant and favourite John Brown, played by Billy Connolly. Filmed with the intention of being shown on BBC One and on WGBH's Masterpiece Theatre, it was eventually acquired by Miramax mogul Harvey Weinstein, who felt the drama film should receive a theatrical release after seeing it and took it from the BBC to US cinemas.[28] Released to generally positive reviews and unexpected commercial success, going on to earn more than $13 million worldwide,[29] the film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.[30] For her performance, Dench garnered universal acclaim by critics and was awarded her fourth BAFTA and first Best Actress nomination at the 70th Academy Awards.[31] In 2011, while accepting a British Film Institute Award in London, Dench commented that the project launched her Hollywood career and joked that "it was thanks to Harvey, whose name I have had tattooed on my bum ever since."[28]

Dench's other film of 1997 was Roger Spottiswoode's Tomorrow Never Dies, her second film in the James Bond series.[32][33] The same year, Dench reteamed with director John Madden to film Shakespeare in Love (1998), a romantic comedy-drama that depicts a love affair involving playwright William Shakespeare, played by Joseph Fiennes, while he was writing the play Romeo and Juliet. On her performance as Queen Elizabeth I, The New York Times commented that "Dench's shrewd, daunting Elizabeth is one of the film's utmost treats."[34] The following year, she was nominated for most of the high-profile awards, winning both the Academy Award and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.[31] On her Oscar win, Dench joked on-stage, "I feel for eight minutes on the screen I should only get a little bit of him."[35]

Also in 1999, Dench won the Tony Award for her 1999 Broadway performance in the role of Esme Allen in Sir David Hare's Amy's View.[31] The same year, she co-starred along with Cher, Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, and Lily Tomlin in Franco Zeffirelli's semi-autobiographical period drama Tea with Mussolini which tells the story of young Italian boy Luca's upbringing by a circle of British and American women, before and during World War II. 1999 also saw the release of Pierce Brosnan's third Bond film, The World Is Not Enough. This film portrayed M in a larger role with the main villain, Renard, coming back to haunt her when he engineers the murder of her old friend Sir Robert King and seemingly attempts to kill his daughter Electra.

In January 2001, Dench's husband Michael Williams died from lung cancer. Dench went to Nova Scotia, Canada, almost immediately after Williams's funeral to begin production on Lasse Hallström's drama film The Shipping News, a therapy she later credited as her rescue: "People, friends, kept saying, 'You are not facing up to it; you need to face up to it,' and maybe they were right, but I felt I was – in the acting. Grief supplies you with an enormous amount of energy. I needed to use that up."[36] In between, Dench finished work on Richard Eyre's film Iris (2001), in which she portrayed novelist Iris Murdoch. Dench shared her role with Kate Winslet, both actresses portraying Murdoch at different phases of her life.[37] Each of them was nominated for an Academy Award the following year, earning Dench her fourth nomination within five years.[31] In addition, she was awarded both an ALFS Award and the Best Leading Actress Award at the 55th British Academy Film Awards.[31]

Following Iris, Dench immediately returned to Canada to finish The Shipping News alongside Kevin Spacey and Julianne Moore.[36] Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by E. Annie Proulx, the drama revolves around a quiet and introspective typesetter (Spacey) who, after the death of his daughter's mother, moves to Newfoundland along with his daughter and his aunt, played by Dench, in hopes of starting his life anew in the small town where she grew up. The film earned mixed reviews from critics,[38] and was financially unsuccessful, taking in just US$24 million worldwide with a budget of US$35 million.[39] Dench, however, received BAFTA and SAG Award nominations for her performance.[31]

In 2002, Dench was cast opposite Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, and Reese Witherspoon in Oliver Parker's The Importance of Being Earnest, a comedy about mistaken identity set in English high society during the Victorian Era. Based on Oscar Wilde's classic comedy of manners of the same name, she portrayed Lady Bracknell, a role she had repeatedly played before, including a stint at the Royal National Theatre in 1982.[40] The film was released to lukewarm reactions by critics – who called it "breezy entertainment, helped by an impressive cast", but felt that it also suffered "from some peculiar directorial choices" – and earned just US$17.3 million during its limited release.[41] Dench's other film of 2002 was Die Another Day, the twentieth installment in the James Bond series. The Lee Tamahori–directed spy film marked her fourth appearance as MI6 head M and the franchise's last performance by Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Die Another Day received generally mixed reviews by critics who praised Tamahori's work on the film, but claimed the plot was damaged by excessive use of CGI.[42][43] Regardless, it became the highest-grossing James Bond film up to that time.[44] In the 2002 animated children's series Angelina Ballerina, Dench lent her voice to Miss Lilly, Angelina's ballet teacher. Her daughter, Finty Williams, provided the voice of Angelina herself.

In 2004, Dench appeared as Aereon, an ambassador of the Elemental race who helps uncover the mysterious past of Richard B. Riddick, played by Vin Diesel, in David Twohy's science fiction sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick. Selected by Diesel, who prompted writers to re-create the character to fit a female persona because he wanted to work with the actress,[45] she called filming "tremendous fun", although she "had absolutely no idea what was going on in the plot."[46] The film was a critical and box office failure.[47] In his review of the film, James Berardinelli from ReelViews remarked that he felt that Dench's character served no more "useful purpose than to give [her] an opportunity to appear in a science fiction movie."[48]

She followed Riddick with a more traditional role in Charles Dance's English drama Ladies in Lavender, also starring friend Maggie Smith. In the film, Dench plays one half of a sister duo and takes it upon herself to nurse a washed up stranger to health, eventually finding herself falling for a man many decades younger than she. The specialty release garnered positive reviews from critics, with Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times calling it "perfectly sweet and civilized [and] a pleasure to watch Smith and Dench together; their acting is so natural it could be breathing."[49] Also in 2004, Dench provided her voice for several smaller projects. In Walt Disney's Home on the Range, she, along with Roseanne Barr and Jennifer Tilly, voiced a mismatched trio of dairy cows who must capture an infamous cattle rustler, for his bounty, in order to save their idyllic farm from foreclosure. The film was mildly successful for Disney.[50]

A major hit for Dench came with Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice, a 2005 adaptation of the novel by Jane Austen, starring Keira Knightley and Donald Sutherland. Wright persuaded Dench to join the cast as Lady Catherine de Bourgh by writing her a letter that read "I love it when you play a bitch. Please come and be a bitch for me."[51] Dench had only one week available to shoot her scenes, forcing Wright to make them his first days of filming.[52][53] With both a worldwide gross of over US$121 million and several Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, the film became a critical and commercial success.[54]

Dench, in her role as "M", was the only cast member carried through from the Brosnan films to appear in Casino Royale (2006), Martin Campbell's reboot of the James Bond film series, starring Daniel Craig in his debut performance as the fictional MI6 agent. The thriller received largely positive critical response, with reviewers highlighting Craig's performance and the reinvention of the character of Bond.[55] It earned over US$594Â million worldwide, ranking it among the highest-grossing James Bond films ever released.

In April 2006, Dench returned to the West End stage in Hay Fever alongside Peter Bowles, Belinda Lang, and Kim Medcalf. She finished off 2006 with the role of Mistress Quickly in the RSC's new musical The Merry Wives, a version of The Merry Wives of Windsor.[56]

Dench appeared opposite Cate Blanchett as a London teacher with a dedicated fondness for vulnerable women in Richard Eyre's 2006 drama film Notes on a Scandal, an adaption from the 2003 novel of the same name by Zoë Heller. A fan of Heller's book, Dench "was thrilled to be asked to ... play that woman, to try to find a humanity in that dreadful person."[57] The specialty film opened to generally positive reviews and commercial success, grossing US$50 million worldwide,[58] exceeding its £15 million budget.[59] In his review for Chicago Sun-Times, film critic Roger Ebert declared the main actresses "perhaps the most impressive acting duo in any film of 2006. Dench and Blanchett are magnificent."[60] The following year, Dench earned her sixth Academy nomination and went on to win a BIFA Award and an Evening Standard Award.[31]

Dench, as Miss Matty Jenkyns, co-starred with Eileen Atkins, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton, and Francesca Annis in the BBC One five-part series Cranford. The first season of the series began transmission in November 2007.

Dench became the voice for the narration for the updated Walt Disney World Epcot attraction Spaceship Earth in February 2008.[61] The same month, she was named as the first official patron of the York Youth Mysteries 2008, a project to allow young people to explore the York Mystery Plays through dance, film-making and circus.[62] Her only film of 2008 was Marc Forster's Quantum of Solace, the twenty-second Eon-produced James Bond film, in which she reprised her role as M along with Daniel Craig. A direct sequel to the 2006 film Casino Royale, Forster felt Dench was underused in the previous films, and wanted to make her part bigger, having her interact with Bond more.[63] The project gathered generally mixed reviews by critics, who mainly felt that Quantum of Solace was not as impressive as the predecessor Casino Royale,[64] but became another hit for the franchise with a worldwide gross of US$591 million.[65] For her performance, Dench was nominated for a Saturn Award the following year.[66]

Dench returned to the West End in mid-2009, playing Madame de Montreuil in Yukio Mishima's play Madame de Sade, directed by Michael Grandage as part of the Donmar season at Wyndham's Theatre.[67] The same year, she appeared in Sally Potter's experimental film Rage, a project that featured 14 actors playing fictional figures in and around the fashion world, giving monologues before a plain backdrop.[68] Attracted to the fact that it was unlike anything she had done before, Dench welcomed the opportunity to work with Potter.[68] "I like to do something that's not expected, or predictable. I had to learn to smoke a joint, and I set my trousers alight," she said about filming.[68] Her next film was Rob Marshall's musical film Nine, based on Arthur Kopit's book for the 1982 musical of the same name, itself suggested by Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½.[69] Also starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, and Sophia Loren, she played Lilli La Fleur, an eccentric but motherly French costume designer, who performs the song "Folies Bergères" in the film. Despite mixed to negative reviews, Nine was nominated for four Academy Awards,[70] and awarded both the Satellite Award for Best Film and Best Cast.[31]

Also in 2009, Dench reprised the role of Matilda Jenkyns in Return to Cranford, the two-part second season of a Simon Curtis television series. Critically acclaimed, Dench was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Satellite Award.[31] In 2010, she renewed her collaboration with Peter Hall at the Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames in A Midsummer Night's Dream, which opened in February 2010; she played Titania as Queen Elizabeth I in her later years – almost 50 years after she first played the role for the Royal Shakespeare Company.[71] In July 2010, Dench performed "Send in the Clowns" at a special celebratory promenade concert from the Royal Albert Hall as part of the proms season, in honour of composer Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday.[72][73]

In 2011, Dench starred in Jane Eyre, My Week with Marilyn and J. Edgar. In Cary Joji Fukunaga's period drama Jane Eyre, based on the 1847 novel of the same name by Charlotte Brontë, she played the role of Alice Fairfax, housekeeper to Rochester, the aloof and brooding master of Thornfield Hall, where main character Jane, played by Mia Wasikowska, gets employed as a governess.[74] Dench reportedly signed to the project after she had received a humorous personal note from Fukunaga, in which he "promised her that she'd be the sexiest woman on set if she did the film."[75] Acclaimed among critics,[76] it was a mediocre arthouse success at the box office, grossing US$30.5 million worldwide.[77] In Simon Curtis' My Week with Marilyn, which depicts the making of the 1957 film The Prince and the Showgirl starring Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier, Dench played actress Sybil Thorndike. The film garnered largely positive reviews,[78] and earned Dench a Best Actress in a Supporting Role nomination at the 65th BAFTA Awards.[31]

Dench's last film of 2011 was Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar, a biographical drama film about the career of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, from the Palmer Raids onwards, including an examination of his private life as a closeted homosexual.[79] Hand-picked by Eastwood to play Anna Marie Hoover, Hoover's mother, Dench initially thought a friend was setting her up upon receiving Eastwood's phone call request. "I didn't take it seriously to start with. And then I realised it was really him and that was a tricky conversation," she stated.[57] Released to mixed reception, both with critics and commercially, the film went on to gross US$79 million worldwide.[80] The same year, Dench reunited with Rob Marshall and Johnny Depp for a cameo appearance in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, playing a noblewoman who is robbed by Captain Jack Sparrow, played by Depp. She made a second cameo that year in Ray Cooney's Run for Your Wife.[81]

In 2011, Dench reunited with director John Madden on the set of the comedy-drama The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012), starring an ensemble cast also consisting of Celia Imrie, Bill Nighy, Ronald Pickup, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, and Penelope Wilton, as a group of British pensioners moving to a retirement hotel in India, run by the young and eager Sonny (Dev Patel). Released to positive reviews by critics,[82] who declared the film a "sweet story about the senior set featuring a top-notch cast of veteran actors,"[82] it became a surprise box-office hit following its international release, eventually grossing $US134 million worldwide, mostly from its domestic run.[83] Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was ranked among the highest-grossing specialty releases of the year,[84] and Dench, who Peter Travers from Rolling Stone called "resilient marvel",[85] garnered a Best Actress nod at both the British Independent Film Awards and Golden Globe Awards.[86]

Also in 2012, Friend Request Pending, an indie short film which Dench had filmed in 2011, received a wide release as part of the feature films Stars in Shorts and The Joy of Six. In the 12-minute comedy, directed by My Week with Marilyn assistant director Chris Foggin on a budget of just £5,000, she portrays a pensioner grappling with a crush on her church choirmaster and the art of cyber-flirting via social networking.[87] Dench made her seventh and final appearance as M in the twenty-third James Bond film, Skyfall (2012), directed by Sam Mendes.[88] In the film, Bond investigates an attack on MI6; it transpires that it is part of an attack on M by former MI6 operative, Raoul Silva (played by Javier Bardem) to humiliate, discredit and kill M as revenge against her for betraying him. Dench's position as M was subsequently filled by Ralph Fiennes' character. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the James Bond series, Skyfall was positively received by critics and at the box office, grossing over $1 billion worldwide, and became the highest-grossing film of all-time in the UK and the highest-grossing film in the James Bond series. Critics called Dench's Saturn Awards-nominated performance "compellingly luminous".[89]

In 2013, Dench starred as the title character in the Stephen Frears directed film, Philomena, a film inspired by true events of a woman looking for the son which the Catholic Church took from her a half-century before.[90] The film was screened in the main competition section at the 70th Venice International Film Festival, where it was very favorably received by critics.[91][92] On Dench's performance, The Times commented that "this is Dench's triumph. At 78, she has a golden career behind her, often as queens and other frosty matriarchs. So the warmth under pressure she radiates here is nearly a surprise [...] Dench gives a performance of grace, nuance and cinematic heroism."[93] She was subsequently nominated for many major acting awards, including a seventh Academy Award nomination.[94]

In 2015, Dench appeared opposite Dustin Hoffman in Dearbhla Walsh's small screen adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's novel Esio Trot (1990), in which a retired bachelor falls in love with his widowed neighbour, played by Dench, who keeps a tortoise as a companion after the death of her husband,[95] First broadcast on BBC One on New Year's Day 2015, it became one of the most-watched programmes of the week,[96] and earned Dench a her first Best Actress nomination at the 2016 International Emmy Awards.[97] On her performance, Telegraph's Michael Hogan commented: "Weâ€™ve grown accustomed to seeing Dench in forbidding roles but here she recalled her footloose, flirtatious side, displayed in sitcoms as A Fine Romance and As Time Goes By. The Dame was sparkly and downright ravishing."[98]

As with most of the original cast, Dench reprised the role of Evelyn in John Madden's The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015), the sequel to the 2011 sleeper hit. The comedy-drama was released to lukewarm reviews from critics, who found it "as original as its title — but with a cast this talented and effortlessly charming, that hardly matters."[99] From April to May 2015, Dench played a mother, with her real-life daughter Finty Williams playing her character's daughter, in The Vote at the Donmar Warehouse. The final performance was broadcast live on More4 at 8:25 pm; the time when the events in the play take place.[100] The appearance marked her first performance at the theatre since 1976.[101] On 20 September 2015, she was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs for the third time, in which she revealed that her first acting performance was as a snail. She reprised her role as M in the 2015 James Bond film, Spectre, in the form of a recording that was delivered to Bond.[102]

In 2016, Dench made Olivier Award history when she won Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her role in The Winter's Tale, breaking her own record with her eighth win as a performer.[103] Next, she co-starred as Cecily Neville, Duchess of York to Benedict Cumberbatch's Richard III in the second series of the BBC Two historical series The Hollow Crown.[104] The same year, she was cast alongside Eva Green and Asa Butterfield in Tim Burton's dark fantasy film Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Dench played Miss Esmeralda Avocet, a headmistress who can manipulate time and can transform into a bird.[105] The film garnered mixed reviews from critics, who felt it was "on stronger footing as a visual experience than a narrative one."[106] Budgeted on US$110 million, it became a commercial hit, grossing nearly US$300 million worldwide.[107]

Dench appeared in several 2017 films. She co-starred in Justin Chadwick's Tulip Fever, alongside Alicia Vikander and Christoph Waltz,[108] and headlined Stephen Frears's biographical drama Victoria & Abdul, reprising the role of Queen Victoria, opposite Ali Fazal as Abdul.[109] In addition, she will play Princess Natalia Dragomiroff in Kenneth Branagh's ensemble mystery film Murder on the Orient Express, based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Agatha Christie.[110]

On 5 February 1971, Dench married British actor Michael Williams. They had their only child, Tara Cressida Frances Williams, an actress known professionally as Finty Williams, on 24 September 1972. Dench and her husband starred together in several stage productions and on the Bob Larbey British television sitcom, A Fine Romance (1981â€“84). Michael Williams died from lung cancer in 2001, aged 65. They have one grandchild, Finty's son Sam Williams (born in 1997).[111]

Dench has been in a relationship with conservationist David Mills since 2010. During a 2014 interview with The Times magazine, she discussed how she never expected to find love again after her husband's death, "I wasn't even prepared to be ready for it. It was very, very gradual and grown up... It's just wonderful."[112][113]

In early 2012, Dench discussed her macular degeneration, with one eye "dry" and the other "wet", for which she has been treated with injections into the eye. She said that she needs someone to read scripts to her.[114] She also underwent knee surgery in 2013, but stated that she recovered from the procedure well and "It's not an issue for me."[115]

Dench has been critical of prejudice in the movie industry against older actresses. She stated in 2014, "I'm tired of being told I'm too old to try something. I should be able to decide for myself if I can't do things and not have someone tell me I'll forget my lines or I'll trip and fall on the set"; and "Age is a number. It's something imposed on you... It drives me absolutely spare when people say, 'Are you going to retire? Isn't it time you put your feet up?' Or tell me [my] age."[116]

In 2013, she spoke about her personal religious faith. Dench, a Quaker, said "I think it informs everything I do... I couldn't be without it".[117]

Dench was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1970 Birthday Honours[118] and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1988 New Year Honours.[119] She was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2005 Birthday Honours.[120] In June 2011, she became a fellow of the British Film Institute (BFI).[4]

Dench is a patron of the Leaveners, Friends School Saffron Walden, The Archway Theatre, Horley, Surrey and OnePlusOne Marriage and Partnership Research, London. She became president of Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London in 2006,[121] taking over from Sir John Mills, and is president of Questors Theatre, Ealing. In May 2006, she became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). She was also patron of Ovingdean Hall School, a special day and boarding school for the deaf and hard of hearing in Brighton, which closed in 2010,[122] and Vice President of The Little Foundation. Dame Judi is also a long-standing and active Vice President of the national disabled people's charity Revitalise.

Dench is an Honorary Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. In 1996, she was awarded a DUniv degree from Surrey University[123] and in 2000â€“2001, she received an honorary DLitt degree from Durham University.[124] On 24 June 2008, she was honoured by the University of St Andrews, receiving an honorary DLitt degree at the university's graduation ceremony.[125] On 26 June 2013, she was honoured by the University of Stirling, receiving an honorary doctorate at the university's graduation ceremony in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the Arts, particularly to film.[126]

In March 2013, Dench was listed as one of the fifty best-dressed over 50s by The Guardian.[127] One of the highest-profile actresses in British popular culture, Dench appeared on Debrett's 2017 list of the most influential people in the UK.[128]

Dench has worked with the non-governmental indigenous organisation, Survival International, campaigning in the defence of the tribal people, the San of Botswana and the Arhuaco of Colombia. She made a small supporting video saying the San are victims of tyranny, greed and racism. Dench is also a patron of the Karuna Trust, a charity that supports work amongst some of India's poorest and most oppressed people, mainly though not exclusively Dalits.[129]

On 22 July 2010, Dench was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (DLitt) by Nottingham Trent University.[130] The Dr. Hadwen Trust announced on 15 January 2011, that Dench had become a patron of the trust, joining, among others, Joanna Lumley and David Shepherd.[131] On 19 March 2012, it was announced that Dench was to become honorary patron of the charity Everton in the Community, the official charity of Everton F.C. and it was revealed that Dench is an Everton supporter.[132]

Dench is an advisor to the American Shakespeare Center. She is a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres.[133] She is also a patron of Shakespeare North, a playhouse project due to be completed in 2019 in the town of Prescot in Knowsley, near Liverpool.[134] She is patron of East Park Riding for the Disabled, a riding school for disabled children at Newchapel, Surrey.[135] Dench is also a Vice-President of national charity Revitalise, that provides accessible holidays for those with disabilities.[136] In 2011, along with musician Sting and billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, she publicly urged policy makers to adopt more progressive drug policies by decriminalizing drug use.[137]

Dench was one of 200 celebrities to sign an open letter to the people of Scotland asking them to vote No to independence, published in August 2014, a few weeks before the Scottish referendum.[138]


who wrote remember me i'm the one who loves you

"(Remember Me) I'm The One Who Loves You" is a song written and originally sung by Stuart Hamblen, which he released in 1950. The song was also a hit for Ernest Tubb the same year, and Dean Martin in 1965.

(Remember Me) I'm the One Who Loves You

Hamblen’s version reached No. 2 on Billboard's chart of “Country & Western Records Most Played by Folk Disk Jockeys”,[1] No. 3 on Billboard's chart of “Best-Selling Retail Folk (Country & Western) Records”,[2] and No. 4 on Billboard's chart of “Most Played Juke Box Folk (Country & Western) Records.”[3]

Hamblen’s version was also ranked No. 8 on Billboard's ranking of 1950’s “Top Country & Western Records According to Retail Sales” and No. 24 on Billboard's ranking of 1950’s “Top Country & Western Records According to Juke Box Plays.”[4]

Ernest Tubb released a version of the song in 1950, which reached No. 5 on Billboard's chart of “Most Played Juke Box Folk (Country & Western) Records”[5] and No. 7 on Billboard's chart of “Best-Selling Retail Folk (Country & Western) Records.”[6]

In 1965, the song was released by Dean Martin. The song spent 7 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at No. 32,[7] while reaching No. 7 on Billboard's Easy Listening chart,[8][9] and No. 14 on Canada's R.P.M. Play Sheet.[10]


is nigeria still a member of united nation

Nigeria is a member of the United Nations. Nigeria did not become independent of the United Kingdom until 1960, while the United Nations had already been established by the Declaration by the United Nations in 1942. Tijjani Muhammad-Bande[3] is the permanent representative of Nigeria.[4]

Nigeria and the United Nations

In 2013, Nigeria contributed the fifth largest number of peacekeepers to United Nations peacekeeping operations.[5][6] Nigeria has recently served a two-year term from 2014-2015 as a temporary member of the United Nations Security Council. The United Nations is currently adjusting the border of Nigeria and Cameroon.[7]

The terrorist organization Boko Haram attacked the Nigerian headquarters of the United Nations in 2011.[8] During April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped approximately 276 students in what is known as the Chibok schoolgirl kidnapping. In response, the United Nations classified Boko Haram as an associate of Al-Qaeda and subjected it to financial sanctions and an arms embargo.[9]


who played young bilbo in lord of the rings

In Peter Jackson's The Hobbit film series, a prequel to The Lord of the Rings, the young Bilbo is portrayed by Martin Freeman[6] while Ian Holm reprises his role as an older Bilbo in An Unexpected Journey (2012) and The Battle of the Five Armies (2014).

Bilbo Baggins

Bilbo Baggins is the title character and protagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit, as well as a supporting character in The Lord of the Rings. In Tolkien's narrative conceit, in which all the writings of Middle-earth are translations from the fictitious volume of The Red Book of Westmarch, Bilbo is the author of The Hobbit and translator of various "works from the elvish" (as mentioned in the end of The Return of the King).

In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit in comfortable middle age at 50 years old, was hired as a "burglar," despite his objections, by the wizard Gandalf and 13 Dwarves led by their king Thorin Oakenshield on a quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain and its treasure from the dragon Smaug. The adventure took Bilbo and the companions through the wilderness, to the elf haven of Rivendell, across the Misty Mountains and the black forest of Mirkwood, to Lake-town in the middle of Long Lake, and eventually to the Mountain itself. Here, after the dragon was killed and the Mountain was reclaimed, the Battle of Five Armies took place.

In his journey, Bilbo encountered other fantastic creatures, including trolls, elves, giant spiders, a man who can change shape into a bear, goblins, eagles, wolves and a slimy, murderous creature named Gollum. Underground, near Gollum's lair, Bilbo accidentally found a magic ring of invisibility, which he used to escape from Gollum.

By the end of the journey, Bilbo had become wiser and more confident, having saved the day in many precarious situations. Bilbo's journey has been compared to a pilgrimage of grace. The Hobbit can be characterized as a "Christian bildungsroman which equates progress to wisdom gained in the form of a rite of passage.[1] He rescued the dwarves from giant spiders with the magic ring and a short Elven-sword he acquired. He used the ring to sneak around in dangerous places, as well as his wits to smuggle the dwarves out of the elves' prisons. When tensions arose over ownership of the recovered treasure, he tried unsuccessfully to bring the opposing sides to compromise, using the Arkenstone, a stolen heirloom jewel, as leverage. This strained his relationship with Thorin, but the two were reconciled at Thorin's deathbed. At the end of the story, Bilbo returned to his home in the Shire only to find that several of his relatives, believing him to be dead, were trying to claim his home and possessions. In addition to becoming wealthy from his share of the dwarves' treasure, he found that he, like Adam, had traded respectability for experience and wisdom. At the end, Gandalf proclaims Bilbo is no longer the Hobbit he was. This is certainly true as Bilbo has fully matured. Continuing the pilgrimage theme, a true pilgrimage does not end at the destination, but rather when the wanderer is absolved, blessed, and ready to return home.[1]

The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, begins with Bilbo's "eleventy-first" (111th) birthday, 60 years after the beginning of The Hobbit. The main character of the novel is Frodo Baggins, Bilbo's cousin,[nb 1] who celebrates his 33rd birthday and legally comes of age on the same day.

In T.A. 2989 (S.R. 1389), Bilbo, a lifelong bachelor, adopted Frodo, the orphaned son of his first cousin Primula Brandybuck and his second cousin Drogo Baggins, and made him his heir. Though Frodo was actually "his first and second cousin once removed either way",[2] the two regarded each other as uncle and nephew.

All this time Bilbo had kept his magic ring, with no idea of its significance, using it mostly to hide from his obnoxious cousins, the Sackville-Bagginses, when they came to visit. Gandalf's investigations revealed it to be the One Ring forged by the Dark Lord Sauron. The Ring had prolonged Bilbo's life beyond the normal hobbit span, and at 111 he still looked 50. While the Ring did not initially corrupt him as it had its previous owners, it was beginning to affect him; over the years, it had begun to prey on his mind when out of his sight, and he lost sleep and felt "thin, sort of stretched â€¦ like butter that has been scraped over too much bread".[2]

On the night of his and Frodo's birthday, Bilbo threw himself a party and invited all of the Shire. He signed his home, Bag End, and estate over to Frodo. He then gave a farewell address to his neighbors, at the end of which he put on the Ring and vanished from sight. As Bilbo prepared finally to leave the house, he reacted with panic and suspicion when Gandalf tried to persuade him to leave the Ring with Frodo. Bilbo refused to give up the Ring, referring to it as his "precious" â€“ just as Gollum had. Gandalf lost his temper with his old friend and talked some sense into him. Bilbo admitted he would have liked to be rid of the Ring, and he left it behind, becoming the first person to do so voluntarily. He left the Shire that night, and was never seen in Hobbiton again.

His earlier adventure, his eccentric habits as a hobbit, and his sudden disappearance led to the enduring figure of "Mad Baggins" in hobbit folklore, who disappeared with a flash and a bang and returned with gold and jewels.

Freed of the Ring's power over his senses, Bilbo travelled first to Rivendell, and then on to visit the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain. After he returned to Rivendell he spent much of the next 17 years living a pleasant life of retirement: eating, sleeping, writing poetry, and working on his memoirs, There and Back Again, known as The Hobbit. He became a scholar of Elven lore, leaving behind the Translations from the Elvish, which forms the basis of what is known to us as The Silmarillion.

When Frodo and his friends Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took stopped in Rivendell on their quest to destroy the Ring, Bilbo was still alive but now visibly aged, the years having caught up with him after he surrendered the Ring. Upon seeing the Ring again, he suddenly tried to take it from Frodo; he returned to his senses when a terrified Frodo backed away, and he broke down in tears, apologizing for bringing the burden of the Ring onto Frodo.

After the quest to destroy the Ring was fulfilled in The Return of the King, Gandalf and the four Hobbits visited Rivendell on their way back to the Shire and found Bilbo still living there. He gave Frodo a set of manuscripts that later became Translations from the Elvish, and also gave Sam a small bag of gold that represented the last of his share from Smaug's vast hoard. Two years later Bilbo accompanied Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and Frodo to the Grey Havens, there to take ship for Tol Eressëa across the sea, on 29th 'September' T.A. 3021. He had already celebrated his 131st birthday by this time, surpassing the Old Took by one year and becoming the oldest Hobbit ever in Middle-earth. (The natural lifespan of Hobbits is about 100 years.)[3]

According to Appendix C of The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo was born to Bungo Baggins and Belladonna Took in T.A.Â 2890, or S.R. 1290. The Lord of the Rings gives the date of Bilbo's birthday as 22 September,[2] but the actual date in the Shire calendar was Halimath 22; Tolkien tells us in Appendix D that he "used our modern names" for the months "to avoid confusion, while the seasonal implications of our names are more or less the same", so that Halimath is translated as September, but that "the Shire dates were actually in advance of ours by some ten days, and our New Year's Day corresponded more or less to the Shire January 9".[4]

The Bagginses of Bag End were one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most respectable Hobbit families in Hobbiton until the year 2941 (SR 1341), when Bilbo inexplicably disappeared on his adventure and was thought dead.

Tolkien's posthumously published poem "Bilbo's Last Song", illustrated by Pauline Baynes, describes Bilbo's contemplation of his forthcoming voyage to the Undying Lands. The illustrations evoke his last ride in the company of Elrond from Rivendell to the Grey Havens, as described in The Lord of the Rings.

In the 1968 BBC Radio serialization of The Hobbit, Bilbo was played by Paul Daneman.

Nicol Williamson portrayed Bilbo with a light West Country accent in the 1974 performance released on Argo Records.[5]

In the 1977 Rankin/Bass animated version of The Hobbit, Bilbo was voiced by Orson Bean. Bean also voiced both the aged Bilbo and Frodo in the same company's 1980 adaptation of The Return of the King.

In Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version of The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo was voiced by Norman Bird. Billy Barty was the model for Bilbo, as well as Frodo and Sam, in the live-action recordings Bakshi used for rotoscoping.

The 3000th story to be broadcast in the BBC's long-running children's programme Jackanory was The Hobbit, in 1979. Four narrators told the story, with Bilbo's part being played by Bernard Cribbins

In the BBC's 1981 radio serialization of The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo is played by John Le Mesurier.

In the 1993 television miniseries Hobitit by Finnish broadcaster Yle, Bilbo is portrayed by Martti Suosalo.

Throughout the 2003 video game the players control Bilbo, voiced by Michael Beatie. The game follows the plot of the book, but adds the elements of platform gameplay and various side-objectives along the main quests.

In The Lord of the Rings Online (2007) Bilbo resides in Rivendell, mostly playing riddle games with the Elf Lindir in the Hall of Fire. The game also includes multiple outlanding[clarification needed] stories about Bilbo's adventures and his ultimate fate from [clarification needed] various Hobbits in the Shire.

In Peter Jackson's films The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and The Return of the King (2003) Bilbo is played by Ian Holm, who had played Frodo in the BBC radio series 20 years earlier. The movies omit the 17-year gap between Bilbo's 111th birthday and Frodo's departure from the Shire, as a result Bilbo mentions in Rivendell that he was unable to revisit the Lonely Mountain before his retirement.

The International Astronomical Union names all colles (small hills) on Saturn's moon Titan after characters in Tolkien's work.[7] In 2012, they named a hilly area "Bilbo Colles" after Bilbo Baggins.[8]


where was the ponderosa supposed to be located

The Ponderosa was the fictional setting for Bonanza. According to the 9th episode ("Mr. Henry Comstock") in the first season, it was a thousand-square mile (640,000 acre or 2,600 km2) ranch on the shores of Lake Tahoe, nestled high in the Sierra Nevada, with a large ranch house in the center of it.[1] Ben Cartwright was said to have built the original, smaller homestead after moving from New Orleans with his pregnant third wife Marie and his two sons, Adam and Hoss. The grown Adam, an architect/engineer, designed the later sprawling ranch house as depicted on TV ("Bonanza, The Philip Diedesheimer Story", Oct. 31, 1959, NBC-TV; Bonanza: The Return, April 1993, NBC-TV). The fictional ranch was roughly a two-hour horse ride from Virginia City, Nevada. (Note: There are slight variations as to the origin of the Ponderosa Ranch, from the original Bonanza series, Lorne Greene's 1964 song "Saga of the Ponderosa", the 1988-95 TV movies, and the 2001 PAX prequel series Ponderosa). The ranch house was a single level structure that had a facade second storey. Inside a staircase seemingly led to the first-floor corridor, but it was a dead end. The bedroom scenes were filmed at Burbank Studios. The inspiration for the name may have been the large number of Ponderosa pines in the area or the original Latin meaning of large (root of the English word ponderous). The exteriors for the television show were occasionally shot in Nevada, usually out of sequence. Crews were sometimes able to complete an entire season's work in just a few days.

Ponderosa Ranch

The Ponderosa Ranch was a theme park based on the popular 1960s television western Bonanza, which housed the affluent land, timber and livestock-rich Cartwright family. The amusement park operated in Incline Village, Nevada, near Lake Tahoe, from 1967 until 2004. Portions of the last five seasons of the TV series and three TV movies were also filmed at that location.

The first Virginia City set used on the show from 1959â€“1970 was located on a back lot at Paramount. It was also used in episodes of Have Gun, Will Travel, Mannix and The Brady Bunch. In the 1970 Bonanza episode "The Night Virginia City Died", Deputy Clem Foster's pyromaniac fiancee leveled the town in a series of fires. This allowed for a switch to the less-expensive Warner Studios from September 1970 through January 1973. Very few of the original Bonanza episodes were shot at the theme park's Virginia City site, although the town was prominently featured in three Bonanza television movies. Because the movies showcased the next generation of Cartwrights, they began circa 1905. The Ponderosa park expanded beyond the buggy era to include an exhibit featuring antique cars. It was a fledgling endeavor as tourists wanted to see horses flanked by Cartwright saddles.

The idea for the theme park came about in 1965. Bill and Joyce Anderson owned a small horse ranch, which is located in about the same area as the fictional Ponderosa on the burning map. According to the Andersons, tourists would regularly show up at their gates asking where the Ponderosa was. Smelling opportunity, the Andersons contacted NBC and Bonanza creator-producer David Dortort. They proposed turning their small ranch into a theme park. NBC, Dortort, and the cast saw the tie-in as a "bonanza" for everyone.[2] All parties being of one accord, the cast agreed to promos being shot at the ranch site and the Virginia City set - including the nearby Silver Dollar Saloon - for financial consideration. The ads stimulated revenue for the park.

The park opened to the public in 1967, complete with a scale replica of the Cartwright ranch house and barn similar to the ones seen on television. A replica of Virginia City was later added. The original plan was to open the set to tourists once filming had wrapped. However, shuttling cast and crew up to Incline Village on a weekly basis became cost-prohibitive. Thus, only 15 episodes of Bonanza were shot there. A majority of ranch-specific scenes were shot on a sound stage at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. Outdoor scenes were filmed on location at nearby Big Bear Lake, Red Rock Canyon, Mojave, or eastern Kern County, California. However, Michael Landon, Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker, and David Canary often made appearances at the ranch in costume to mingle with fans and sign autographs. Blocker died in 1972, and NBC canceled the series the following year. Canary, dressed in character as Candy, made his last visit there in 2002 for a PAX-TV special. Mitch Vogel (Jamie Cartwright) appeared at the ranch for the Travel Channel's "TV Road Trip" in 2002, in which he pitched a behind-the-scenes look at the Ponderosa Ranch and Incline Village. Copies of the "Ponderosa Map", autographed by three of the Cartwrights, became souvenirs at the ranch for decades afterward, along with tin cups bearing their likenesses. Episodes that were filmed entirely or in part at the ranch bear a title plate at the end of the credits. These episodes are from the tenth season through the end of the series (1968â€“73).

Parking for visitors was at the highway level; only official vehicles, such as the park's Conestoga wagons, were allowed at the top of the ridge, where the park was located. Depending on the time of day, a park visit could include breakfast. Lunch, including a "Hoss Burger", could also be purchased. Estimates are that more than three million of these were sold during the park's existence.

A visit to the park consisted of visitors riding up on the wagon, being "robbed" by "outlaws", and then disembarking at the main house. Adjacent to the house were the "graves" of Ben Cartwright's three wives, each of whom had given birth to one of the three (half) brothers. Graves of the Cartwrights and cook Hop Sing were later added, following the deaths of Dan Blocker (1972), Victor Sen Yung (1980), Lorne Greene (1987), and Michael Landon (1991). The house contained a less-than-realistic carved figure of Ben Cartwright sitting at his desk, and of Hop Sing working in the kitchen. The only parts of the house that actually existed were the living room, dining room, kitchen, and office. The stairs led nowhere, as the "bedrooms" were actually located on a sound stage in Hollywood. Thus, the tour of the house took very little time.

The main attraction was the ranch's version of Virginia City, which was miles from the real Virginia City but immediately adjacent to the rear of the house set (on the show, the ranch was about a two-hour ride on horseback from Virginia City). There were activities such as a haunted house, panning for gold, amusements based on old-time Wild West shows, as well as concessions and souvenirs.

Only the front of the ranch house was ever shown on television because a highway ran directly to the right of the house. In episodes shot in-studio, the home exterior has a backdrop of sky and trees. The ranch house was a single-storey structure, although from the outside it appeared to have a second story. Little Joe's green corduroy jacket and Hoss' brown suede vest were displayed hanging on a rack.

When the ranch opened in 1967, Pernell Roberts (Adam Cartwright) had long since departed the series. Consequently, he was not featured in Ponderosa's promotional campaign until after the show's initial run. At that time most of the shows broadcast in syndication featured the Adam Cartwright character. His picture was in the group painting on the sign promoting the park at the entrance. When the park folded in Autumn 2004 Pernell Roberts was still alive, so no Adam grave marker was added. Pernell Roberts died on January 24, 2010.

Near the main house were sculptures of the horses ridden by Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon that visitors could have their pictures taken either on or alongside. The park also had a church that could be reserved for weddings near the church where the grave markers are located. In 1999, a VHS tour was made available to patrons. In 2002, David Canary appeared at the ranch in Candy's wardrobe for a special produced by PAX TV.

The ranch and park remained a popular seasonal attraction for decades after the network run of Bonanza ended, having outlived most of the series' original cast. Business remained strong into the late 1990s. The land was purchased by billionaire software entrepreneur David Duffield in 2004. In September 2004 he closed the Ponderosa "indefinitely".[3]


who enforces the universal declaration of human rights

In 2006, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights was replaced with the United Nations Human Rights Council for the enforcement of international human rights law.

International human rights law

International human rights law (IHRL) is the body of international law designed to promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels. As a form of international law, international human rights law is primarily made up of treaties, agreements between sovereign states intended to have binding legal effect between the parties that have agreed to them; and customary international law. Other international human rights instruments while not legally binding contribute to the implementation, understanding and development of international human rights law and have been recognised as a source of political obligation.[1]

The relationship between international human rights law and international humanitarian law is disputed among international law scholars. This discussion forms part of a larger discussion on fragmentation of international law.[2] While pluralist scholars conceive international human rights law as being distinct from international humanitarian law, proponents of the constitutionalist approach regard the latter as a subset of the former.[3] In a nutshell, those who favors separate, self-contained regimes emphasize the differences in applicability; international humanitarian law applies only during armed conflict. On the other hand, a more systemic perspective explains that international humanitarian law represents a function of international human rights law; it includes general norms that apply to everyone at all time as well as specialized norms which apply to certain situations such as armed conflict between both state and military occupation (i.e. IHL) or to certain groups of people including refugees (e.g. the 1951 Refugee Convention), children (the Convention on the Rights of the Child), and prisoners of war (the 1949 Third Geneva Convention).

The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action in 1993, in terms of which the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was established.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a UN General Assembly declaration that does not in form create binding international human rights law. Many legal scholars cite the UDHR as evidence of customary international law.

More broadly, the UDHR has become an authoritative human rights reference. It has provided the basis for subsequent international human rights instruments that form non-binding, but ultimately authoritative international human rights law.

Besides the adoption in 1966 of the two wide-ranging Covenants that form part of the International Bill of Human Rights (namely the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), other treaties have been adopted at the international level. These are generally known as human rights instruments. Some of the most significant include the following:

Regional systems of international human rights law supplement and complement national and international human rights law by protecting and promoting human rights in specific areas of the world. There are three key regional human rights instruments which have established human rights law on a regional basis:

The Organisation of American States and the Council of Europe, like the UN, have adopted treaties (albeit with weaker implementation mechanisms) containing catalogues of economic, social and cultural rights, in addition to the aforementioned conventions dealing mostly with civil and political rights:

The African Union (AU) is a supranational union consisting of 53 African countries.[9] Established in 2001, the AU's purpose is to help secure Africa's democracy, human rights, and a sustainable economy, in particular by bringing an end to intra-African conflict and creating an effective common market.[10]

The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights is the region's principal human rights instrument. It emerged under the aegis of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) (since replaced by the African Union). The intention to draw up the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights was announced in 1979. The Charter was unanimously approved at the OAU's 1981 Assembly.

Pursuant to Article 63 (whereby it was to "come into force three months after the reception by the Secretary General of the instruments of ratification or adherence of a simple majority" of the OAU's member states), the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights came into effect on 21 October 1986, in honour of which 21 October was declared African Human Rights Day.[11]

The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) is a quasi-judicial organ of the African Union, tasked with promoting and protecting human rights and collective (peoples') rights throughout the African continent, as well as with interpreting the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, and considering individual complaints of violations of the Charter. The Commission has three broad areas of responsibility:[12]

In pursuit of these goals, the Commission is mandated to "collect documents, undertake studies and researches on African problems in the field of human and peoples' rights, organise seminars, symposia and conferences, disseminate information, encourage national and local institutions concerned with human and peoples' rights and, should the case arise, give its views or make recommendations to governments."[12][13]

With the creation of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (under a protocol to the Charter which was adopted in 1998 and entered into force in January 2004), the Commission will have the additional task of preparing cases for submission to the Court's jurisdiction.[14] In a July 2004 decision, the AU Assembly resolved that the future Court on Human and Peoples' Rights would be integrated with the African Court of Justice.

The Court of Justice of the African Union is intended to be the "principal judicial organ of the Union."[15][16] Although it has not yet been established, it is intended to take over the duties of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, as well as to act as the supreme court of the African Union, interpreting all necessary laws and treaties. The Protocol establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights entered into force in January 2004,[17] but its merging with the Court of Justice has delayed its establishment. The Protocol establishing the Court of Justice will come into force when ratified by fifteen countries.[18]

There are many countries in Africa accused of human rights violations by the international community and NGOs.[19]

The Organization of American States (OAS) is an international organization, headquartered in Washington, DC. Its members are the thirty-five independent states of the Americas.

Over the course of the 1990s, with the end of the Cold War, the return to democracy in Latin America,[citation needed] and the thrust toward globalisation, the OAS made major efforts to reinvent itself to fit the new context. Its stated priorities now include the following:[20]

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States, also based in Washington, D.C. Along with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, based in San José, Costa Rica, it is one of the bodies that comprise the inter-American system for the promotion and protection of human rights.[21] The IACHR is a permanent body which meets in regular and special sessions several times a year to examine allegations of human rights violations in the hemisphere. Its human rights duties stem from three documents:[22]

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights was established in 1979 with the purpose of enforcing and interpreting the provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights. Its two main functions are therefore adjudicatory and advisory:

Many countries in the Americas, including Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela,[citation needed] have been accused of human rights violations.

The Council of Europe, founded in 1949, is the oldest organisation working for European integration. It is an international organisation with legal personality recognised under public international law, and has observer status at the United Nations. The seat of the Council is in Strasbourg in France.

The Council of Europe is responsible for both the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights.[24] These institutions bind the Council's members to a code of human rights which, although strict, is more lenient than that of the UN Charter on human rights.[citation needed]

The Council also promotes the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the European Social Charter.[25] Membership is open to all European states which seek European integration, accept the principle of the rule of law, and are able and willing to guarantee democracy, fundamental human rights and freedoms.[26]

The Council of Europe is separate from the European Union, but the latter is expected to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights. The Council includes all the member states of European Union. The EU also has a separate human rights document, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.[27]

The European Convention on Human Rights has since 1950 defined and guaranteed human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe.[28] All 47 member states of the Council of Europe have signed this Convention, and are therefore under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.[28] In order to prevent torture and inhuman or degrading treatment,[29][30] the Committee for the Prevention of Torture was established.[31]

The Council of Europe also adopted the Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings in May 2005, for protection against human trafficking and sexual exploitation, the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse in October 2007, and the Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence in May 2011.

The European Court of Human Rights is the only international court with jurisdiction to deal with cases brought by individuals rather than states.[28] In early 2010, the court had a backlog of over 120,000 cases and a multi-year waiting list.[32][33][34] About one out of every twenty cases submitted to the court is considered admissible.[35] In 2007, the court issued 1,503 verdicts. At the current rate of proceedings, it would take 46 years for the backlog to clear.[36]

There is currently no international court to administer international human rights law, but quasi-judicial bodies exist under some UN treaties (like the Human Rights Committee under the ICCPR). The International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction over the crime of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights enforce regional human rights law.

Although these same international bodies also hold jurisdiction over cases regarding international humanitarian law, it is crucial to recognise, as discussed above, that the two frameworks constitute different legal regimes.[37]

The United Nations human rights bodies do have some quasi-legal enforcement mechanisms. These include the treaty bodies attached to the seven currently active treaties, and the United Nations Human Rights Council complaints procedures, with Universal Periodic Review and United Nations Special Rapporteur (known as the 1235 and 1503 mechanisms respectively).[38]

The enforcement of international human rights law is the responsibility of the nation state; it is the primary responsibility of the State to make the human rights of its citizens a reality.

In practice, many human rights are difficult to enforce legally, due to the absence of consensus on the application of certain rights, the lack of relevant national legislation or of bodies empowered to take legal action to enforce them.[39]

In over 110 countries, national human rights institutions (NHRIs) have been set up to protect, promote or monitor human rights with jurisdiction in a given country.[40] Although not all NHRIs are compliant with the Paris Principles,[41] the number and effect of these institutions is increasing.[42]

The Paris Principles were defined at the first International Workshop on National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Paris from 7 to 9 October 1991, and adopted by UN Human Rights Commission Resolution 1992/54 of 1992 and General Assembly Resolution 48/134 of 1993. The Paris Principles list a number of responsibilities for national human rights institutions.[43]

Universal jurisdiction is a controversial principle in international law, whereby states claim criminal jurisdiction over people whose alleged crimes were committed outside the boundaries of the prosecuting state, regardless of nationality, country of residence or any other relationship to the prosecuting country. The state backs its claim on the grounds that the crime committed is considered a crime against all, which any state is authorised to punish. The concept of universal jurisdiction is therefore closely linked to the idea that certain international norms are erga omnes, or owed to the entire world community, as well as the concept of jus cogens.

In 1993, Belgium passed a "law of universal jurisdiction" to give its courts jurisdiction over crimes against humanity in other countries. In 1998, Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London following an indictment by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón under the universal-jurisdiction principle.[44]

The principle is supported by Amnesty International and other human rights organisations, which believe that certain crimes pose a threat to the international community as a whole, and that the community has a moral duty to act.

Others, like Henry Kissinger,[45] argue that "widespread agreement that human rights violations and crimes against humanity must be prosecuted has hindered active consideration of the proper role of international courts. Universal jurisdiction risks creating universal tyrannyâ€”that of judges".[46]


how did the elephant & castle get its name

The name "Elephant and Castle" is derived from a coaching inn.[1] The earliest surviving record of this name relating to the area appears in the Court Leet Book of the Manor of Walworth, which met at "Elephant and Castle, Newington" on 21 March 1765.[2] Previously the site was occupied by a blacksmith and cutler â€“ the coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers features an elephant with a castle (representing a howdah) on its back, which in turn was used because of the use of elephant ivory in handles.[2]

Elephant and Castle

List of places

The Elephant and Castle is an area around a major road junction in South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark. Although the name also informally refers to the areas of Walworth and Newington, the proximity of the London Underground station of the same name has led to the area being more commonly known as "Elephant and Castle". The name is derived from a local coaching inn.

"The Elephant", as locally abbreviated, consists of major traffic junctions connected by a short road called Elephant and Castle, part of the A3. Between these junctions, on the eastern side, is the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, with the Hannibal House office block above. To the north of this, bounded by Newington Causeway and New Kent Road is the Metro Central Heights. The Strata residential block lies just south of the shopping centre on Walworth Road.

Traffic runs to and from the south-east of England along the A2 (New Kent Road and Old Kent Road), the south of England on the A3, to the West End via St George's Road, and to the City of London via London Road and Newington Causeway at the northern junction. Newington Butts and Walworth Road adjoin the southern junction. The whole junction forms part of the London Inner Ring Road and part of the boundary of the London congestion charge zone.

The Elephant has two linked London Underground stations, on the Northern and Bakerloo lines, and a National Rail station served by Southeastern (Kentish Town to Sevenoaks via Catford) and Thameslink (suburban loop to Sutton and Wimbledon), and other Thameslink services to Kent.

Local buildings include Skipton House, part of the Department of Health; Perronet House, an award-winning residential block owned by Southwark Council; a large part of the London South Bank University campus; the London College of Communication; the Ministry of Sound nightclub; and the Metropolitan Tabernacle. The Cuming Museum is nearby on Walworth Road.

Shakespeare mentions the Elephant Lodgings in "Twelfth Night". In Act 3 Scene 3 Antonio says "In the south suburbs, at the Elephant, is best to lodge."[3] Although the play is set in Illyria in the Balkans, Shakespeare often used local London references. The theatres were all in Southwark, so Shakespeare's line may represent an advertisement for a local hostelry. "The Elephant" is a common present-day nickname for the Elephant and Castle.[4]

'Newington' is one of the most common place names in England (see Newington Green and Stoke Newington in north London), and from 1750 the area became more important and the informal name, from the pub at this junction, was adopted. Compare 'Angel' at Islington, or Bricklayers Arms, a short distance along New Kent Road.

The inn site was rebuilt in 1816 and again in 1898, and the present Elephant & Castle pub, at the junction of New Kent Road and Newington Causeway, was part of the 1960s comprehensive redevelopment.

An incorrect folk etymology states that "Elephant and Castle" is a corruption of "La Infanta de Castilla" - allegedly a reference to a series of Spanish princesses such as Eleanor of Castile and María, the daughter of Philip III of Spain. However, Eleanor of Castile was not an infanta (the term only appeared in English about 1600). María has a strong British connection because she was once controversially engaged to Charles I, but she had no connection with Castile. "Infanta de Castilla" therefore seems to be a conflation of two Iberian royals separated by 300 years.[2][5] However, Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII, was indeed an Infanta de Castille. She lived well into the 1500s so it is possible that the original name 'Elephant and Castle' is an anglicisation of her title.

Known previously as Newington (Newington Butts and Newington Causeway are two of the principal roads of the area), in the medieval period it was part of rural Surrey, in the manor of Walworth. This is listed in the Domesday Book as belonging to the Archbishop of Canterbury; the income from its rents and tithes supplied the monks at Christ Church Canterbury with their clothing, and a 'church' is mentioned.[6] The parish was called St Mary, Newington, which church occupied the southwest side of today's southern roundabout, near the Tabernacle, and was first recorded by name in 1222.[6]

In May 1557, William Morant, Stephen Gratwick and a man named King, known as the Southwark Martyrs, were burnt at the stake in St George's Field on the site of the present Tabernacle during the Marian Persecutions.[7]

St Mary's Church was rebuilt in 1720 and completely replaced in 1790, to a design of Francis Hurlbatt. Within another hundred years this too was to be demolished, with its replacement on Kennington Park Road ready in 1876.[8] It was destroyed by bombing in 1940 during the Second World War.[8] The remains of the tower and an arch were incorporated into its replacement of 1958. The open space is still known as St Mary's Churchyard, and the narrow pedestrian walk at its south end is Churchyard Row.

There is record of a 'hospital' before the Reformation. In 1601 the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers erected St Peter's Hospital, i.e. almshouses, on the site of the present London College of Communication. This expanded and survived until 1850, when it was removed to Wandsworth. The Drapers' livery company created Walters' Almshouses on a site now at the southern junction island in 1640, giving the tower block opposite the name Draper House. The almshouses were relocated to Brandon Street in the 1960s as part of the major redevelopment.

The area became increasingly important after the building of Westminster Bridge in 1751 and the improvements to London Bridge in the same period. These required 'by-pass' roads across the south side approaches to each other and also to the main routes to the south and southeast coasts. These road improvements - Great Dover Street, Westminster Bridge, New Kent Road, St George's Road and Borough Road - connect to the older Kennington and Old Kent Roads to facilitate this traffic. In 1769 the new Blackfriars Bridge was connected to this system at what is now St George's Circus and Blackfriars Road (originally Great Surrey Road) and to the Elephant junction with the new London Road. As a result of these improvements, the area became a built-up part of the metropolis during the late Georgian and Victorian periods.[9][10]

The railway arrived here in 1863 and the first deep-level tube line, now part of the Northern line's City Branch, in 1890. The Bakerloo line terminus was created in 1906.[11] Both the middle-class and working-class populations increased, the first settling on the major roads, the latter on the streets behind these. However, the area declined socially at the Walworth side.

In the 19th century the nationally famed Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon built the Metropolitan Tabernacle here.[12] The building, designed by William Wilmer Pocock,[12] was finished in 1861 and dedicated on 18 March. It was bombed in the blitz but the portico and basement survived and in 1957 the Tabernacle was rebuilt to a new but much smaller design accommodating surviving original features.

During the late 19th century there was a cemetery in the vicinity,[13] but it was built over during London's rapid expansion. A few gravestones remain in St. Mary's Churchyard.

The area became the location for a thriving shopping area, known as "the Piccadilly (Circus) of South London",[14] with its own department store (William Tarn and Co) and many smaller outlets. Also featured were a shoe factory, a branch of Burton and a renowned hatter.

In 1930, the Trocadero, a monumental neo-Renaissance style picture house seating over 3000 and fitted with the largest Wurlitzer organ imported to the United Kingdom, was built at the northern corner of the New Kent Road (a plaque commemorating the building was unveiled in 2008 by Denis Norden, who had worked there in his youth).[15] This was replaced in 1966 by a smaller cinema (the Odeon, known for a time after closure as an Odeon in 1982 as the Coronet, not to be confused with the Coronet below) which was demolished in 1988.

In 1932, another cinema opened across the street, The Coronet. It is now mostly used as a night-club and concert venue.[16] At the time it seated over 2000 people, and was an art-deco conversion of the Elephant and Castle theatre, opened in 1879 on the site of the short-lived Theatre Royal (built in 1872 and burnt down six years later). It was reconstructed in 1882 and again in 1902.

One monument to cinema still remains just off the Elephant, the Cinema Museum is a volunteer-run museum with screenings of classic cinema and a vast collection of cinema memorabilia. It is located in the old workhouse where Charlie Chaplin spent time as a child.

The Elephant was the centre of the target zone for the German air raids on London on 10 May 1941 and suffered "raging fires".[17][18]

The major development of the 1960s consisted of post-war reconstruction to a larger metropolitan plan, much of it replacing properties destroyed by bombing in World War II. Alexander Fleming House (1959), originally a group of government office blocks and now Metro Central Heights residential complex, is a prime example of the work of the Hungarian modernist architect Ernő Goldfinger.

The shopping centre, designed by Boissevain & Osmond for the Willets Group, was opened in March 1965. It was the first covered shopping mall in Europe,[19] with 120 shops on three levels and a two-storey underground car-park. In the sales brochure (1963), Willets claimed it to be the "largest and most ambitious shopping venture ever to be embarked upon in London. In design planning and vision it represents an entirely new approach to retailing, setting standards for the sixties that will revolutionise shopping concepts throughout Britain." When it opened, budget restrictions meant that the proportions and finishes of the building had had to be scaled down and only 29 out of a possible 120 shops were trading.

The Elephant is the location of the London College of Communication, formerly the London College of Printing, an internationally renowned dedicated college, part of University of the Arts London. The present structure was constructed during the redevelopment of the area in the early 1960s.

In 1974 the Brutalist Heygate Estate, designed by Tim Tinker,[20] was completed.[21] It was home to more than 3,000 people.[22] The estate was once a popular place to live, the flats being thought light and spacious,[23] but the estate later developed a reputation for crime, poverty and dilapidation.[24]

The Elephant was to have been served by the Cross-River Tram,[25] which was cancelled in 2008 due to budgetary constraints.[26]

In 2010, the southern roundabout was converted to traffic light operation, with the creation of new cycle lanes and pedestrian crossings.[27] This included the removal of the pedestrian subways, described as "unpopular and imtimidating" by a local councillor.[28]

However, in 2014 the Elephant & Castle junction was still "Britain’s highest cycle casualty roundabout",[29] prompting a TfL proposal to remove the northern roundabout as part of a £4bn package of road improvements targeting cyclists' safety.[30]TfL implemented its proposal in 2015, connecting the roundabout island to the shopping centre, thereby creating a new public space called Elephant Square.

In recent times the area has had a reputation for successful ethnic diversity and centrality. The area's proximity to major areas of employment, including Westminster, the West End and the City, has meant that a certain amount of gentrification has taken place[31]

The area is now subject to a master-planned redevelopment budgeted at £1.5 billion. A Development Framework was approved by Southwark Council in 2004. It covers 170 acres (688,000 m²) and envisages restoring the Elephant to the role of major urban hub for inner South London that it occupied before World War II.[32]

A substantial amount of post-World War II social housing that is deemed to have failed will be demolished, including the Heygate Estate, replaced with developments consisting of a mix of social and private-sector housing. This portion of the site is being developed by Lend Lease. There have also been moves to protect the last of the architecturally important tenement blocks nearby through the creation of a conservation area covering the Pullens buildings.

As of 2014, numerous tall residential buildings have been approved or are under construction, in addition to the 148m Strata SE1 tower completed in 2010. These include One The Elephant (124m),[33] the built-for-rent Highpoint (previously called 360 London) (134m)[34][35] and "Two Fifty One" (on the site of Eileen House) (134m)[36] and "Elephant 1" (a complex of three high-rise buildings on a "podium", formerly known as Oakmayne Plaza and later Tribeca Square).[37] Southwark Council is also building a new leisure centre due to open in 2015, to replace the previous Castle centre, which closed in 2012.[38]

In 2015, after several u-turns from the previous owner, the new owners of the shopping centre, Delancey, announced that the building would be demolished and published redevelopment plans to be completed by the early 2020s. The scheme includes a new home for the nearby London College of Communication on the current site of the Coronet Theatre, a cinema (originally planned for the "Elephant 1" development), retail units and housing.[39]

London's growing Latin American population, which has largely resided at the Elephant since the 1980s, are also taking part in the regeneration project. Plans are being made to build new shops and homes to transform it into a "Latin American corridor".[40][41]

In the middle of the former northern roundabout, now Elephant Square, is the Michael Faraday Memorial, a large stainless steel box built in honour of Michael Faraday, who was born nearby. It contains an electrical substation for the Northern line of the London Underground.

Famous former residents include Charlie Chaplin[42] and Michael Caine, who were born and grew up locally.[43]

Gay rights activist Peter Tatchell lives on the Rockingham Estate, where the Council installed a blue plaque in his name in 2010.[44]

The rock band The Maccabbees has its studio nearby, while its 4th album, Marks to Prove It, released on 31 July 2015, pays tribute to the area.[45]

Elephant & Castle is served by London Buses routes 1, 12, 35, 40, 45, 53, 63, 68, 133, 136, 148, 155, 168, 171, 172, 176, 188, 196, 333, 343, 344, 360, 363, 388, 415, 453, 468, C10, P5, N1, N35, N63, N68, N89, N133, N155, N171 and N343.

London Underground Bakerloo and Northern lines serve the area from Elephant & Castle Station.

Southeastern and Thameslink services towards Ashford International, Bedford, Dover Priory, London Blackfriars, Luton, Sevenoaks, St Albans City, St Pancras, Sutton, West Hampstead and Wimbledon serve the area.


who build grand trunk road from sonargaon to indus

Research indicates that the Grand Trunk road predated even Buddha's birth and was called Uttara Path, meaning, road to the North. Salman Rashid attributes the Road's construction to Chandragupta Maurya.[9] During the time of the Maurya Empire in the 3rd century BCE, overland trade between India and several parts of Western Asia and the Hellenistic world went through the cities of the north-west, primarily Takshashila (in present-day in Pakistan). Takshashila was well connected by roads with other parts of the Maurya empire. The Mauryas had maintained this very ancient highway from Takshashila to Pataliputra (present-day Patna in India). Chandragupta Maurya had a whole army of officials overseeing the maintenance of this road as told by the Greek diplomat Megasthenes who spent fifteen years at the Mauryan court. Constructed in eight stages, this road is said to have connected the cities of Purushapura, Takshashila, Hastinapura, Kanyakubja, Prayag, Pataliputra and Tamralipta, a distance of around 2600 kilometers.[6]

Grand Trunk Road

The Grand Trunk Road is one of Asia's oldest and longest major roads.[2]  For more than two millennia, it has linked South Asia with Central Asia. It runs from Chittagong, Bangladesh[3][4] west to Howrah, West Bengal in India, then across Northern India through Delhi, passing from Amritsar. From there, the road continues towards Lahore and Peshawar in Pakistan, finally terminating in Kabul, Afghanistan.[5]

The route spanning the Grand Trunk (GT) road existed during the reign of Chandragupta Maurya, extending from the mouth of the Ganges to the north-western frontier of the Empire.[6]  The predecessor of the modern road was rebuilt by Sher Shah Suri, who renovated and extended the ancient Mauryan route in the 16th century.[7]  The road was considerably upgraded in the British period between 1833 and 1860.[8]

It coincides with current N1 (Chittagong to Dhaka), N4 & N405 (Dhaka to Sirajganj), N507 (Sirajganj to Natore) and N6 (Natore to Rajshai towards Purnea in India) in Bangladesh; NH 12 (Rajshahi to Purnea), NH 27 (Purnea to Patna), NH 19 (Patna to Agra), NH 44 (Agra to Jalandhar via New Delhi, Sonipat, Ambala and Ludhiana) and NH 3 (Jalandhar to Attari, Amritsar towards Lahore in Pakistan) in India; N-5 (Lahore, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Jhelum, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Khyber Pass towards Jalalabad in Afghanistan) in Pakistan and AH1 (Torkham-Jalalabad to Kabul) in Afghanistan.

Sher Shah however remains the only mentioned person as the builder of what is now the complete stretch of GT Road, which was referred to as Shah Rah e Azam (Urdu: شاہراہ اعظم or The Great Road). During his reign, Caravanserais were built and trees were planted along the entire stretch on both sides of the road to provide shade to travelers. Wells were also dug, especially along the Taxila section. The Mughuls later extended the road further east to Chittagong and west to Kabul and referred to the road as Sarak e Azam (Urdu: سڑک اعظم, also meaning The Great Road).[10]

In the 1830's the East India Company started a programme of metalled road construction, for both commercial and administrative purposes. The Grand trunk road, from Calcutta, through Delhi, to Peshawar (present-day Pakistan) was rebuilt at a cost of Â£1000 / mile, and a Public Works Department, and the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee founded, to train and employ local surveyors, engineers, and overseers, to perform the work, and in future maintain it and other roads[11][12].

Over the centuries, the road acted as one of the major trade routes in the region and facilitated both travel and postal communication. The Grand Trunk Road is still used for transportation in present-day India, where parts of the road have been widened and included in the national highway system, retaining the old name.[13]

GT Road is mentioned in a number of literary works including those of Foster and Rudyard Kipling. Kipling described the road as: "Look! Look again! and chumars, bankers and tinkers, barbers and bunnias, pilgrims – and potters – all the world going and coming. It is to me as a river from which I am withdrawn like a log after a flood. And truly the Grand Trunk Road is a wonderful spectacle. It runs straight, bearing without crowding India's traffic for fifteen hundred miles – such a river of life as nowhere else exists in the world."[14]

Distribution of the Edicts and Pillars of Ashoka along the GT road

Ashokan pillar currently at Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi was moved from Topra Kalan in Yamunanagar district

Kushan-era Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya along GT road

Mughal era Kos Minar along GT road at Taraori in Karnal district

GT Road near Barhi, Jharkhand, India.

Jalalabad–Kabul Road, Afghanistan, is western-most, and most dangerous, stretch of the GT Road

Mountain pass on the Kabul Jalalabad Highway

GT Road above the River Jhelum in Pakistan.

G.T. Road in Lahore

Original GT Road passing through Margalla Hills to Kala Chitta Range

Newly realigned G T Road passing by the westernmost point of Margalla Hills near Islamabad to Kala Chitta Range


where does candia nh go to high school

Candia is part of School Administrative Unit 15, along with Hooksett and Auburn. There is one public school in Candia, the Henry W. Moore School for kindergarten through eighth grade, located near the Candia Four Corners on Deerfield Road. High school education students from Candia attend school outside of the district, currently under contract at Manchester Central High School, but are also in transition for a choice between the Manchester Central and Pinkerton Academy in Derry.[citation needed] Candia is also home to Jesse Remington High School, a private Christian school that offers grades 9-12. Some Candia residents send their children to other private high schools in the area, including Trinity High School in Manchester.

Candia, New Hampshire

Candia is a town in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 3,909 at the 2010 census.[1] The town includes the villages of Candia, Candia Four Corners and East Candia.

Settled in 1743, Candia was once part of Chester and known as "Charmingfare", probably because of the many bridle paths or "parades" through the pleasant scenery. Charmingfare was incorporated in 1763 and named "Candia" by Colonial Governor Benning Wentworth, possibly after the old name under Venetian domination of the principal city of Crete, which he had visited after graduation from Harvard.[citation needed] Another account holds, "The town received its present name in compliment to Governor Benning Wentworth, who was once a prisoner on the island of Candia, in the Mediterranean Sea."[2]

Candia was served by the Portsmouth & Concord Railroad, which stretched between its namesake cities. In 1862 the segment between Candia and Suncook was abandoned, coinciding with the opening of a new segment between Manchester and Candia. Therefore, the new line ran from Manchester to Portsmouth via Candia. In 1895 ownership of the line passed to the Boston & Maine Railroad who made it their Portsmouth Branch. Passenger service ended in 1954. The last trains passed through Candia in the early 1980s. The track was abandoned in 1982 and removed between 1983 and 1985. Today the railbed is part of the Rockingham Recreational Trail.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 30.6 square miles (79 km2). 30.3 square miles (78 km2) of it is land and 0.2 square miles (0.52 km2) of it is water, comprising 0.79% of the town. The town is bordered by Deerfield to the north, Hooksett (in Merrimack County) to the west, Auburn and Chester to the south, and Raymond to the east. Notable villages in the town include Candia proper, near the town's northern border; Candia Four Corners, closer to the geographic center of the town; and East Candia, near the town's eastern border.

Candia is drained by the North Branch River, a tributary of the Lamprey River. The town lies almost fully within the Piscataqua River watershed except for the western and southern edges, which are in the Merrimack River watershed.[3] The highest point in town is Hall Mountain, at 941 feet (287Â m) above sea level, located in Bear Brook State Park in the northwestern part of the town. (The main entrance to the state park and most of its facilities are in neighboring Allenstown.)

Candia is bisected by two state highways, Route 43 running north from Route 101 through the Candia Four Corners to the Deerfield town line, and Route 27, running east/west from the Hooksett town line through the Candia Four Corners to the Raymond town line. Route 101 is the major east/west thoroughfare through southern New Hampshire and travels through the south part of Candia.

As of the census[6] of 2000, there were 3,911 people, 1,359 households, and 1,108 families residing in the town. The population density was 129.0 per square mile (49.8/km²). There were 1,384 housing units at an average density of 45.6 per square mile (17.6/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 98.11% White, 0.43% African American, 0.46% Native American, 0.59% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.10% from other races, and 0.28% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.87% of the population.

There were 1,359 households out of which 40.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 72.0% were married couples living together, 5.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 18.4% were non-families. 12.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 3.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.88 and the average family size was 3.14.

In the town, the population was spread out with 26.6% under the age of 18, 6.0% from 18 to 24, 33.6% from 25 to 44, 26.5% from 45 to 64, and 7.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females there were 102.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 102.0 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $61,389, and the median income for a family was $67,163. Males had a median income of $43,260 versus $31,127 for females. The per capita income for the town was $25,267. About 2.3% of families and 2.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.3% of those under age 18 and 5.3% of those age 65 or over.

McDonald Mill c. 1915

Gate, Candia Congregational Cemetery

Fire and Emergency Medical Services are provided by the Candia Volunteer Fire Department,[7] an all-volunteer department organized in 1925. This department provides fire suppression, rescue, and first-responder Emergency Medical Services to the citizens of Candia and the surrounding communities. The closest hospitals are the Elliot Hospital, a Level Two trauma center, and Catholic Medical Center, one of the most advanced cardiac care centers in New England. Both of these facilities are located approximately 20 minutes away in Manchester. Exeter Hospital[8] is also located about 20 minutes away in Exeter.

Police protection is provided by the Candia Police Department, assisted by the New Hampshire State Police and other local municipal police departments.