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INFORM DIGEST

JANUARY 2012. INFORM DIGEST. Pages. 1 . Land of traditions 2. Unusual customs calendar anniversaries 3. Interesting to know 4. Famous people. LAND OF TRADITIONS. CHANGING of the GUARD

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INFORM DIGEST

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  1. JANUARY 2012 INFORM DIGEST

  2. Pages 1. Land of traditions 2. Unusual customs calendar anniversaries 3. Interesting to know 4. Famous people

  3. LAND OF TRADITIONS CHANGING of the GUARD Outside Buckingham Palace, you can see guardsmen dressed in their bright red uniforms and bearskin hats. These guardsmen protect the Queen. Every day a new guard of thirty guardsmen marches to the palace and takes the place of the "old guard". This is known as the Changing of the Guards ceremony and it dates back to 1660. The monarch and the royal palaces have been guarded by the Household Troops since 1660. Ceremony of the Keys • One of London’s most timeless ceremonies, dating back 700 years is the ceremony of the keys which takes place at the Tower of London. At 21:53 each night the Chief Yeoman Warder of the Tower, dressed in Tudor uniform, sets off to meet the Escort of the Key dressed in the well-known Beefeater uniform. Together they tour the various gates ceremonially locking them, on returning to the Bloody Tower archway they are challenged by a sentry. • "Who goes there?" • "The Keys." answers The Chief Warder • "Whose Keys?" the sentry demands. • "Queen Elizabeth's Keys." • "Pass Queen Elizabeth's Keys.’’ • “ All's well.“ • “God preserve Queen Elizabeth.” • “Amen!” • A trumpeter then sounds the Last Post before the keys are secured in the Queen’s House.

  4. Unusual Customs Calendar Anniversaries In January 1st - The London Credit Exchange Company issued the first traveler’s checks in 1772. 1st - The BBС began broadcasting its first programmes in 1927. 1st - Traffic policemen were introduced in Great Britain in 1931. 2nd - On this date in 1770, a huge Christmas pie was baked for holiday consumption in London. It was nearly nine feet in circumference at bottom, weigh about twelve tone." 9th - Income Tax was first introduced, at two shillings in the pound. 10th - The London Underground began operating in 1863. 11th -The first televised weather broadcast featuring a presenter on screen was transmitted from the BBC's Lime Grove Studios in 1954 11th - Charring Cross Station, London, opened in 1864 14th - Motorists were required by law to wear seat belts in 1986 17th - Robert Scott and his party reached the South Pole in 1912 18th - A.A. Milne was born in 1882. English author of Winnie the Pooh stories. 21st - The BBC in London made its first world broadcast in 1930 25th - Robert Burns was born 1759 26th - Australia Day 27th - Mozart born in 1756 in Austria. One of the world's greatest music composers. 28th - On the evening of this day in 1807 London's Pall Mall became the first street in the world to be lit by gas lights 29th - The Victoria Cross originated from this date in 1856. The medals were made from the metals of guns captured in the Crimea.

  5. INTERESTING TO KNOW Facts about January Gemstone: Garnet Flower: Carnation The beginning of the new year and the time to make New Year resolutions. January was established as the first month of the year by the Roman Calendar. It was named after the god Janus (Latin word for door). Janus has two faces which allowed him to look both backwards into the old year and forwards into the new one at the same time. He was the 'spirit of the opening'. In the very earliest Roman calendars there were no months of January or February at all. The ancient Roman calendar had only ten months and the new year started the year on 1 March. To the Romans, ten was a very important number. Even when January (or Januarius as the Romans called it) was added, the New Year continued to start in March. It remained so in England and her colonies until about 200 years ago. The Anglo-Saxons called the first month Wolf month because wolves came into the villages in winter in search of food.

  6. New Year's Eve customs and traditions • New Year's Day is the first day of the year, in the Gregorian calendar. In modern times, it is the 1st January. It is a time for looking forward and wishing for a good year ahead. It is also a holiday. • People welcome in the New Year on the night before. This is called New Year's Eve. In Scotland, people celebrate with a lively festival called Hogmanay. All over Britain there are parties, fireworks, singing and dancing, to ring out the old year and ring in the new. As the clock - Big Ben - strikes midnight, people link arms and sing a song called Auld Lang Syne. It reminds them of old and new friends. • The Door Custom • In the old days, the New Year started with a custom called 'first footing', which was suppose to bring good luck to people for the coming year. As soon as midnight had passed and January 1st had started, people used to wait behind their doors for a dark haired person to arrive. The visitor carried a piece of coal, some bread, some money and some greenery. These were all for good luck - the coal to make sure that the house would always be warm, the bread to make sure everyone in the house would have enough food to eat, money so that they would have enough money, and the greenery to make sure that they had a long life. • The visitor would then take a pan of dust or ashes out of the house with him, thus signifying the departure of the old year.

  7. FAMOUS PEOPLE Wolfgang AmadeusMozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (German: baptismal name Johannes ChrysostomusWolfgangusTheophilus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers. Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position, always composing abundantly. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of Mozart's death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons. Mozart learned voraciously from others, and developed a brilliance and maturity of style that encompassed the light and graceful along with the dark and passionate. His influence on subsequent Western art music is profound. Beethoven wrote his own early compositions in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years."

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