Transcript Document

JANUARY
2012
Pages
1. Land of traditions
2. Unusual customs
calendar anniversaries
3. Interesting to know
4. Famous people
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (German: baptismal name Johannes
Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus 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 bestknown 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."