title: Stevenage

text: Stevenage's prosperity came in part from the Great North Road, which was turnpiked in the early 18th century on the site of the Marquess of Granby pub. Many inns in the High Street served the stagecoaches, 21 of which passed through Stevenage each day in 1800. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the road now known as Six Hills Way was the haunt of highwaymen who would use the ancient burial mounds as a hiding place. James Whitney, the namesake of the Highwayman pub in Graveley, was hanged at Newgate in 1693 for robbing travellers in this area.


title: Stevenage

text: On 10 July 1807, the Great Fire of Stevenage destroyed 42 properties in Middle Row, including Hellard's almshouse of 1501. The fire is believed to have been started when a young girl employed as a chambermaid at one of the coaching inns emptied embers from the fireplace into the street. Sparks from the embers ignited the thatched roof of a nearby wheelwright's shop, and quickly engulfed the other timber framed buildings in the north end of the Old Town due to a strong North wind. The conflagration was only stopped from engulfing the entire street by demolishing a house to serve as a firebreak. After the fire was extinguished by Stevenage's volunteer firefighters using a hand-operated fire engine made in 1763, the houses and inns were rebuilt with brick facades and tiled roofs. Troopers from the Hertfordshire Yeomanry assisted the firefighters in the operation.


title: Stevenage

text: In 1850 the Great Northern Railway was constructed and the era of the stagecoach ended. Stevenage grew only slowly throughout the 19th century and a second church (Holy Trinity) was constructed at the south end of the High Street. In 1861 Dickens commented, "The village street was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent for its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. The quietest little dwellings with the largest of window-shutters to shut up nothing as if it were the Mint or the Bank of England."


title: Stevenage

text: At the turn of the century, the twin poachers Albert and Ebenezer Fox were active in the area. While in jail, they were studied by police commissioner Edward Henry to confirm his theory on the usefulness of fingerprinting in forensic science.


title: Stevenage

text: In 1928 Philip Vincent bought the HRD Motorcycle Co Ltd out of receivership, immediately moving it to Stevenage and renaming it the Vincent HRD Motorcycle Co Ltd. He produced the legendary motorcycles, including the Black Shadow and Black Lightning, in the town until 1955.


title: Stevenage

text: Slow growth in Stevenage continued until just after the Second World War, when the Abercrombie Plan called for the establishment of a ring of new towns around London. On 1 August 1946, Stevenage was designated the first New Town under the New Towns Act.


title: Stevenage

text: The plan was not popular and local people protested at a meeting held in the town hall before Lewis Silkin, minister in the Labour Government of Clement Attlee. As Lewis Silkin arrived at the railway station for this meeting, some local people had changed the signs 'Stevenage' to 'Silkingrad'. Silkin was obstinate at the meeting, telling a crowd of 3,000 people outside the town hall (around half the town's residents): "It's no good your jeering, it's going to be done." Despite the hostile reaction to Silkin and a referendum that showed 52% (turnout 2,500) 'entirely against' the expansion, the plan went ahead. The first significant building to be demolished to make way for a gyratory system was the Old Town Hall, in which the opposition had been expressed, in 1974.


title: Stevenage

text: In 1949 the radical town planner Dr Monica Felton became Chairman of the Stevenage Development Corporation but she was sacked within two years. There were a number of reasons for her dismissal by the government but a lack of hands-on town planning leadership and her opposition to the Korean War (for which she was later awarded the Lenin Peace Prize) sullied her reputation. Felton was replaced first by Allan Duff and later Thomas Bennett, who carried the project to completion. Gordon Stephenson was the planner, Peter Shepheard the architect, and Eric Claxton the engineer. Claxton took the attitude that the new town should separate bicycles from the automobile as much as possible. Mary Tabor was the Housing Director of Stevenage New Town from 1951 until 1972. Tabor was a member of the Society of Women Housing Managers, which was founded by women trained under Octavia Hill. Mary Tabor, with the support of more than 40 housing management staff by 1960, provided a notably personal and caring service to tenants of the town. Many early residents of the town would recall with gratitude how much she had done for them and the town as a whole.


title: Stevenage

text: In May 1953, Sir Roydon Dash took over the position of chairman from Bennett. In 1962, Sir Arthur Rucker was appointed Chairman of the Stevenage Development Corporation, retiring from the position in 1966. He was succeeded by Evelyn Denington, Baroness Denington, who joined the Board in 1950. Denington remained the chairman until the dissolution of the Corporation in 1980. Having become a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1974, Denington was elevated to the peerage in 1978, choosing to assume the title of Baroness Denington of Stevenage.


title: Stevenage

text: In keeping with the sociological outlook of the day, the town was planned with six self-contained neighbourhoods. The first two of these to be occupied were the Stoney Hall and Monks Wood 'Estates', in 1951. The "Twin Foxes" pub, on the Monks Wood estate, was Stevenage's first 'new' public house and was named after local notorious identical-twin poachers (Albert and Ebenezer Fox). It closed in 2017. At least two other public houses have a direct relationship to local history. The "Edward the Confessor" pub (closed 2006) could have had a connection to St Mary's Church in nearby Walkern as King Edward reigned from 1042 until his death in 1066 and Walkern's church dates from this period. The second pub with a link to local history is the "Our Mutual Friend" in Broadwater. The name of the pub is the title of a novel by Charles Dickens. Dickens was an occasional guest of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton in nearby Knebworth House and knew Stevenage very well.


title: Stevenage

text: Next to be built and occupied were the neighbourhoods of Bedwell in 1952, and then came Broadwater and Shephall (1953), Chells in the 1960s and later Pin Green and Symonds Green. Another new development to the north of the town is Great Ashby. it was still under construction. The Government gave almost £2 million for a purpose-built homeless shelter, which will serve a large part of Hertfordshire.


title: Stevenage

text: Adjacent to, yet separate from, the residential parts of the town is the Industrial Area. For many years British Aerospace (now MBDA) was the largest employer in the town but now GSK has a large pharmaceutical research laboratory complex (which is known as 'The Palace' to many of its inhabitants). A smaller but interesting enterprise is Astrium, which for some decades (as part of British Aerospace and its predecessors) has manufactured spacecraft, both as prime contractor and as equipment supplier.


title: Stevenage

text: There are many small- to medium-size firms as well. Stevenage BioScience Catalyst, a new science park aimed at attracting small and start-up life-sciences enterprises, opened in 2011 on a site next to GSK.


title: Stevenage

text: The pedestrianised town centre was the first purpose-built traffic-free shopping zone in Britain, taking its inspiration from the Lijnbaan in Rotterdam, and was officially opened in 1959 by the Queen. A landmark in the town centre is the clock tower and ornamental pool. Nearby is "Joyride", a mother and child sculpture by Franta Belsky.


title: Stevenage

text: Next to the Town Garden, the Church of St Andrew and St George is an example of modern church design and has housed Stevenage Museum in its crypt since 1976. The church is a Grade 2 listed building. It is also the largest parish church to have been built in England since World War Two. Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother laid the foundation stone in July 1956 and was also present at the consecration of the Bishop of St Alban's, the Right Reverend Michael Gresford-Jones, on Advent Sunday 27 November 1960. The frame is constructed from a continuous pour of concrete into moulds, creating interlacing arches and leaving no apparent joints. There are twelve Purbeck-marble columns around the high altar and the external walls are clad in panels faced with Normandy pebble. The campanile houses the loudspeakers for an electro-acoustic carillon. A popular sculpture, 'The Urban Elephant' by Andrew Burton, was commissioned in 1992.


title: Stevenage

text: Although revolutionary for its time, the town centre is showing signs of age and, in 2005, plans were revealed for a major regeneration to take place over the next decade. Details are still being debated by the council, landowners and other interested parties.


title: Stevenage

text: Multimillion-pound plans to redevelop Stevenage town centre were scrapped owing to the financial crisis of 2007–08 and the lack of interested private-sector partners. On 24 May 2012 Stevenage Borough Council announced that a £250m scheme for the shopping area has been pulled by Stevenage Regeneration Limited (SRL) because of the continuing adverse economic conditions. The plans, which included realigning streets, moving the bus station and building a new department store, cinema, hotel, restaurants, and flats, had been given council planning approval in January 2012.


title: Stevenage

text: Stevenage holds a number of annual events, including Stevenage Day and Rock in the Park. In past years Stevenage Carnival has also been held, with a number of attempts to revive it. In June 2022, Stevenage Day returned to the King George Playing Fields to celebrate the platinum jubilee of Elizabeth II. It was the first carnival held in Stevenage since 2019, due to the coronavirus pandemic.


title: Stevenage

text: The Town Centre Regeneration Strategy (2002) called for better-quality shops (including a major department store), improved public transport with a combined bus and rail interchange, high-density town-centre living, substantially improved civic facilities, increased office space and an improved 'public realm'. YMCA Space Stevenage (a youth and community centre) was evicted and replaced by Paddy Power (a betting shop). Other well-known stores, such as Maplin Electronics, and Marks & Spencer have also disappeared from Stevenage town centre.


title: Stevenage

text: The town has a large central library in Southgate, at the southern end of the pedestrian precinct, with facilities including printing, fax and photocopying, children's events, study space, a carers' information point and a large public computer suite, as well as a small branch library at the northern end of the High Street in the Old Town. There is also a public library in nearby Knebworth, located in St Martin's Road.


title: Stevenage

text: The town is still growing. It is set to expand west of the A1(M) motorway and may be further identified for development. The main area of more recent development is Great Ashby to the north-east of the town (but actually in North Hertfordshire District). A considerable amount of in-borough development has been undertaken at Chrysalis Park on the old Dixon's Warehouse site adjacent to the Pin Green Industrial Estate.


title: Stevenage

text: The town and the Stevenage First partnership has now launched a new, £1bn, 20-year regeneration programme designed to transform central spaces and introduce new residential, commercial and retail facilities, amongst others. The programme is formed of a number of individual schemes including the £350m ‘SG1’ programme being led by Mace and the £50m redevelopment of Queensway North, the former site of Marks & Spencer. In addition, Stevenage's Town Square is also being regenerated with new bars, restaurants, flexible working facilities and shops being introduced to the area. The plans are based on the local government authority's Local Plan which was given approval on 26 March 2019. The town is also introducing a new public services hub which will consolidate services that are currently spread across Stevenage into one central space and relocating its existing bus interchange to a site closer to the railway station. A number of other developments, including the conversion of a series of commercial spaces into residential facilities, are already completed or underway with a series of additional programmes set to launch in the coming years.


title: Stevenage

text: Stevenage experiences an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification "Cfb") similar to almost all of the United Kingdom.


title: Stevenage

text: Stevenage was an ancient parish in the hundred of Broadwater. From 1835 Stevenage was included in the Hitchin Poor Law Union. As such it became part of the Hitchin Rural Sanitary District in 1872, with local government functions passing to the Hitchin Board of Guardians. The following year the town voted to become a Local Government District governed by a Local Board, which would have the effect of also making the town an Urban Sanitary District, independent of the Hitchin Rural Sanitary District. The Stevenage Local Government District took effect on 2 October 1873, covering the whole parish of Stevenage. The first meeting of the Stevenage Local Board was held on 4 December 1873 at the recently built Town Hall on Orchard Road. The first chairman of the board was George Becher Blomfield, who was the rector of the town's parish church of St Nicholas.


title: Stevenage

text: Under the Local Government Act 1894, the Local Board became Stevenage Urban District Council on 31 December 1894. Stevenage Urban District was enlarged several times, notably in 1953 when it absorbed the neighbouring parish of Shephall. Until 1964 the council met at the Town Hall on Orchard Road. With the designation of the New Town, several plans for a civic centre in the new town centre were put forward, but none came to fruition. In September 1964, the council moved its offices and meeting place to a recently-built office building in the new town centre called Southgate House (later renamed Vista Tower). The old Town Hall was demolished shortly afterwards to make way for Lytton Way. The council was based at Southgate House until 1980, when it moved to Daneshill House, which had previously been the headquarters of the New Town Corporation.


title: Stevenage

text: The Local Government Act 1972 reconstituted Stevenage Urban District as a non-metropolitan district with effect from 1 April 1974. The town was awarded borough status on the same date and has been governed by Stevenage Borough Council since.


title: Stevenage

text: The population of Stevenage increased significantly during the 20th century. Little more than a large village at the start of the 19th century, the population in 1801 was 1,430. By 1901, Stevenage opened the 20th century with a population of 4,048.


title: Stevenage

text: After Stevenage was designated a new town under the New Towns Act of 1946, the population exploded in the 1950s and 1960s. By the start of the 21st century, the 2001 population had grown to 79,715 reaching 83,957 a decade later (2011). the population is estimated at 87,100.


title: Stevenage

text: King George's Field, named in memory of King George V, hosts Stevenage Cricket Club, Stevenage Hockey Club and Stevenage Town Bowls Club. The cricket ground is called Ditchmore Lane. The nearby Stevenage Leisure Park has a multiplex cinema, clubs, and restaurants. The main shopping area is around Queensway and the Westgate. At the south of the town, there is a retail park called Roaring Meg, which takes its name from a stream (a tributary of the River Beane) that runs under it. The river can be seen along the western edge of the area. There is also shopping in the Old Town. The Roaring Meg had an ice rink and bowling alley, but these were demolished in 2000 to allow the construction of more stores.


title: Stevenage

text: Stevenage FC, formerly known as Stevenage Borough, is the town's major football team, playing their home matches at Broadhall Way. Founded in 1976, the club were promoted to the Football Conference, the highest tier of non-league football, in 1994. After sixteen seasons in this division, Stevenage won the Conference Premier title during the 2009–10 season, having previously been denied promotion to the Football League due to insufficient ground facilities in 1996. During Stevenage's first season as a Football League club, they secured back-to-back promotions to League One, the third tier of English football, after beating Torquay United 1–0 in the 2010–11 play-off final at Old Trafford. The club also won the FA Trophy in 2007 beating Kidderminster Harriers 3–2 at Wembley Stadium in front of a crowd of 53,262. It was the first competitive club game and cup final to be held at the new stadium. Stevenage reached the final again in 2009, beating York City 2–0. The club has also enjoyed several runs in the FA Cup, raising the town's profile in the process. During the 1997–98 campaign, Stevenage held Premier League side Newcastle United to a draw at Broadhall Way, before losing the replay 2–1 at Newcastle. The club would go one better in 2010, securing a 3–1 home victory over Newcastle in the third round of the competition – the first time the club had beaten first tier opposition. The following season, Stevenage held Tottenham Hotspur to a 0–0 draw at home in the fifth round, before losing the subsequent replay 3–1 at White Hart Lane.


title: Stevenage

text: The town also has a number of other successful sports clubs, including a women's football team (Stevenage Borough Ladies FC) and Stevenage Town Rugby Club. Many top class sporting heroes have come from Stevenage, the most notable being footballers Kevin Phillips and Ashley Young, seven-time Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton, and golfer Ian Poulter.


title: Stevenage

text: Fairlands Valley is a large area of parkland with boating lakes. The town is a very green town, with avenues of trees (typically Norway Maple) throughout but also large woods such as Monks & Whomerley Wood, which is ancient semi-natural woodland. Indeed, the Woodland Trust ranks it as one of the best places in the UK for ease of access to large woodland, with 99.9% of the population having access to woodland over within , only slightly behind those living in the Forest of Dean or New Forest. There are also many playing fields (e.g. St. Nicholas playing fields near Ripon Road). The town's schools all have a substantial amount of ground; key examples are Ashtree Primary School, Moss Bury Primary School, Longmeadow Primary School and Barnwell.


title: Stevenage

text: The town is surrounded by the Stevenage Outer Orbital Path (STOOP), a circuit walk established by the North Herts Ramblers Group in 2008. The circuit provides an informal, active recreational leisure amenity readily available to the residents of Stevenage and the surrounding villages. The STOOP is split into several sections, accessible via a series of links from the town. The route passes through Graveley, Walkern, Beane Valley, Datchworth, Woolmer Green, Knebworth Park, St Ippolyts and Little Wymondley. It was launched on 20 September 2008.


title: Stevenage

text: A small community arts centre is located in the Roaring Meg Retail Park. The Boxfield and Foyer Gallery is situated in the Gordon Craig Theatre, which forms part of the large central Leisure Centre. Stevenage Museum is located under the St. Andrew and St. George's church on St George's Way


title: Stevenage

text: North of Stevenage Old Town, near St Nicholas' Church, lies Rooks' Nest ("under the big wych-elm"), home of the novelist E. M. Forster from 1884 to 1894. Forster used Rooksnest and the surrounding area as the setting for his novel "Howards End". In the preface to one paperback edition of "Howards End" there is a lot to be found about landmarks of Stevenage and their relationship to the story of the novel, such as Stevenage High Street and the Six Hills. The land north of St Nicholas' Church, known as Forster Country, is the last remaining farmland within the boundary of Stevenage borough. Forster was unhappy with the development of new Stevenage, which would, in his words, "fall out of the blue sky like a meteorite upon the ancient and delicate scenery of Hertfordshire".


title: Stevenage

text: To the south of Stevenage is Knebworth House, a gothic stately home and venue of globally renowned rock concerts since 1974. The house was once home to Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Victorian English novelist and spiritualist.


title: Stevenage

text: A distinctive feature of Stevenage is its urban landscape. There are many roundabouts, few traffic lights, a network of completely segregated cycleways, and some of the tallest street lights in Britain. Eric Claxton was chief engineer of Stevenage from 1962 to 1972, and the comprehensive separate cycle network was planned and implemented by him during that period. Despite this network, the bike mode share is 2.7%. Claxton was also of the view that Stevenage should contain as few traffic lights as possible, hence his preference for roundabouts to regulate traffic flow. He was so adamant about roundabouts that he had a house built for himself on the gyratory system in the Old Town.


title: Stevenage

text: The A1(M) motorway bypasses the town to the west. The old Great North Road, in part classified as the B197, runs through the town and the Old Town's High Street has several pubs that were formerly coaching inns. The A602 connects the town to Hitchin, Watton-at-Stone, Hertford and Ware.


title: Stevenage

text: The main bus operator is Arriva The Shires. Other operators include Centrebus, Uno, Cozy Travel and Trusty Bus.


title: Stevenage

text: Stevenage railway station on the East Coast Main Line has regular commuter services to (taking 24 minutes) and (taking 37 minutes), as well as connections to northern England and Scotland.


title: Stevenage

text: Many schools were built in the 1950s/60s due to an influx of Londoners to affordable terraced housing in areas such as Shephall, Broadwater, Chells and St Nicholas. The town has around 23 primary schools (see below). Some go to the surrounding villages of Aston, Benington, Walkern, Datchworth for their schooling. Stevenage also has a number of secondary schools and the central campus for North Hertfordshire College.


title: Stevenage

text: Stevenage has an active network of Christian churches of many denominations. Many of the churches work together for town-wide projects under the banner of "Churches Together in Stevenage". Stevenage also has a mosque and a Liberal Jewish Synagogue. Alongside "Churches Together in Stevenage", Stevenage also has an "Interfaith Forum" dedicated to dialogue between different religious presences in the town.


title: Stevenage

text: Stevenage was the setting for two feature films, "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" (1967) and "Boston Kickout" (1995). Stevenage was the filming location, though not the on-screen setting, for two other films, "Serious Charge" (1959) and "Spy Game" (2001), standing in as the Washington, D.C. area for the latter film. The 2018 Channel 4 comedy series, "Lee and Dean", is filmed and set in Stevenage. The 2015 BBC One comedy series The Kennedys is set on an estate in New Town Stevenage. In one episode of UK quiz show Only Connect, one of the contestants made a frivolous mention of Stevenage, playfully suggesting that that could be where the literary character Mrs Malaprop comes from.


title: Reducing sugar

text: A reducing sugar is any sugar that is capable of acting as a reducing agent. In an alkaline solution, a reducing sugar forms some aldehyde or ketone, which allows it to act as a reducing agent, for example in Benedict's reagent. In such a reaction, the sugar becomes a carboxylic acid.


title: Reducing sugar

text: All monosaccharides are reducing sugars, along with some disaccharides, some oligosaccharides, and some polysaccharides. The monosaccharides can be divided into two groups: the aldoses, which have an aldehyde group, and the ketoses, which have a ketone group. Ketoses must first tautomerize to aldoses before they can act as reducing sugars. The common dietary monosaccharides galactose, glucose and fructose are all reducing sugars.


title: Reducing sugar

text: Disaccharides are formed from two monosaccharides and can be classified as either reducing or nonreducing. Nonreducing disaccharides like sucrose and trehalose have glycosidic bonds between their anomeric carbons and thus cannot convert to an open-chain form with an aldehyde group; they are stuck in the cyclic form. Reducing disaccharides like lactose and maltose have only one of their two anomeric carbons involved in the glycosidic bond, while the other is free and can convert to an open-chain form with an aldehyde group.


title: Reducing sugar

text: The aldehyde functional group allows the sugar to act as a reducing agent, for example, in the Tollens' test or Benedict's test. The cyclic hemiacetal forms of aldoses can open to reveal an aldehyde, and certain ketoses can undergo tautomerization to become aldoses. However, acetals, including those found in polysaccharide linkages, cannot easily become free aldehydes.


title: Reducing sugar

text: Reducing sugars react with amino acids in the Maillard reaction, a series of reactions that occurs while cooking food at high temperatures and that is important in determining the flavor of food. Also, the levels of reducing sugars in wine, juice, and sugarcane are indicative of the quality of these food products.


title: Reducing sugar

text: A "reducing sugar" is one that "reduces" another compound and is itself "oxidized"; that is, the carbonyl carbon of the sugar is oxidized to a carboxyl group.


title: Reducing sugar

text: A sugar is classified as a reducing sugar only if it has an open-chain form with an aldehyde group or a free hemiacetal group.


title: Reducing sugar

text: Monosaccharides which contain an aldehyde group are known as aldoses, and those with a ketone group are known as ketoses. The aldehyde can be oxidized via a redox reaction in which another compound is reduced. Thus, aldoses are reducing sugars. Sugars with ketone groups in their open chain form are capable of isomerizing via a series of tautomeric shifts to produce an aldehyde group in solution. Therefore, ketones like fructose are considered reducing sugars but it is the isomer containing an aldehyde group which is reducing since ketones cannot be oxidized without decomposition of the sugar. This type of isomerization is catalyzed by the base present in solutions which test for the presence of reducing sugars.


title: Reducing sugar

text: Disaccharides consist of two monosaccharides and may be either reducing or nonreducing. Even a reducing disaccharide will only have one reducing end, as disaccharides are held together by glycosidic bonds, which consist of at least one anomeric carbon. With one anomeric carbon unable to convert to the open-chain form, only the free anomeric carbon is available to reduce another compound, and it is called the "reducing end" of the disaccharide.


title: Reducing sugar

text: All monosaccharides are reducing sugars because they either have an aldehyde group (if they are aldoses) or can tautomerize in solution to form an aldehyde group (if they are ketoses). This includes common monosaccharides like galactose, glucose, glyceraldehyde, fructose, ribose, and xylose.


title: Reducing sugar

text: Many disaccharides, like cellobiose, lactose, and maltose, also have a reducing form, as one of the two units may have an open-chain form with an aldehyde group. However, sucrose and trehalose, in which the anomeric carbons of the two units are linked together, are nonreducing disaccharides since neither of the rings is capable of opening.


title: Reducing sugar

text: In glucose polymers such as starch and starch-derivatives like glucose syrup, maltodextrin and dextrin the macromolecule begins with a reducing sugar, a free aldehyde. When starch has been partially hydrolyzed the chains have been split and hence it contains more reducing sugars per gram. The percentage of reducing sugars present in these starch derivatives is called dextrose equivalent (DE).


title: Reducing sugar

text: Glycogen is a highly branched polymer of glucose that serves as the main form of carbohydrate storage in animals. It is a reducing sugar with only one reducing end, no matter how large the glycogen molecule is or how many branches it has (note, however, that the unique reducing end is usually covalently linked to glycogenin and will therefore not be reducing). Each branch ends in a nonreducing sugar residue. When glycogen is broken down to be used as an energy source, glucose units are removed one at a time from the nonreducing ends by enzymes.


title: Reducing sugar

text: Several qualitative tests are used to detect the presence of reducing sugars. Two of them use solutions of copper(II) ions: Benedict's reagent (Cu in aqueous sodium citrate) and Fehling's solution (Cu in aqueous sodium tartrate). The reducing sugar reduces the copper(II) ions in these test solutions to copper(I), which then forms a brick red copper(I) oxide precipitate. Reducing sugars can also be detected with the addition of Tollen's reagent, which consist of silver ions (Ag) in aqueous ammonia. When Tollen's reagent is added to an aldehyde, it precipitates silver metal, often forming a silver mirror on clean glassware.


title: Reducing sugar

text: 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid is another test reagent, one that allows quantitative detection. It reacts with a reducing sugar to form 3-amino-5-nitrosalicylic acid, which can be measured by spectrophotometry to determine the amount of reducing sugar that was present.


title: Reducing sugar

text: Some sugars, such as sucrose, do not react with any of the reducing-sugar test solutions. However, a non-reducing sugar can be hydrolyzed using dilute hydrochloric acid. After hydrolysis and neutralization of the acid, the product may be a reducing sugar that gives normal reactions with the test solutions.


title: Reducing sugar

text: All carbohydrates are converted to aldehydes and respond positively in Molisch's test. But the test has a faster rate when it comes to monosaccharides.


title: Reducing sugar

text: Fehling's solution was used for many years as a diagnostic test for diabetes, a disease in which blood glucose levels are dangerously elevated by a failure to produce enough insulin (type 1 diabetes) or by an inability to respond to insulin (type 2 diabetes). Measuring the amount of oxidizing agent (in this case, Fehling's solution) reduced by glucose makes it possible to determine the concentration of glucose in the blood or urine. This then enables the right amount of insulin to be injected to bring blood glucose levels back into the normal range.


title: Reducing sugar

text: The carbonyl groups of reducing sugars react with the amino groups of amino acids in the Maillard reaction, a complex series of reactions that occurs when cooking food. Maillard reaction products (MRPs) are diverse; some are beneficial to human health, while others are toxic. However, the overall effect of the Maillard reaction is to decrease the nutritional value of food. One example of a toxic product of the Maillard reaction is acrylamide, a neurotoxin and possible carcinogen that is formed from free asparagine and reducing sugars when cooking starchy foods at high temperatures (above 120°C). However, evidence from epidemiological studies suggest that dietary acrylamide is unlikely to raise the risk of people developing cancer.


title: Reducing sugar

text: The level of reducing sugars in wine, juice, and sugarcane are indicative of the quality of these food products, and monitoring the levels of reducing sugars during food production has improved market quality. The conventional method for doing so is the Lane-Eynon method, which involves titrating the reducing sugar with copper(II) in Fehling's solution in the presence of methylene blue, a common redox indicator. However, it is inaccurate, expensive, and sensitive to impurities.


title: Big Machine Records

text: Big Machine Records is an American independent record label, distributed by Universal Music Group. Specializing in country and pop artists, Big Machine is based on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee. The label was founded in September 2005 by former DreamWorks Records executive Scott Borchetta and became a joint venture between Borchetta and country singer Toby Keith. The company concentrates on publishing, management, and merchandising and oversees imprints, such as Valory Music, that are part of the Big Machine Label Group. Taylor Swift was the first client of the label.


title: Big Machine Records

text: Big Machine Records was founded by Scott Borchetta, a former punk rock bass guitar player who had worked in the mailroom of his father Mike's music company and eventually became a promotions staff member in 1991 for Universal Music Group's MCA Records. According to "Bloomberg Businessweek", Borchetta was an "involved manager" at MCA, "choosing singles and dispensing advice." After he was fired from MCA in 1997, Borchetta accepted a role at the Nashville division of DreamWorks Records, but later decided to start his own label after Universal acquired the division. Before he left DreamWorks, Borchetta approached Taylor Swift and her family after the musician performed at the Bluebird Café in Nashville, Tennessee after first meeting her in 2004. At the time, Borchetta had no infrastructure or financing. He made an offer to Swift and her parents, whereby he would recruit her to the new label's roster after it was established. Swift eventually recontacted Borchetta around two weeks later, telling him: "I'm waiting for you."


title: Big Machine Records

text: He formed the label in 2005, naming it "Big Machine" after a 2004 song by the band Velvet Revolver. The first signees to Big Machine were Jack Ingram and Danielle Peck. Big Machine's first album release was "", a re-release of a live album he had previously issued independently in 2004. In mid-2006, "Wherever You Are" off this album reached number one on "Billboard" Hot Country Songs, thus becoming the label's first single to top that chart.


title: Big Machine Records

text: Soon after he released Swift's first ever recording, the single "Tim McGraw" and her debut album "Taylor Swift". Keith dropped his affiliation with the label in 2006, but he was reported as an equity holder in November 2014, alongside the Swift family and Borchetta (the latter reportedly owned 60 percent of the business at the time). In October 2012, Borchetta told "Rolling Stone" magazine: "[Taylor Swift's father] Scott Swift owns three percent of Big Machine."


title: Big Machine Records

text: By March 2009, Big Machine artist Danielle Peck had left the label. The departure occurred during a downturn period for the overall U.S. music industry.


title: Big Machine Records

text: In February 2010, Swift won four Grammys—including Album of the Year ("Fearless"), Best Country Album ("Fearless"), Best Country Song ("White Horse"), and Best Female Country Vocal Performance ("White Horse")—becoming the first Big Machine artist to win a Grammy Award.


title: Big Machine Records

text: Borchetta signed a deal with Clear Channel—which later changed its name to iHeartMedia—in 2012 that ensures payment for Big Machine artists from terrestrial and digital radio airplay. Three years after the deal was signed, Borchetta said that the revenue streams were "very meaningful."


title: Big Machine Records

text: In response to a claim that Borchetta was seeking a sum of US$200 million for Big Machine since the release of Swift's fifth studio album "1989", the label head refuted the claim in November 2014: "Every time we have a Taylor [Swift] record, they're like, 'Oh, he's selling the company.'" However, Borchetta did not rule out a future change of ownership, stating that "the business is changing so quickly, and if I see a strategic opportunity that's going to be better for our artists and executives, it's going to be a serious conversation." Following the release of "1989", her Big Machine contract required her to produce one more full-length album for the label.


title: Big Machine Records

text: The Zac Brown Band announced on January 12, 2015, that it had finalized a four-way strategic partnership involving the Southern Ground Artists record label, Big Machine Label Group, Republic Records and John Varvatos Records for the release of its fourth studio album. The terms of the deal state that Zac Brown Band will work with Big Machine Label Group for marketing and distribution, while Southern Ground Artists will work on radio promotion, Republic will provide support in the area of non-country radio formats and international promotion, and Varvatos will oversee branding and styling. Borchetta was quoted in the Big Machine press release as saying that there is "literally no ceiling" to what can be achieved by the new partnership, and also spoke of "moments when our best artists hit a global stride and a deeper sense of engagement that speaks a clearer musical language".


title: Big Machine Records

text: In a February 2015 interview, Borchetta refused to comment on the status of the label's distribution deal with Universal Music Group (UMG), which was up for renegotiation at the time. He confirmed that the label would release the next "American Idol" album, in partnership with 19 Entertainment and UMG—Borchetta would be one of the mentors on the reality program's next series. Borchetta also disclosed that Swift agreed to the withdrawal of her catalog from Spotify after he first suggested the idea to her, and that he would remove the music of all Big Machine artists if it was within his power.


title: Big Machine Records

text: In May 2017, the label branched out into the alcoholic beverage industry by launching Big Machine Vodka, a premium brand distilled in Lynnville, Tennessee. Borchetta described the new venture as "perfectly [complementing] the music we take such great pride in".


title: Big Machine Records

text: In November 2017, Swift released her sixth studio album "Reputation", her last album released under Big Machine. After this album, Swift refused to renew her contract with the label. She eventually stayed in Universal Music Group, Big Machine's distributor, and on November 19, 2018, after her contract with Big Machine expired, Swift signed with Republic Records, under a deal in which she would maintain ownership of her masters going forward.


title: Big Machine Records

text: On November 3, 2014, Swift removed all but one of her songs from Spotify after indications of her disapproval of the streaming service emerged in July of the same year. Swift, statistically one of the world's most popular music artists at the time, had previously delayed the streaming of her 2012 album, "Red".


title: Big Machine Records

text: Big Machine country music artists Justin Moore and Brantley Gilbert removed their music from Spotify on November 12, 2014. Like Swift, both artists allowed a single song to remain on the streaming platform.


title: Big Machine Records

text: After Swift and Big Machine withdrew her catalog from Spotify in November 2014, the streaming service launched a social media campaign to persuade Swift to return and, in a statement on its website, claimed that 16 million of over 40 million users had played her music in the preceding 30-day period.


title: Big Machine Records

text: In mid-November, Borchetta disputed figures released by Spotify that claimed that Swift would receive US$6 million annually from the streaming site—Borchetta said in a "Time" magazine interview that Swift was paid a total of US$500,000 over the previous 12 months. Spotify responded to Borchetta, by clarifying that Swift had been paid US$2 million for global streaming over the year-long time frame. Spotify further explained: "We [Spotify] paid Taylor [Swift]'s label and publisher roughly half a million dollars in the month before she took her catalog down". According to Borchetta, the amount Swift earned from streaming her music videos on the Vevo site was greater than the payout she received from Spotify.


title: Big Machine Records

text: Borchetta then clarified in a February 2015 interview that Swift's catalog would be permitted on a streaming service "that understands the different needs that we [Swift and Big Machine] have," whereby "the choice to be [on the free, ad-supported tier] or not" is provided. Borchetta argued that Swift's musical oeuvre is "arguably the most important current catalog there is" and stated that the streaming issue is "about each individual artist, and the real mission here is to bring ... attention to it."


title: Big Machine Records

text: In October 2018, Big Machine was placed for sale, with bids from Macquarie Group, Evan Spiegel and Universal Music Group. Big Machine was valued at $300 million. On June 30, 2019, "Billboard" reported that Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings had purchased Big Machine Records for $300 million, with funding from Carlyle Group. A few hours after the announcement of the purchase, Taylor Swift wrote on Tumblr that she was unaware of the buyer of the masters of the her first six albums. Later that night, Scott Borchetta revealed through the Big Machine Label Group website of his and Swift's conversation regarding the purchase.


title: Big Machine Records

text: A copyright issue arose later in the year just ahead of Swift's American Music Awards' Artist of the Decade performance when Swift tweeted regarding Big Machine's prohibition on the use of her old music. On August 22, 2019, Swift announced on Good Morning America that she would rerecord her first six albums in November 2020 and release them through Republic Records. On November 16, 2020, "Variety" reported that Big Machine had sold the rights to Taylor Swift's first six albums to Shamrock Holdings. Swift stated that she had not been contacted about the sale. On February 11, 2021, Swift announced that the first rerecorded song, "Love Story (Taylor's Version)", would be released the following day at midnight, which was then followed by the album "Fearless (Taylor's Version)" on April 9. Swift announced the next re-recorded album to be released, originally slated for a November 19 release then changed to a November 12 release date, would be "Red (Taylor's Version)", on June 18.


title: Big Machine Records

text: On April 2, 2021, it was announced that Ithaca Holdings, including Big Machine, would be sold to the South Korean music and entertainment firm Hybe Corporation (formerly Big Hit Entertainment). Borchetta will remain CEO of Big Machine.


title: Big Machine Records

text: In November 2007, Big Machine Records founded a subsidiary imprint called Valory Music Co. Acts signed to this roster include Jimmy Wayne (who was formerly signed to Big Machine), Jewel, The Mavericks, Thomas Rhett, and Justin Moore.


title: Big Machine Records

text: By the end of November 2008, the Valory imprint entered into a partnership with Midas Records—promotion, sales, marketing, production, publicity and distribution—for Canadian acts Adam Gregory and Emerson Drive. The announcement that Reba McEntire would join Valory was also publicized in November 2008. McEntire's debut single on Valory was scheduled for 2009, with her new studio album scheduled for mid-2009.


title: Big Machine Records

text: Big Machine joined with Universal Republic Records in June 2009 to found a new label, Republic Nashville.


title: Big Machine Records

text: In August 2016, Republic Nashville was rebranded as BMLG Records after Big Machine took back full ownership of the label.


title: Big Machine Records

text: In March 2014, Big Machine announced the revival of Dot Records and, as of February 2015, the imprint was run in partnership with Republic Records. Dot was shuttered in March 2017 and a number of its artists moved to other Big Machine imprints.


title: Big Machine Records

text: In 2014, Big Machine announced a partnership with Cumulus Media to create Nash Icon Music, a Big Machine imprint serving as an offshoot of Cumulus's Nash FM brand, focusing on active country acts who achieved mainstream fame in the 1990s and early 2000s. Cumulus also operates Nash Icon-branded radio stations with a similar focus.


title: Big Machine Records

text: On October 21, 2014, it was announced that McEntire would be the first artist signed to Nash Icon Music. Nash Icon Records folded into Big Machine Records in 2018.


title: Arpeggio

text: A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves.


title: Arpeggio

text: An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played or sung in a rising or descending order. An arpeggio may also span more than one octave.


title: Arpeggio

text: Even though the notes of an arpeggio are not played or sung all together at the same time, listeners hear the sequence of notes as forming a chord. When an arpeggio also contains passing tones that are not part of the chord, different music theorists may analyze the same musical excerpt differently.


title: Arpeggio

text: Arpeggios enable composers writing for monophonic instruments that play one note at a time (e.g., flute, saxophone, trumpet), to voice chords and chord progressions in musical pieces. Arpeggios and broken chords are also used to help create rhythmic interest. A notable example is the Alberti bass figuration, widely used in piano music from the classical music period. With an Alberti bass, rather than play the notes of a chord all at once, the pianist plays simple rhythmic figures in which the notes are played as a broken chord.


title: Arpeggio

text: An arpeggio is a group of notes played one after the other, up or down in pitch. The player plays the notes of a particular chord individually rather than together. The chord may, for example, be a simple chord with the 1st, (major or minor) 3rd, and 5th scale degrees (this is called a "tonic triad"). An arpeggio for the chord of C major going up two octaves would be the notes (C, E, G, C, E, G, C). An arpeggio is a type of broken chord. Other types of broken chords play chord notes out of sequence or more than one note but less than the full chord simultaneously.


title: Arpeggio

text: Arpeggios can rise or fall for more than one octave. Students of musical instruments and singers learn how to play and sing scales and arpeggios. Arpeggiated chords are often used in harp and piano music. An arpeggiated chord may be written with a wavy vertical line in front of the chord.


title: Arpeggio

text: It spreads from the lowest to highest note. Occasionally, composers specify that the musicians play them from top to bottom by adding an arrow pointing down.


title: Arpeggio

text: Arpeggios are an important part of the jazz improvisation vocabulary of horns and keyboards, guitars, and bass and can also be used in call and response ear training dictations, either alone or in conjunction with harmony dictations. In Western classical music, a chord that is played first with the lowest note and then with successive higher notes joining in is called "arpeggiato". Sometimes this effect is reversed, with the highest note coming first. In some modern popular music arpeggiato is called a rolled chord.


title: Arpeggio

text: In early video game music, arpeggios were often the only way to play a chord since sound hardware usually had a very limited number of oscillators, or voices. Instead of tying them all up to play one chord, one channel could be used to play an arpeggio, leaving the rest for drums, bass, or sound effects. A prominent example was the music of games and demos on Commodore 64's SID chip, which only had three oscillators (see also Chiptune).


title: Arpeggio

text: This technique was highly popular amongst European video game music composers for systems in the 1980s like the NES, with many transferring their knowledge from their days of composing with the Commodore 64. However, this technique was rarely used by American and Japanese composers.


title: Arpeggio

text: A bell chord, also known colloquially as "bells", is a musical arrangement technique in which a composition has separate instruments (or multiples of the same instrument) play single notes of a chord in sequence, sustaining individual notes to form the chord. It is, in effect, an arpeggio played by several instruments sequentially. This is also known as a "pyramid" or "cascade". It is common in barbershop music.


title: Arpeggio

text: The technique originated with jazz big bands and is a staple of trad jazz. A good example can be heard in the introduction to "The Charleston" by The Temperance Seven. "Bohemian Rhapsody" by the rock band Queen contains two occurrences of this "bell effect" in the middle section, as does the solo in Killer Queen starting at 1:48.


title: Brownstone

text: Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material.


title: Brownstone

text: In the 19th century, Basswood Island, Wisconsin was the site of a quarry run by the Bass Island Brownstone Company which operated from 1868 into the 1890s. The brownstone from this and other quarries in the Apostle Islands was in great demand, with brownstone from Basswood Island being used in the construction of the first Milwaukee County Courthouse in the 1860s.


title: Brownstone

text: Hummelstown brownstone is extremely popular along the East Coast of the United States, with numerous government buildings throughout West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, and Delaware being faced entirely with the stone, which comes from the Hummelstown Quarry in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, a small town outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The Hummelstown Quarry is the largest provider of brownstone on the east coast. Typically, the stone was transported out of Hummelstown through the Brownstone and Middletown Railroad.


title: Brownstone

text: Portland brownstone, Connecticut River Brownstone, is also very popular. The stone from quarries located in Portland, Connecticut and nearby localities were used in a number of landmark buildings in Chicago, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, New Haven, Hartford, Washington D.C., and Baltimore.


title: Brownstone

text: Quarries from the Passaic Formation in northern New Jersey once supplied most of the brownstone used in New York City and New Jersey.


title: Brownstone

text: There are many brownstones throughout numerous New York City neighborhoods, especially in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Park Slope, Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, Gowanus, Windsor Terrace, Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, Brooklyn Heights, Bedford Stuyvesant, and Sunset Park. Smaller concentrations exist in parts of Bay Ridge, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Greenpoint, and Prospect Lefferts Gardens.


title: Brownstone

text: Brownstones are also scattered throughout Manhattan from the Lower East Side to Washington Heights, with notable concentrations in the Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Harlem and East Harlem. In Queens and The Bronx, the historic districts of Long Island City and Mott Haven also host many brownstones. Brownstones also predominate in some Hudson County neighborhoods directly across the Hudson River from Manhattan, especially in Hoboken and around Van Vorst Park and Hamilton Park in Jersey City. New York City brownstones can cost several million dollars to purchase. A typical architectural detail of brownstones in and around New York City is the stoop, a steep staircase rising from the street to the entrance on what amounts to almost the second-floor level. This design was seen as hygienic at the time many were built, because the streets were so foul with animal waste.


title: Brownstone

text: It has become fashionable to use the term "brownstone" to refer to almost any townhouse from a certain period, even though they may not have been built of brownstone. For example, many townhouses in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, are built of brick, but have concrete masonry cladding which resembles stone. There are also many brick townhouses that have brownstone-built stoops throughout the outer boroughs. Such neighborhoods that consist of these homes are Borough Park, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, Sunset Park, Kensington, Flatbush, Midwood, East New York, Cypress Hills in Brooklyn, Ridgewood, Glendale, Astoria, Woodhaven in Queens, and Longwood and Morrisania in the Bronx.


title: Brownstone

text: The Rittenhouse Square and Fairmount neighborhoods of Philadelphia also include examples of brownstone architecture. Many of these homes have been converted into apartment buildings.


title: Brownstone

text: Back Bay, Boston, is known for its Victorian brownstone homes – considered some of the best-preserved examples of 19th-century urban design in the United States.


title: Brownstone

text: Although some brownstones exist in Chicago, a similar residential form known as "greystones" is far more prevalent. A greystone is a type of residential structure that utilizes Indiana limestone for its facade, regardless of its overall architectural style. As in Brooklyn, there is a "Greystone Belt" in Chicago, with large numbers of such structures located in the south and northwest quadrants of the city. It is estimated that around 30,000 of Chicago's greystones built between 1890 and 1930 are still standing.


title: Brownstone

text: Brownstone, also known as freestone because it can be cut freely in any direction, was used by early Pennsylvanian Quakers to construct stone mills and mill houses. In central Pennsylvania, some 1700s-era structures survive, including a residence known as the Quaker Mill House.


title: Brownstone

text: Brownstone was prized by tombstone carvers in southern New England, and Mid Atlantic region during the Colonial era. Table-type memorials in particular were often carved out of brownstone as well as regular headstones. Especially valued for being easy to carve, those same characteristics often resulted in stones being less durable and prone to heavy erosion and wear over time, especially when compared to slate or schist graves of the same time period. Brownstone began losing popularity among carvers during the first few decades of the 1800s owing to the rising popularity of marble though it continued to be used for obelisks and other grave monuments until much later. Brownstone used for headstones was usually quarried from the Connecticut River Valley and New Jersey, and many grave carvers especially in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey carved from it.


title: Brownstone

text: Brownstone was deemed "not really much good as a building material" by Vincent Scully, professor emeritus of the history of art at Yale University. Brownstone was popular because it is unusually easy to carve and quarry, but these qualities also made houses clad in it susceptible to weathering and damage over time.


title: Chad Allen (actor)

text: Chad Allen (born June 5, 1974) is an American psychologist and retired actor. Beginning his career at the age of seven, Allen is a three-time Young Artist Award winner and GLAAD Media Award honoree. He was a teen idol during the late 1980s as David Witherspoon on the NBC family drama "Our House" and as Zach Nichols on the NBC sitcom "My Two Dads" before transitioning to an adult career as Matthew Cooper on the CBS western drama "". He announced his retirement from acting in April 2015.


title: Chad Allen (actor)

text: Allen was born Chad Allen Lazzari on June 5, 1974, in Cerritos, California, and grew up in Artesia. He has a twin sister named Charity and a brother named Steve Lazzari who works for Union Pacific Railroad. Allen is of predominantly Italian origin, with a "dose" of German origin. He was raised in a "strict" Roman Catholic household and regards himself as being a "deeply spiritual person" because of his upbringing. Allen attended St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower, California.


title: Chad Allen (actor)

text: Allen guest-starred on several prime time series, including an early episode of "Airwolf" for which he was nominated as "Best Young Actor: Guest in a Series" at the 6th Youth in Film Awards and "St. Elsewhere", in which he played autistic child Tommy Westphall (1983–88). The series final episode, "The Last One", ends with the indication that all of its storylines occurred in Tommy's imagination. In 1983, he appeared on "Cutter to Houston", playing "a kid who got hurt and had to be given mouth-to-mouth and carried to the waiting chopper by Dr. Hal Wexler (Alec Baldwin)". "I thought it was the greatest job I had ever gotten," he later stated. Allen's first regular role was as David Witherspoon on "Our House" (1986–88). In 1989–90, he had a recurring role as Zach in "My Two Dads". Allen's next contract role was Matthew Cooper in "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" alongside Jane Seymour (1993–98). During the final season of his run on "St. Elsewhere", Allen was teamed with his sister Charity Allen on an episode of NBC's Saturday morning children's game show "I'm Telling!".


title: Chad Allen (actor)

text: Starting with "Third Man Out" (2005), Allen stars as Donald Strachey, a gay private detective in a monogamous relationship, in a series of television movies for the here! network based on novels by Richard Stevenson. The sequel, "Shock to the System" (2006), was followed by "On the Other Hand, Death" (2008) and "Ice Blues" (2008). Allen noted that Strachey is the first gay character he had ever played outside of theater and that, though his career is "different" since coming out, he finds it "more interesting and fun for me than it has ever been."


title: Chad Allen (actor)

text: When Allen was cast as real-life Christian missionary Nate Saint in the docudrama "End of the Spear" (2006) some conservative Christians lashed out at producers for casting an openly gay man in the role.


title: Chad Allen (actor)

text: In 2007, Allen starred in the film "Save Me". Developed and produced by Allen, the film was directed by Robert Cary and written by Robert Desiderio. "Save Me", a film exploring the ex-gay movement, premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and was later picked up for distribution by independent studio Fine Line Features.


title: Chad Allen (actor)

text: From June through August 2008, Allen appeared with Valerie Harper in "Looped", a play based on the life of Tallulah Bankhead, at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California.


title: Chad Allen (actor)

text: Starting on September 23, 2008, Allen portrayed the love interest of Dr. Kyle Julian for five episodes of the prime time SOAPnet serial "", a spin-off of the ABC Daytime soap opera "General Hospital".


title: Chad Allen (actor)

text: In April 2015, Allen confirmed in a YouTube video that he had quit his acting career to become a clinical psychologist.


title: Chad Allen (actor)

text: In 1996, at age 21, Allen was outed as gay when the U.S. tabloid "The Globe" published photos of him kissing another man in a hot tub at a party. The photos were sold by someone who claimed to be a friend of the couple. Allen has since become an activist for the LGBT community in addition to his continuing acting and producing career. On January 17, 2006, Allen appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" with San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom to represent his viewpoint in a debate over same-sex marriage. Allen thanked Newsom for his attempts to legalize same-sex marriage in the city. Allen has been featured in "The Advocate" magazine multiple times and has appeared on three of its covers.


title: Chad Allen (actor)

text: In November 2006, "The Los Angeles Daily News" wrote in passing that Allen's partner, Jeremy Glazer, was also in the film "Save Me". In a September 2008 interview with Out.com, Allen stated that he was currently in a three-year relationship and had been sober for eight years. In October 2008, AfterElton.com stated his boyfriend to be Glazer. In May 2009, Allen was the recipient of a GLAAD Media Award: the Davidson/Valentini Award. In his acceptance speech he said he had met Glazer, his partner, exactly four years earlier. They broke up in 2015.


title: Chad Allen (actor)

text: Allen graduated from University of California, Los Angeles in June 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. He graduated from the Psy.D. Program in Clinical Psychology at Antioch University, New England in 2020.


title: First Doctor

text: The First Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series "Doctor Who". He was portrayed by actor William Hartnell.


title: First Doctor

text: Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old alien Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey who travels in time and space in the TARDIS, frequently with companions. At the end of life, the Doctor regenerates; as a result, the physical appearance and personality of the Doctor changes. The concept of regeneration, initially referred to as a "renewal," was introduced when Hartnell needed to leave the series, due to his increasingly bad health, and consequently has extended the life of the show for many years.


title: First Doctor

text: Hartnell's portrayal of the character was initially a stubborn and abrasive old man who was distrustful of humans, but he mellowed out into a much friendlier, grandfatherly figure who adored his travels with his companions. The First Doctor's original companions were his granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford) and her schoolteachers Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill). In later episodes, he travelled alongside 25th-century orphan Vicki (Maureen O'Brien), space pilot Steven (Peter Purves), Trojan handmaiden Katarina (Adrienne Hill), and sixties flower child Dodo Chaplet (Jackie Lane). His final on-screen companions were the sailor Ben (Michael Craze) and the posh and sophisticated Polly (Anneke Wills). Of the 134 episodes Hartnell appeared in as a regular, 44 are missing.


title: First Doctor

text: Hartnell reprised the role once, in the tenth anniversary story "The Three Doctors" (1973). The character occasionally appeared in the series after Hartnell's death, most prominently as portrayed by Richard Hurndall in the 1983 multi-doctor special "The Five Doctors", and as portrayed by David Bradley in the 2017 Twelfth Doctor episodes "The Doctor Falls" and "Twice Upon a Time" and in the Thirteenth Doctor episode "The Power of the Doctor" in 2022.


title: First Doctor

text: The First Doctor is a mysterious character and little is known about him at the outset except that he has a granddaughter, Susan Foreman, and that they come from another time and place. He has a ship that travels through time and space, the TARDIS, which is currently disguised as a police box (Susan notes that it used to be able to change to blend in with its surroundings), and is bigger on the inside. The Doctor describes himself and Susan as "exiles" without specifying why or even whether their exile is self-imposed. It would not be until the last adventure of the Doctor's second incarnation that the name of the Doctor's people (the Time Lords) would be revealed, and the third incarnation before the name of his home planet (Gallifrey) was first spoken.


title: First Doctor

text: The series' first episode opens with a pair of schoolteachers in contemporary (1963) London, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, investigating the mystery of Susan, a student who seems confused and even frustrated at how what she is learning in history and especially mathematics seems to be wrong. Following Susan to her supposed home, they discover the TARDIS in a junkyard, surprising both Susan and her grandfather the Doctor, who launches the ship in response to the discovery. Ian and Barbara are involuntarily taken on a journey back to the year 100,000 BC and spend two years adventuring through time and space with the Doctor, who at this point in the series has no control over the navigation systems of the TARDIS.


title: First Doctor

text: It was as this incarnation that the Doctor first met the Daleks and the Cybermen, races that would become his most implacable foes. The TARDIS crew also observed many historical events such as the "Reign of Terror" in revolutionary France, meeting "Marco Polo" in China and "The Aztecs" in Mexico. When Susan fell in love with the human resistance fighter David Campbell, the Doctor left her behind to allow her to build a life for herself on 22nd century Earth ("The Dalek Invasion of Earth"), although he promised to return some day. The Doctor, Ian and Barbara were then joined by Vicki, whom they saved in "The Rescue" from the planet Dido.


title: First Doctor

text: At the conclusion of a chase through time by Daleks, Ian and Barbara used the Dalek time machine to go home ("The Chase"), and their place in the TARDIS was taken by a future space pilot named Steven Taylor, who had been captured by the robot Mechanoids but escaped due to the Dalek attack. The Doctor met another member of his own race for the first time in the form of the Meddling Monk and had an adventure in Galaxy 4. During the siege of Troy, Vicki decided to leave the TARDIS to stay with Troilus, adopting the name Cressida. The Doctor and Steven were next briefly joined by Trojan slave Katarina and a security agent from 4000 AD Sara Kingdom, but both were killed during the events of "The Daleks' Master Plan", where the Daleks plotted to invade Earth's Solar System in 4000 AD, before being destroyed when the Doctor activated their weapon the Time Destructor. Due to this he was aged significantly; the effects on Sara were enough to reduce her to dust.


title: First Doctor

text: After narrowly missing the Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, the Doctor and Steven took on board a young girl named Dodo Chaplet. Dodo brought a cold virus to the far future, which nearly annihilated the humans and Monoids travelling on "The Ark". It was cured and when the TARDIS arrived on the Ark 700 years later the TARDIS crew helped the humans reach their destination, the Monoids having taken over the Ark. One of the First Doctor's most deadly foes was the Celestial Toymaker, who forced him and his companions to play deadly games and briefly made the Doctor invisible and mute. Eventually, the Doctor managed to win the Trilogic Game allowing them all to escape the Toymaker's domain.


title: First Doctor

text: Eventually, Steven and Dodo left the Doctor as well, Steven remaining on an alien planet as a mediator ("The Savages") between two races, and Dodo deciding to remain on Earth in 1966 to recover from being hypnotised by the supercomputer WOTAN. The Doctor was then joined by upper-class secretary Polly and sailor Ben Jackson.


title: First Doctor

text: The toll of years put strain on the Doctor's elderly frame. After defeating the Cybermen at the Antarctic Snowcap Station ("The Tenth Planet"), the Doctor was fearfully reluctant to regenerate when he crossed paths with one of his future incarnations ("Twice Upon a Time"), who is similarly reluctant to regenerate. The events of the episode convince both Doctors to go through with their regenerations. After returning to his TARDIS and helping Polly and Ben back inside, the Doctor collapsed and regenerated for the first time.


title: First Doctor

text: From the beginning, the Doctor was a mysterious figure. He appeared to be a frail old man and yet was possessed of unexpected reserves of strength and will. An early writers' guide by script editor David Whitaker describes "Doctor Who" as "frail-looking but wiry and tough as an old turkey". He obviously held tremendous knowledge of scientific matters, and yet was unable to pilot his TARDIS time ship reliably; his granddaughter Susan explained this by saying that her grandfather was "a bit forgetful"; but the TARDIS required expert piloting and guidance by the Doctor. Its systems would often break down, especially the navigational systems. This, combined with the fact the TARDIS was actually designed for "six" pilots, would explain the difficulty the Doctor encountered in piloting it correctly. He was abrasive, patronising, and cantankerous towards his human travelling companions, yet shared a deep emotional bond with his granddaughter Susan. He also harboured a streak of ruthlessness, being willing to lie—and in one case attempt to kill—to achieve his goals. Initially, he distrusted his first two human companions, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, who were forced on him. Over time, however, as they shared adventures together, he grew closer to them, and the TARDIS crew came to share almost a family bond. When proven wrong after accusing Ian and Barbara of sabotaging the TARDIS in "The Edge of Destruction", the Doctor humbly apologised, especially after seeing that Barbara had been hurt by his accusations. The Doctor realised he could rely on Ian and Barbara, sealing a friendship which lasts until their eventual departure from the TARDIS, with the relationship between the Doctor and Barbara being mutually respectful and increasingly affectionate.


title: First Doctor

text: Eventually, the Doctor began to enjoy his travels through time and space, taking people along for the ride and was always reluctant and sad to see them go, even when he knew it was for their own good. The Doctor's personality mellowed around the time of the serial "Marco Polo", and he evolved into the more familiar grandfatherly figure that children loved. The initially irascible and slightly sinister Doctor quickly mellowed into a more compassionate figure. He was protective of the young women he took on as companions; they reminded him of his granddaughter, Susan.


title: First Doctor

text: William Hartnell described the Doctor as "a wizard", and "a cross between the Wizard of Oz and Father Christmas". Paul McGann, who played a later incarnation of the Doctor, said Hartnell's "seemed like a Victorian, someone kind of stern and paterfamilias about him. Something kind but scary". One quirk of the First Doctor was his tendency to become occasionally tongue-tied and stumble over words. Sometimes this was a deliberate acting choice: William Russell recalls that it was Hartnell's idea for the Doctor to get Ian Chesterton's surname wrong, calling him "Chesserman", "Chatterton" and even "Charterhouse". This character choice also gave the series' producers the ability to use takes in which Hartnell flubbed his lines. Due to the series' tight production schedule, it was rarely possible to reshoot such scenes and dubbing the dialogue was usually not an option. Hartnell suffered from undiagnosed arteriosclerosis, which affected his ability to remember lines, increasingly so as his time on the series progressed.


title: First Doctor

text: In "Twice Upon a Time", the Doctor expressed to a variation of his future companion Bill Potts that he had left Gallifrey, among other reasons, to investigate why good prevails in a universe where evil would seem to have so many advantages. As Bill reflected that none of the First Doctor's future incarnations recognized this fact, the Twelfth Doctor summarized that he and his incarnations were the reason for the universe's balance between good and evil.


title: First Doctor

text: Hartnell's costume was hired from Nathans, a theatrical costuming company. The overall look is Victorian-Edwardian: a black frock coat and a light yellow tweed waistcoat over a wing-collared shirt; usually a dark blue ascot tie or ribbon tie and tartan trousers. Hartnell also wore a ring with a large blue stone and a white wig. Additional accessories seen from time to time are a monocle, a carved wooden cane, an opera cape, a scarf, a hat in Astrakhan fur or, in warmer climes, a Panama hat. In "An Unearthly Child", he was seen smoking a large bent tobacco pipe, making him the only incarnation of the Doctor to be seen smoking; it is assumed that he gave up after that serial.


title: First Doctor

text: In the original version of the first episode, Hartnell wore a contemporary (1960s) suit. Among the many changes made to the episode in reshooting was the Doctor's (and Susan's) clothes.


title: First Doctor

text: The debut of the Daleks in the second serial turned the programme from a children's series to a national phenomenon. It soon became a show that the whole family gathered to watch, with monsters that children viewed from between their fingers or from behind the sofa. Scripts filled with far-out concepts compensated for the relatively low budget and unsophisticated special effects, laying the foundation for decades of stories to come.


title: First Doctor

text: Despite the regeneration television audiences would see the First Doctor on screen for several more occasions (not counting flashbacks or charity specials like "Dimensions in Time"). For the 10th anniversary of the programme in 1973, Hartnell appeared in "The Three Doctors", which also saw Patrick Troughton reprise his role as the Second Doctor. Due to failing health, however, Hartnell could not participate in any of the regular filming, so his scenes were shot separately at Ealing Studios (not his garden or garage at home, as long suggested by fan legend); in the context of the episode, this is explained as the First Doctor being trapped in a time eddy when he was being sent to assist his future selves, with the result that he can only communicate with his future selves for brief moments over the TARDIS monitor while sitting in a capsule.


title: First Doctor

text: William Hartnell died on 23 April 1975, so for the 20th anniversary special "The Five Doctors" in 1983, the role of the First Doctor was played by Richard Hurndall. At the beginning of the programme a film insert of Hartnell's Doctor taken from "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" was used.


title: First Doctor

text: In "The Name of the Doctor", which combined stock footage of Hartnell with Carole Ann Ford in CGI and newly shot footage, the First Doctor is depicted stealing the TARDIS in its original form.


title: First Doctor

text: In "The Day of the Doctor", Hartnell is shown along with the other twelve doctors as they move Gallifrey to a single moment in time. He was voiced by John Guilor, over archival footage of Hartnell.


title: First Doctor

text: A child version of the character appears in "Listen" (2014), portrayed by an uncredited Michael Jones.


title: First Doctor

text: In the Big Finish audio drama "The Light at the End" the First Doctor is portrayed by William Russell, who also played Ian Chesterton in both the show and the audio dramas. Russell and fellow co-star Peter Purves (who played Steven Taylor) have performed numerous other audio plays set during this era, usually narrating the stories and doing an impression (rather than an impersonation) of the Doctor's voice while reciting his lines.


title: First Doctor

text: In the series 10 finale "The Doctor Falls", David Bradley appeared as the First Doctor, confronting his twelfth incarnation as the latter resists his oncoming regeneration. This scene was followed up in the 2017 Christmas special, "Twice Upon a Time". Bradley had previously portrayed William Hartnell in "An Adventure in Space and Time", a 2013 docudrama depicting the creation of "Doctor Who". He reprised the role of the First Doctor for a series of audio stories released by Big Finish, titled "", starting in January 2018.


title: First Doctor

text: April 2022 saw Big Finish release a box set of audio dramas starring Stephen Noonan as the First Doctor. Nicholas Briggs has expressed interest in producing further stories with David Bradley. Stephen Noonan also expressed interest in returning for future boxsets. Another First Doctor boxset is scheduled for January 2023 but is unconfirmed whether Bradley or Noonan will star.


title: First Doctor

text: Images of the First Doctor appear in "The Power of the Daleks", "Day of the Daleks", "The Brain of Morbius", "Earthshock", "Mawdryn Undead", "Resurrection of the Daleks", "The Next Doctor", "The Eleventh Hour", "The Vampires of Venice", "Vincent and the Doctor", "The Lodger", "Nightmare in Silver", "The Timeless Children" and "The Sarah Jane Adventures" story "Death of the Doctor". In the episode "The Name of the Doctor", he is seen stealing a TARDIS along with Susan Foreman, before Clara Oswald tells him to steal a different one (colourised footage taken from "The Aztecs"). He is also seen for a brief second wandering around the Doctor's mind in the end of "The Name of the Doctor," although this time a double was used. He also makes a brief appearance (again using a double) during Missy's exposition of the Twelfth Doctor's battle with android assassins ("The Witch's Familiar").


title: First Doctor

text: In "Dimensions in Time" the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) refers to the First as "the grumpy one". A sculpture of his head, along with that of the Second Doctor, appears as well.


title: First Doctor

text: The First Doctor is seen as a sketch in John Smith's book alongside other past Doctors in the episode "Human Nature". In "Time Crash", the Tenth Doctor says to the Fifth, "Back when I first started, at the very beginning, I was always trying to be old and grumpy and important, like you do when you're young." A brief clip of the First Doctor from "The Time Meddler" appears in both "The Next Doctor" and in "The Eleventh Hour".


title: First Doctor

text: In a clip from "The Vampires of Venice" the Eleventh Doctor shows his library card, which contains a photograph of the First Doctor and the address of 76 Totters Lane. In "Vincent and the Doctor", both the First and Second Doctors appear on a printout when the Eleventh Doctor has the TARDIS identify him. In "The Big Bang", the Eleventh Doctor briefly mentions the First while bidding his farewell to a sleeping Amy Pond, referring to him as "the daft old man who stole a magic box and ran away". In "The Rings of Akhaten", the Eleventh Doctor mentions that he had visited Akhaten with his granddaughter, presumably as the First Doctor.


title: First Doctor

text: The Twelfth Doctor refers to his first incarnation's initial lack of altruism prior to meeting the Daleks in "Into the Dalek".


title: Drunken Master

text: Drunken Master () is a 1978 Hong Kong martial arts comedy film directed by Yuen Woo-ping, and starring Jackie Chan, Yuen Siu-tien, and Hwang Jang-lee. It was a success at the Hong Kong box office, earning two and a half times the amount of Yuen's and Chan's previous film, "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow", which was also considered a hit.


title: Drunken Master

text: It is an early milestone of the kung fu comedy genre, and helped make Jackie Chan famous in Asia. The film popularised the Zui Quan ("drunken fist") infused with unique animal fighting style. In 2017, it was ranked number 3 on GamesRadar's list of 50 greatest kung fu movies of all time. It spawned an official sequel, "Drunken Master II" (1994), and several spin-offs. It had a significant cultural impact, inspiring numerous later films, music, manga, anime and video games.


title: Drunken Master

text: The film's protagonist Wong Fei-hung was a Chinese martial artist, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner and a revolutionary who lived towards the end of the Qing dynasty. He became a Chinese folk hero and the subject of several Hong Kong television programmes and films. Beggar So, who plays a supporting role in the film, is also another character from Chinese folklore and one of the Ten Tigers of Canton. The Beggar So character is often cast as an associate of Wong Fei-hung or Wong's uncle.


title: Drunken Master

text: The plot centers on a young and mischievous Wong Fei-hung (sometimes dubbed as "Freddie Wong"). Wong runs into a series of troubles. Firstly, he teaches an overbearing assistant martial arts teacher a lesson. Next, he makes advances on a woman to impress his friends, and is soundly thrashed by her older female guardian as a result; his shame is compounded when these two are later revealed to be his visiting aunt and cousin, whom he had not met before. Lastly, he beats up a hooligan who turns out to be the son of an influential man in town. His father decides to punish him for his behavior by making him train harder in martial arts.


title: Drunken Master

text: Wong's father arranges for Beggar So to train his son in martial arts. Beggar So has a reputation for crippling his students during training so Wong flees from home in an attempt to escape his punishment. Penniless, he stops at a restaurant and tries to con a fellow patron into offering him a free meal. As he was about to leave after his meal, he discovers that the man is actually the owner of the restaurant. He fights with the owner's lackeys in an attempt to escape. An old drunkard nearby is drawn into the fight and helps him escape. The drunkard turns out to be Beggar So, the Drunken Master. (Beggar So is known in some versions of the film as Sam Seed, So Hi or Su Hua-chi)


title: Drunken Master

text: Beggar So forces Wong into his brutal and rigorous training programme. Wong flees again to avoid the torturous training and runs into the notorious killer Yim Tit-sam (known in some versions as Thunderfoot or Thunderleg) by accident. Yim is known for his "Devil's Kick", a swift and deadly kicking style which has never been defeated. Wong provokes and challenges him to a fight and is soundly defeated and humiliated. He makes his way back to Beggar So and decides to commit himself to the Drunken Master's training program.


title: Drunken Master

text: The training resumes and soon Wong learns Beggar So's secret style of martial arts, a form of Drunken Boxing called "The Eight Drunken Immortals", named after the eight xian that the fighting style references. Wong masters seven of the eight styles with the exception of Drunken Miss Ho's as he feels that her style of fighting is too feminine.


title: Drunken Master

text: Meanwhile, Yim Tit-sam is contracted by a business rival to kill Wong's father. Wong's father fights with Yim and is defeated and injured by him. Wong and Beggar So arrive on the scene on time and Wong continues the fight with Yim. Beggar So promises not to interfere in the fight. Wong employs the new skills he has learned and outmatches Yim's kicking style. Yim then resorts to his secret technique, the Devil's Shadowless Hand, which is too fast for Wong to defeat. Wong confesses that he did not master the last style so Beggar So tells him to combine the seven styles and create his own version of the last style. Wong follows the instruction and discovers his own unique style of Drunken Miss Ho, which he uses to overcome the Shadowless Hand and finally defeat Yim.


title: Drunken Master

text: A number of notable fights are featured in the film, almost all of them with strong elements of comedy—from the game of Keep Away with Wong Kei-ying's cocky, but incompetent, assistant kung fu instructor, to the novel "head-fu" fighting style used by one of his opponents. The film features the Hung Ga system of fighting, which was historically practiced by Wong Fei-hung and his father Wong Kei-ying, both of whom are major characters in the film. The animal styles of Snake, Crane, and Tiger performed in the film are derived wholly from the Hung Ga system and bear only a tangential relationship to the Fujian White Crane, Lama Pai (Tibetan White Crane), Black Tiger, and Snake systems of kung fu. Monkey style kung fu, popular in Southern Chinese martial arts performances, is also shown briefly.


title: Drunken Master

text: Numerous systems of kung fu include "Drunken Boxing" forms (e.g. Choi Lei Fut and Drunken Monkey), and the Taoist Eight Immortals are popular staples of Chinese culture and art. However, the "Eight Drunken Immortals" forms depicted in this film are likely the creation of director and choreographer Yuen Woo-ping and based on routines found in other systems.


title: Drunken Master

text: The primary villain in "Drunken Master" is played by Hwang Jang-lee, a Korean martial artist specialising in Taekwondo and known for his high-flying kicks, which are prominently displayed in the film. The systems of "Devil's Kick" and "Devil's Shadowless Hands" employed by Thunderleg are entirely fictitious.


title: Drunken Master

text: According to his book "I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action", Chan nearly lost an eye after his brow ridge was injured.


title: Drunken Master

text: The theme song of "Drunken Master" is based on a Chinese folk song, "Under the General's Orders". Since "Drunken Master", the theme song has been popularly associated with the folk hero Wong Fei-hung, who Jackie Chan plays in the film. It was later used in the 1983 film "Winners and Sinners", starring Sammo Hung; it was played in a market scene whilst the Five Lucky Stars are watching two men demonstrating the beneficial effects of their medicines and their martial arts stances, in reference to Wong Fei-hung. "Under the General's Orders" later become the main theme song for the "Once Upon a Time in China" series starring Jet Li, who also plays Wong Fei-hung.


title: Drunken Master

text: At the Hong Kong box office, "Drunken Master" earned an impressive 6,763,793 (). It was the second most popular film in Hong Kong in 1978 behind the Hui brothers' "The Contract" and third on the all-time list.


title: Drunken Master

text: In Japan, where it released on 21 July 1979, it became one of the year's top ten highest-grossing films, earning (). In South Korea, it was the highest-grossing film of 1979, with 898,561 box admissions in Seoul City, equivalent to an estimated (). The film also broke records in Malaysia and Singapore.


title: Drunken Master

text: In Germany, where it was released as "Sie nannten ihn Knochenbrecher" ("They Called Him Bone Breaker") on 25 July 1980, it was the 41st highest-grossing film of the year, selling 584,312 tickets, equivalent to an estimated (US$2,063,606). In Spain, the film sold 823,203 tickets, equivalent to an estimated ().


title: Drunken Master

text: As with several successful Hong Kong action films, a number of films were released in the wake of "Drunken Master" (and its sequel) that could be considered to trade on the fame of the original films. These had less in common with the original films than the spinoffs starring Yuen Siu-tien.


title: Drunken Master

text: Not all films that feature the Zui Quan "Drunken Fist" style (or variations on it) can be considered as imitators of the "Drunken Master" films. Films such as "Drunken Monkey" (2002) may feature a drunken style of kung fu, and in the case of "The Forbidden Kingdom" (2008), the same principal star, but they have a fundamentally different plot and sufficiently different title to separate them from "Drunken Master".


title: Groningen

text: Groningen (; or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The "capital of the north", Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of the country; as of December 2021, it had 235,287 inhabitants, making it the sixth largest city/municipality of the Netherlands and the second largest outside the Randstad.


title: Groningen

text: Groningen was established more than 950 years ago and gained city rights in 1245. Due to its relatively isolated location from the then successive Dutch centres of power (Utrecht, The Hague, Brussels), Groningen was historically reliant on itself and nearby regions. As a Hanseatic city, it was part of the North German trade network, but later it mainly became a regional market centre. At the height of its power in the 15th century, Groningen could be considered an independent city-state and it remained autonomous until the French era.


title: Groningen

text: Today Groningen is a university city, home to some of the country's leading higher education institutes; University of Groningen ("Rijksuniversiteit Groningen"), which is the Netherlands's second oldest university, and Hanze University of Applied Sciences ("Hanzehogeschool Groningen"). Students comprise an estimated 25% of its total population and makes it the country's demographically youngest city.


title: Groningen

text: The origin and meaning of 'Groningen' and its older variant, 'Groeningen', are uncertain. A folk origin story relates the idea that, in 453 BC, exiles from Troy who were guided by a mythical figure called Gruno (or Grunius, Gryns or Grunus), along with a group of Phrygians from Germany, founded a settlement in what is now Groningen, and built a castle on the bank of the , which they called 'Grunoburg', and which was later destroyed by the Vikings.


title: Groningen

text: One modern theory is that 'Groningen' meant 'among the people of Groni' ('Groningi' and 'Groninga' in the 11th century), derived from "Gronesbeke", which was the old name for a small lake near the Hunze (on the northern border of Zuidlaarderveen). Another theory is that the name was derived from the word "groenighe", meaning 'green fields'.


title: Groningen

text: During the French occupation of the area, Groningen was called "Groningue". In Frisian, it is called "Grins". In Groningen province, it is called "". Regionally, it is often simply referred to as "Stad" (the "city"), and its inhabitants are referred to as "Stadjers" or "Stadjeder". The Dutch sometimes refer to it as "the Metropolis of the North", or "Martinistad" (after the "Martinitoren" tower.)


title: Groningen

text: The city was founded at the northernmost point of the "Hondsrug" area. While the oldest document referring to Groningen's existence dates from 1040, the area was occupied by Anglo-Saxons centuries prior. The oldest archaeological evidence of a settlement in the region stems from around 3950–3650 BC, and the first major settlement in Groningen trace back to the year 3 AD.


title: Groningen

text: In the 13th century Groningen was an important trade centre and its inhabitants built a city wall to underline its authority. The city had a strong influence on its surrounding lands and the Gronings dialect became a common tongue. The most influential period of the city was at the end of the 15th century, when the nearby province of Friesland was administered from Groningen. During these years the "Martinitoren" was built which is considered to be the city's most significant landmark.


title: Groningen

text: In 1536, Groningen accepted Emperor Charles V, the King of Spain and the Habsburg ruler of the other Netherlands as its ruler, thus ending the region's autonomy. The city was captured in the Siege of Groningen (1594) by the Dutch and English forces led by Maurice of Nassau. After the siege, the city and the province joined the Dutch Republic.


title: Groningen

text: The University of Groningen was founded in 1614 with initial course offerings in law, medicine, theology and philosophy. During the same period the city expanded rapidly and a new city wall was built. The Siege of Groningen (1672) led by the bishop of Münster, Bernhard von Galen during the Third Anglo-Dutch War failed and the city walls resisted; an event that is celebrated annually with music and fireworks on 28 August as """" or ""Bommen Berend"".


title: Groningen

text: During World War II, the main square and the Grote Markt were largely destroyed in the Battle of Groningen in April 1945. However, the church "Martinitoren", the "Goudkantoor", and the city hall were undamaged.


title: Groningen

text: Numerous canals ("grachten") surround the city, locally called "diep". The major canals that travel from the city are the Van Starkenborghkanaal, Eemskanaal, and Winschoterdiep.


title: Groningen

text: Groningen has an oceanic temperate climate, like all of the Netherlands, although slightly colder in winter than other major cities in the Netherlands due to its northeasterly position. Weather is influenced by the North Sea to the north-west and its prevailing north-western winds and galesjavascript:tidy("horizontal").


title: Groningen

text: Summers are somewhat warm and humid. Temperatures of or higher occur sporadically; the average daytime high is around . Very rainy periods are common, especially in spring and summer. Average annual precipitation is about . Annual sunshine hours vary, but are usually below 1600 hours, giving much cloud cover similar to most of the Netherlands. Climate in this area has mild differences between highs and lows, and there is adequate rainfall year-round. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is "". (Marine West Coast Climate/Oceanic climate).


title: Groningen

text: Winters are cool; on average above freezing, although frosts are common during spells of easterly winds. Night-time temperatures of or lower are not uncommon during cold winter periods. The lowest temperature ever recorded is on 16 February 1956. Snow often falls, but rarely stays long due to warmer daytime temperatures, although white snowy days happen every winter.


title: Groningen

text: Hotel and catering industries constitute a significant part of the economy in Groningen. Focus on business services has increased over time and areas such as IT, life sciences, tourism, energy, and environment have developed.


title: Groningen

text: Until 2008 there were two major sugar refineries within the city. The Suiker Unie plant was constructed in the outskirts of Groningen, but became a part of the city due to expansion. The factory had 98 employees before it was shutdown in 2008 due to a reduction in demand. As of 2017, "CSM Vierverlaten" in Hoogkerk remains the only beet sugar production plant in the city. Other notable companies from Groningen include publishing company Noordhoff Uitgevers, tobacco company Niemeyer, health insurance company Menzis, distillery Hooghoudt, and natural gas companies GasUnie and GasTerra.


title: Groningen

text: The majority of people in Groningen, slightly more than 70%, are non-religious. With 25.1%, the largest religion in Groningen is Christianity.


title: Groningen

text: The municipality of Groningen has grown rapidly. In 1968 it expanded by mergers with Hoogkerk and Noorddijk, and in 2019 it merged with Haren and Ten Boer.


title: Groningen

text: All historical data are for the original city limits, excluding Hoogkerk, Noorddijk, Haren and Ten Boer.


title: Groningen

text: It has a land area of , and a total area, including water, of . Its population density is 1,367 residents per km (3,540 per square mile). On 1 January 2019, it was merged with the municipalities of Ten Boer and Haren. The Groningen-Assen metropolitan area has about half a million inhabitants.


title: Groningen

text: Groningen is nationally known as the "Metropolis of the North". The city is regarded as the main urban centre of the Northern part of the country, particularly in the fields of education, business, music and other arts. It is also known as ""Martinistad"", referring to the tower of the "Martinitoren", which is named after Groningen's patron saint Martin of Tours. The large number its student population also contribute to a diverse cultural scene for a city of its size.


title: Groningen

text: Since 2016 Groningen has been host of the International Cycling Film Festival—an annual film festival for bicycle related films. It takes place in the art house cinema of the old Roman Catholic Hospital.


title: Groningen

text: The first major international chess tournament after World War II was held in Groningen from 1946-08-13 to 1946-09-07. The tournament, won by Mikhail Botvinnik of the USSR, was the first time the Soviet Union had sent a team of players to a foreign event. A major international chess festival and tournament ‘'Schaakfestival Groningen tournament'’ has been held in the city in most years, since 1946.


title: Groningen

text: Groningen is home to the Groninger Museum. Its new building designed by Alessandro Mendini in 1994 echoes the Italian post-modern concepts and is notable for its futuristic and colourful style. The city has a maritime museum, a university museum, a comics museum and a graphics museum. Groningen is also the home of Noorderlicht, an international photographic platform that runs a photo gallery and organizes an international photo festival. The Forum Groningen that opened in 2019 is a cultural center consisting of a museum, art cinema, library, bars, rooftop terrace and tourist information office.


title: Groningen

text: Groningen has a city theatre called the Stadsschouwburg, located on the Turfsingel, a theatre and concert venue called Martini Plaza, and a cultural venue on the Trompsingel, called the Oosterpoort. Vera is located on the Oosterstraat, the Grand Theatre on the Grote Markt, and Simplon on the Boterdiep. Several cafés feature live music, a few of which specialize in jazz music, including the "Jazzcafe De Spieghel" on the Peperstraat. Groningen is the host city for Eurosonic Noorderslag, an annual music showcase event for bands from Europe.


title: Groningen

text: Groningen's nightlife depends largely on its student population. Its cultural scene is regarded as vibrant and remarkable for a city of its size. In particular, the Grote Markt, the Vismarkt, the Poelestraat and Peperstraat are crowded every night, and most bars do not close until five in the morning. From 2005 to 2007, Groningen was named "best city centre" of the Netherlands. Groningen has a red-light district, called "Nieuwstad".


title: Groningen

text: FC Groningen, founded in 1971, is the local football club, and as of 2000 they play in the Eredivisie, the highest football league of the Netherlands. Winners of the KNVB Cup in the 2014–15 season, their best Eredivisie result was in the 1990–91 season when they finished third. Their current stadium which opened in January 2006 has 22,525 seats. It is called the Hitachi Capital Mobility Stadion; it was known as the "Euroborg stadium" before 2016, and "Noordlease Stadion" from 2016 to 2018.


title: Groningen

text: American sports are fairly popular in Groningen; it has American football, baseball, and basketball clubs. Groningen's professional basketball club Donar play in the highest professional league, the Dutch Basketball League, and have won the national championship seven times. The Groningen Giants are the American football team of the city who play in the premier league of the AFBN and are nicknamed as the "Kings of the North".