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Horatio Hornblower
Horatio Hornblower is a fictional officer in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, the protagonist of a series of novels and stories by C. S. Forester. He later became the subject of films, radio and television programmes, and C. Northcote Parkinson elaborated a "biography" of him, ''The True Story of Horatio Hornblower''. Forester's series about Hornblower tales began with the novel '' The Happy Return'' (U.S. title ''Beat to Quarters''), published in 1937. Here Hornblower is a captain on a secret mission to Central America in 1808. Later stories fill out his earlier years, starting with his unpromising beginning as a seasick midshipman. As the Napoleonic Wars progress he steadily gains promotion as a result of his skill and daring, despite his initial poverty and lack of influential friends. After surviving many adventures in a wide variety of locales he rises to become Admiral of the Fleet. Inspirations Forester's original inspiration was an old copy ...
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Michael Redgrave
Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave CBE (20 March 1908 – 21 March 1985) was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author. He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in ''Mourning Becomes Electra'' (1947), as well as two BAFTA nominations for Best British Actor for his performances in '' The Night My Number Came Up'' (1955) and '' Time Without Pity'' (1957). At the 4th Cannes Film Festival, he won Best Actor for his performance in '' The Browning Version'' (1951). Youth and education Redgrave was born in Bristol, England, the son of actress Margaret Scudamore and the silent film actor Roy Redgrave. Roy left when Redgrave was six months old to pursue a career in Australia. He died when Redgrave was 14. His mother subsequently married Captain James Anderson, a tea planter. Redgrave greatly disliked his stepfather. He studied at Clifton College and Magdalene College, Cambridge. Clifton College Theatre was opened in 1966 by Re ...
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The Happy Return
''The Happy Return'' (''Beat to Quarters'' in the US) is the first of the Horatio Hornblower novels by C. S. Forester. It was published in 1937. The American title is derived from the expression " beat to quarters", which was the signal to prepare for combat. This book is sixth by internal chronology of the series (including the unfinished ''Hornblower and the Crisis''). Hornblower's past history as described here does not entirely accord with his history as revealed in the stories written later, but Forester never revised the book. It is one of three ''Hornblower'' novels adapted for the British-American film ''Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.'', released in 1951. Plot summary In June 1808 Hornblower is in command of the 36-gun frigate HMS ''Lydia'', with secret orders to sail to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua (near modern Choluteca, Choluteca) and supply a local landowner, Don Julian Alvarado ("descendant" of Pedro de Alvarado by a fictional marriage to a daughter of Moctezu ...
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Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth
Admiral Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth, GCB (19 April 1757 – 23 January 1833) was a British naval officer. He fought during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars, and the Napoleonic Wars. His younger brother Israel Pellew also pursued a naval career. Childhood Pellew was born at Dover, the second son of Samuel Pellew (1712–1764), commander of a Dover packet, and his wife, Constantia Langford. The Pellew family was Cornish, descended from a family that came originally from Normandy, but had for many centuries been settled in the west of Cornwall. Edward's grandfather, Humphrey Pellew (1650–1721), a merchant and ship owner, son of a naval officer, resided at Flushing manor-house in the parish of Mylor. Part of the town of Flushing was built by Samuel Trefusis, MP for Penryn; the other part was built by Humphrey Pellew, who was buried there. He also had a property and a tobacco plantation in Maryland. Part of the town of Annapolis stands ...
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Articles Of War
The Articles of War are a set of regulations drawn up to govern the conduct of a country's military and naval forces. The first known usage of the phrase is in Robert Monro's 1637 work ''His expedition with the worthy Scot's regiment called Mac-keyes regiment etc.'' (in the form "Articles of warres") and can be used to refer to military law in general. In Swedish, the equivalent term ''Krigsartiklar'', is first mentioned in 1556. However, the term is usually used more specifically and with the modern spelling and capitalisation to refer to the British regulations drawn up in the wake of the Glorious Revolution and the United States regulations later based on them. United Kingdom Throughout the Articles' existence, there were separate sets for the army and navy. Royal Navy England's first Articles of War were written for the Royal Navy. They formed the statutory provisions regulating and governing the behaviour of members of the Royal Navy. They were prominently displayed in all ...
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Capital Punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant said punishment. The sentence ordering that an offender is to be punished in such a manner is known as a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is ''condemned'' and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Crimes that are punishable by death are known as ''capital crimes'', ''capital offences'', or ''capital felonies'', and vary depending on the jurisdiction, but commonly include serious crimes against the person, such as murder, mass murder, aggravated cases of rape (often including child sexual abuse), terrorism, aircraft hijacking, war crimes, crimes a ...
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Flogging
Flagellation (Latin , 'whip'), flogging or whipping is the act of beating the human body with special implements such as whips, rods, switches, the cat o' nine tails, the sjambok, the knout, etc. Typically, flogging has been imposed on an unwilling subject as a punishment; however, it can also be submitted to willingly and even done by oneself in sadomasochistic or religious contexts. The strokes are typically aimed at the unclothed back of a person, though they can be administered to other areas of the body. For a moderated subform of flagellation, described as ''bastinado'', the soles of a person's bare feet are used as a target for beating (see foot whipping). In some circumstances the word ''flogging'' is used loosely to include any sort of corporal punishment, including birching and caning. However, in British legal terminology, a distinction was drawn (and still is, in one or two colonial territories) between ''flogging'' (with a cat o' nine tails) and ''whippi ...
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Peter Simple (novel)
''Peter Simple'' is an 1834 novel written by Frederick Marryat about a young British midshipman during the Napoleonic wars. It was originally published in serialized form in 1833. Plot summary The novel describes the naval career of a young gentleman during the period of British Mastery of the seas in the early 19th century. The hero of the title is introduced as 'the fool of the family', son of a parson and heir presumptive to the influential Lord Privilege. This forms a subplot among several others that run alongside the main narrative which mainly concerns the young man's journey from adolescent to adulthood amidst a backdrop of war at sea. One of the key components of the tale is Peter's relationship with the various shipmates he meets, mainly an older officer who takes young Simple under his wing and proves invaluable in his sea education, and also a post captain who suffers from Münchausen syndrome, among others. Adaptation In 1957 it was adapted into a BBC television ...
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Jack Aubrey
John "Jack" Aubrey , is a fictional character in the Aubrey–Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian. The series portrays his rise from lieutenant to rear admiral in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. The twenty (and one incomplete draft)-book series encompasses Aubrey's adventures and various commands along his course to flying a rear admiral's flag. Some of his naval battles and adventures are drawn from Royal Navy history. Several of his exploits and reverses, most importantly those in the plots of '' Master and Commander'', '' The Reverse of the Medal'' and ''Blue at the Mizzen'', are directly based on the chequered career of Thomas Cochrane. Often in the other 17 novels in the series, Aubrey may witness an action or hear of one that is drawn from history, while the battles or other encounters with ships he captains are fictional. Besides reaching the peak of naval skills and authority, Aubrey is presented as being interested in mathematics and astronomy, a ...
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Frederick Marryat
Captain Frederick Marryat (10 July 1792 – 9 August 1848) was a Royal Navy officer, a novelist, and an acquaintance of Charles Dickens. He is noted today as an early pioneer of nautical fiction, particularly for his semi-autobiographical novel ''Mr Midshipman Easy'' (1836). He is remembered also for his children's novel ''The Children of the New Forest'' (1847), and for a widely used system of maritime flag signalling known as Marryat's Code. Early life and naval career Marryat was born in Great George Street, Westminster, London, the son of Joseph Marryat, a "merchant prince" and member of Parliament, as well as slave owner and anti-abolitionist, and his American wife, Charlotte, ''née'' von Geyer.J. K. Laughton, "Marryat, Frederick (1792–1848)", rev. Andrew Lambert, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004Retrieved 2 January 2016.Charlotte was a daughter of Frederick Geyer of Boston and one of the first women admitted to membership of the Royal ...
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Arthur Hornblow Jr
Arthur is a common male given name of Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. Another theory, more widely believed, is that the name is derived from the Roman clan '' Artorius'' who lived in Roman Britain for centuries. A common spelling variant used in many Slavic, Romance, and Germanic languages is Artur. In Spanish and Italian it is Arturo. Etymology The earliest datable attestation of the name Arthur is in the early 9th century Welsh-Latin text ''Historia Brittonum'', where it refers to a circa 5th to 6th-century Briton general who fought against the invading Saxons, and who later gave rise to the famous King Arthur of medieval legend and literature. A possible earlier mention of the same man is to be found in the epic Welsh poem ''Y Gododdin'' by Aneirin, which some scholars assign to the late 6th century, though this is still a mat ...
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Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his attempts to exact revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother. ''Hamlet'' is considered among the "most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language", with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others". There are many works that have been pointed to as possible sources for Shakespeare's play—from ancient Greek tragedies to Elizabethan plays. The editors of the Arden Shakespeare question the idea of "source hunting", pointing out that it presupposes that authors always require ideas from other works for their own, and suggests that no author can have an original idea or be an originator. When S ...
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William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including William Shakespeare's collaborations, collaborations, consist of some Shakespeare's plays, 39 plays, Shakespeare's sonnets, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been List of translations of works by William Shakespeare, translated into every major modern language, living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway (wife ...
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