Gazeka
Monckton's Gazeka, also called the Papuan Devil-Pig is an animal said to have been seen on Papua New Guinea in the early 20th century. It is said to resemble a tapir or a giant sloth, having a long, proboscis-like snout, and some theories suggest it may be the descendant of an extinct marsupial belonging to the family Palorchestidae. Totally separate from that creature (to which the name 'Monckton's Gazeka' was confusingly applied by person(s) unknown) is the 'real' Gazeka, which was the creation of the English comic actor, George Graves, who introduced it as a bit of by-play in the musical, ''The Little Michus'' at Daly's Theatre, London, in 1905. A contemporary magazine described it thus: "According to Mr. Graves, the Gazeka was first discovered by an explorer who was accompanied in his travels by a case of whiskey, and who half thought that he had seen it before in a sort of dream." Graves's idea became a fad of the season and George Edwardes mounted a competition to encoura ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Graves (actor)
George Windsor Graves (1 January 1876 – 2 April 1949) was an English comic actor. Although he could neither sing nor dance,"The Comedy Old Man and His Troubles" '' The New York Times'', 3 February 1907 he became a leading comedian in , adapting the French and Viennese '' opéra-bouffe'' style of light comic relief into a broader comedy popular with English audiences of the period. His comic portrayals did ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mike (novel)
''Mike'' is a school story by P. G. Wodehouse, first published on 15 September 1909 by Adam & Charles Black, London.McIlvaine, E., Sherby, L.S. and Heineman, J.H. (1990) ''P.G. Wodehouse: A comprehensive bibliography and checklist''. New York: James H. Heineman, p. 18. The story first appeared in the magazine ''The Captain'', in two separate parts that were collected together in the original version of the book; the first part, originally called ''Jackson Junior'', was republished in 1953 under the title ''Mike at Wrykyn'', while the second half, called ''The Lost Lambs'' in its serialised version, was released as ''Enter Psmith'' in 1935 and then as ''Mike and Psmith'' in 1953. Although ''Mike'' was one of Wodehouse's earlier books, Wodehouse thought it his best work. Plot introduction The first half of the story, found in ''Mike at Wrykyn'', introduces Michael "Mike" Jackson. Mike is the youngest son of a renowned cricketing family. Mike's eldest brother Joe is a successfu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Little Michus
''Les p'tites Michu'' (The Little Michus) is an opérette in three acts, with music by André Messager and words by Albert Vanloo and Georges Duval (journalist), Georges Duval. The piece is set in Paris in the years following the French Revolution and depicts the complications ensuing after the identities of two girls become confused in their infancy. The opera opened at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, Paris, on 16 November 1897 and ran for more than 150 performances. It became an international success, with productions in four continents, including an unusually long run of 400 performances in London, and had subsequent revivals in Paris. Background and first production After a considerable success in 1890 with his opéra comique ''La Basoche'' Messager had a series of failures later in the decade. Among these, ''Madame Chrysanthème (opera), Madame Chrysanthème'' (1893) played for 16 performances in Paris, ''Mirette (opera), Mirette'' (1894), written for London, had a dis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia (a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia). Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The country is the world's third largest island country, with an area of . At the national level, after being ruled by three external powers since 1884, including nearly 60 years of Australian administration starting during World War I, Papua New Guinea established its sovereignty in 1975. It became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1975 with Elizabeth II as its queen. It also became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations in its own right. There are 839 known languages of Papua New Guinea, on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tapir
Tapirs ( ) are large, herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South and Central America, with one species inhabiting Southeast Asia. They are one of three extant branches of Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulates), alongside equines and rhinoceros. Only a single genus, ''Tapirus'' is currently extant. Tapirs migrated into South America during the Pleistocene epoch from North America after the formation of the Isthmus of Panama as part of the Great American Interchange. Tapirs were once widespread in North America until the arrival of humans at the end of the Late Pleistocene, around 12,000 years ago. Species There are four widely recognized extant species of tapir, all in the genus ''Tapirus'' of the family Tapiridae. They are the South American tapir, the Malayan tapir, Baird's tapir, and the mountain tapir. In 2013, a group of researchers sai ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Giant Sloth
Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. The term is used to refer to all extinct sloths because of the large size of the earliest forms discovered, compared to existing tree sloths. The Caribbean ground sloths, the most recent survivors, lived in the Antilles, possibly until 1550 BCE. However, radiocarbon dating suggests an age of between 2819 and 2660 BCE for the last occurrence of ''Megalocnus'' in Cuba. Ground sloths had been extinct on the mainland of North and South America for 10,000 years or more. They survived 5,000–6,000 years longer in the Caribbean than on the American mainland, which correlates with the later colonization of this area by humans. Much ground sloth evolution took place during the late Paleogene and Neogene of South America, while the continent was isolated. At their earliest appearance in the fossil record, the ground sloths were already distinct at the family level. The presenc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marsupial
Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a pouch. Marsupials include opossums, Tasmanian devils, kangaroos, koalas, wombats, wallabies, bandicoots, and the extinct thylacine. Marsupials represent the clade originating from the last common ancestor of extant metatherians, the group containing all mammals more closely related to marsupials than to placentals. They give birth to relatively undeveloped young that often reside in a pouch located on their mothers' abdomen for a certain amount of time. Close to 70% of the 334 extant species occur on the Australian continent (the mainland, Tasmania, New Guinea and nearby islands). The remaining 30% are found in the Americas—primarily in South America, thirteen in Central America, and one species, the Virginia opossum, in Nort ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Palorchestidae
Palorchestidae is an extinct family of diprotodont marsupials whose members are sometimes referred to as marsupial tapirs due to their superficial similarity to true tapirs. Genera The family consists of the following four genera: * ''Propalorchestes'' (Murray, 1986) * ''Ngapakaldia'' (Stirton, 1967) * ''Palorchestes ''Palorchestes'' ("ancient leaper or dancer") is an extinct genus of terrestrial animal, terrestrial, herbivorous marsupials of the family (biology), family Palorchestidae. The genus was endemic to Australia, living from the Miocene through to th ...'' (Owen, 1873) * '' Pitikantia dailyi'' (Stirton, 1967) References External links * Prehistoric vombatiforms Prehistoric mammals of Australia Miocene marsupials Pliocene marsupials Pleistocene marsupials Clawed herbivores Chattian first appearances Pleistocene extinctions Prehistoric mammal families {{Diprotodont-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Daly's Theatre
Daly's Theatre was a theatre in the City of Westminster. It was located at 2 Cranbourn Street, just off Leicester Square. It opened on 27 June 1893, and was demolished in 1937. The theatre was built for and named after the American impresario Augustin Daly, but he failed to make a success of it, and between 1895 and 1915 the British producer George Edwardes ran the house, where he presented a series of long-running musical comedies, including '' The Geisha'' (1896), and English adaptations of operettas, including ''The Merry Widow'' (1907). After Edwardes died in 1915 Daly's had one more great hit, '' The Maid of the Mountains'' (1917), which ran for 1,352 productions, but after that the fortunes of the theatre declined; Noël Coward's play ''Sirocco'' (1927) was a notable failure. By the mid-1930s Leicester Square had become better known for cinemas. Daly's was sold to Warner Brothers who demolished it and erected a large cinema on the site. History Background and early ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Edwardes
George Joseph Edwardes (né Edwards; 8 October 1855 – 4 October 1915) was an English theatre manager and producer of Irish ancestry who brought a new era in musical theatre to the British stage and beyond. Edwardes started out in theatre management, soon working at a number of West End theatres. By the age of 20, he was managing theatres for Richard D'Oyly Carte. In 1885, Edwardes became a manager at the Gaiety Theatre, London, Gaiety Theatre with John Hollingshead, who soon retired. For the next three decades, Edwardes ruled a theatrical empire including the Gaiety, Daly's Theatre, the Adelphi Theatre and others, and sent touring companies around Britain and abroad. In the early 1890s, Edwardes recognised the changing tastes of musical theatre audiences and led the movement away from Victorian burlesque, burlesque and comic opera to Edwardian musical comedy. Life and career Edwardes was born at Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England. He was the eldest of four sons and three ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Penny Illustrated Paper And Illustrated Times
The ''Penny Illustrated Paper'' was a cheap ( 1d.) illustrated London weekly newspaper that ran from 1861 to 1913. Premises Illustrated weekly newspapers had been pioneered by the ''Illustrated London News'' (published from 1842, costing fivepence): its imitators included the '' Pictorial Times'' (1843–48), and – after the 1855 repeal of the Stamp Act – the '' Illustrated Times''. With the abolition of paper duty in 1861 it was possible to envisage an even cheaper mass-circulation illustrated weekly. History The first issue, 12 October 1861, announced itself confidently under the masthead "PENNY ILLUSTRATED PAPER: With All the News of the Week": "A new era opens upon the people. In producing a paper for the million, let us plainly say, we want be esteemed the friend of the people ... A new era is opened to us by the Repeal of the Paper Dutie The paper was apparently initially the charge of Ebenezer Farringtonbr>but the wife and sons of the recently deceased H ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Perrier
Perrier ( , also , ) is a French brand of natural bottled mineral water obtained at its source in Vergèze, located in the Gard ''département''. Perrier is known for its carbonation and its distinctive green bottle. Perrier was part of the Perrier Vittel Group SA, which became Nestlé Waters France after the acquisition of the company by Nestlé in 1992. Nestlé Waters France also includes Vittel, S.Pellegrino and Contrex. About The spring from which Perrier water is sourced is naturally carbonated, but the water and natural carbon dioxide gas are obtained independently. The water is then purified, and during bottling, the carbon dioxide gas is re-added so that the level of carbonation in bottled Perrier matches that of the Vergèze spring. In 1990, Perrier removed the "naturally sparkling" claim from its bottles under pressure from the United States Food and Drug Administration. Since at least 2019, Perrier water is no longer "reinforced with gas from the source" b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |