Ludwigsburg Palace

Ludwigsburg Palace.
Ludwigsburg Palace is a 452-room palace complex of 18 buildings in Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the largest palatial estate in the country and has been called the "Versailles of Swabia". Eberhard Louis, Duke of Württemberg, began construction of the palace in 1704. The son of his successor, Charles Eugene, completed it and refurbished parts in the Rococo style, especially its theatre. Charles Eugene abandoned the palace in 1775, and it began a decline until the future Duke, and then King, Frederick moved in in 1795. As King, Frederick, and his Queen, Charlotte, renovated the entirety of the palace in the Neoclassical style. The palace was opened to the public in 1918. It underwent periods of restoration, including for its tricentenary in 2004. It has hosted the Ludwigsburg Festival annually since 1947. The palace is surrounded by gardens named Blooming Baroque (Blühendes Barock), laid out in 1954 as they might have appeared in 1800.

Edward II of England

Edward II of England.
Edward II (1284–1327) was King of England from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. He married Isabella, the daughter of the powerful King Philip IV of France, in 1308. Edward had a close and controversial relationship with Piers Gaveston, who had joined his household in 1300. Gaveston's arrogance and power as Edward's favourite provoked discontent among both the barons and the French royal family, and Edward was forced to exile him. On Gaveston's return, the barons pressured the king into agreeing to wide-ranging reforms, called the Ordinances of 1311. A group of barons seized and executed Gaveston in 1312, beginning several years of armed confrontation. English forces were pushed back in Scotland, where Edward was decisively defeated by Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. After the exiled Roger Mortimer invaded England with a small army in 1326, Edward's regime collapsed and he relinquished his crown in favour of his 14-year-old son, Edward III.

William H. Seward

William H. Seward.
William H. Seward (May 16, 1801 – October 10, 1872) was United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869. A determined opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War, he was a dominant figure in the Republican Party in its formative years. While Governor of New York, he signed laws that advanced the rights of black residents. He was elected as a U.S. Senator in 1849, serving two six-year terms. Though he was the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860, delegates sought a moderate on the slavery question, choosing Abraham Lincoln. As Secretary of State, his firm stance against foreign intervention helped deter the United Kingdom and France from entering the conflict. He was a target of the 1865 assassination plot that killed Lincoln, and was seriously wounded by conspirator Lewis Powell. Seward remained at his post through the presidency of Andrew Johnson, during which he negotiated the Alaska Purchase in 1867.

Tropical Depression Nineteen-E (2018)

Tropical Depression Nineteen-E (2018).
Tropical Depression Nineteen-E was a weak tropical cyclone that caused flooding in northwestern Mexico and the United States during the 2018 Pacific hurricane season. By September 7, 2018, the storm had entered the northeastern Pacific Ocean, after crossing Central America. Despite disorganization and its close proximity to land, the meandering disturbance developed into a tropical depression in the Gulf of California on September 19, with peak maximum sustained winds reported as 35 mph (55 km/h). Although the storm quickly deteriorated after landfall, thirteen people were killed in Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and Sonora, and recorded agricultural losses exceeded US$40 million. Overall, the storm affected eleven Mexican states, with torrential rainfall and flooding in Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, and Sonora. Remnant moisture from Nineteen-E led to severe flooding in the U.S. states of Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, with damage estimates totalling about $250 million.

Faryl Smith

Faryl Smith.
Faryl Smith (born 1995) is a British soprano who rose to fame after competing on the second series of the ITV television show Britain's Got Talent in 2008. Although she was a favourite to win after the second round, and received praise throughout the competition, she finished outside the top three in the live final. Smith signed a contract with Universal Classics and Jazz for a £2.3 million advance in December 2008, the largest ever granted to a schoolgirl. Her debut album, Faryl, was released in March 2009 and became the fastest-selling solo classical album in British chart history, selling 29,200 copies in the first week. Thanks to the album's success, Smith was nominated for two Classical BRIT awards, becoming the youngest ever double nominee. Her second album, and last with Universal, was Wonderland, which was released in November 2009. Since the end of her contract with Universal, Smith has continued to perform and record music.

Interstate 94 in Michigan

Interstate 94 in Michigan.
Interstate 94 (I-94) in Michigan is a part of the U.S. Interstate Highway System that runs east from the Indiana state line near Lake Michigan through the southern Lower Peninsula to Detroit, then northeast to Port Huron. I-94 extends west to Billings, Montana. In Michigan, it is a state trunkline highway serving Benton Harbor, St. Joseph, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Jackson, Ann Arbor, and The Thumb, terminating on the Blue Water Bridge at the Canadian border. By 1960, I-94 was completed from New Buffalo to Detroit, and most of the rest of the route was completed in the 1960s. The highway has one auxiliary route in Michigan, I-194 in Battle Creek, and eight business routes. In 1987, a plane crashed on the freeway during take-off from the airport in Detroit. The routing of I-94 contains the first full freeway-to-freeway interchange in the United States, and comprises the first complete border-to-border toll-free freeway in a U.S. state.

Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet.
Jules Massenet (12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas. The two most frequently staged are Manon (1884) and Werther (1892). After winning the country's top prize in music, the Prix de Rome, in 1863, he composed prolifically in many genres. He wrote more than 40 stage works in a wide variety of styles, from opéra-comique to grand-scale depictions of classical myths, romantic comedies, and lyric dramas. He also composed oratorios, ballets, cantatas, orchestral works, incidental music, piano pieces, and songs. Massenet had a good sense of the theatre and of what would succeed with the Parisian public, and he became the most popular composer of opera in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although critics do not rank him among operatic geniuses such as Mozart, Verdi and Wagner, his operas are now widely accepted as well-crafted and intelligent products of the Belle Époque.