Alfred von TirpitzAlfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz (ˈalfʁeːt fɔn ˈtɪʁpɪt͡s; 19 March 1849 – 6 March 1930) was a German grand admiral, Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperial Navy from 1897 until 1916. Prussia never had a major navy, nor did the other German states before the German Empire was formed in 1871. Tirpitz took the modest Imperial Navy and, starting in the 1890s, turned it into a world-class force that could threaten Britain's Royal Navy.
William Ewart GladstoneWilliam Ewart Gladstone (ˈglædstən ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-consecutive terms (the most of any British prime minister) beginning in 1868 and ending in 1894. He also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer four times, for over 12 years. Gladstone was born in Liverpool to Scottish parents.
People's BudgetThe 1909/1910 People's Budget was a proposal of the Liberal government that introduced unprecedented taxes on the lands and incomes of Britain's wealthy to fund new social welfare programmes. It passed the House of Commons in 1909 but was blocked by the House of Lords for a year and became law in April 1910. It was championed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, and his young ally Winston Churchill, who was then President of the Board of Trade and a fellow Liberal; called the "Terrible Twins" by certain Conservative contemporaries.
Order of the BathThe Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by King George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, of which bathing (as a symbol of purification) was an element. Knights so created were known as "Knights of the Bath". George I constituted the Knights of the Bath a regular "Military Order". He did not revive the Order of the Bath, which had not previously existed as an Order, in the sense of a body of knights governed by a set of statutes and whose numbers were replenished when vacancies occurred.
Order (distinction)An order is a visible honour awarded by a sovereign state, monarch, dynastic house or organisation to a person, typically in recognition of individual merit, that often comes with distinctive insignia such as collars, medals, badges, and sashes worn by recipients. Modern honour systems of state orders and dynastic orders emerged from the culture of orders of chivalry of the Middle Ages, which in turn emerged from the Catholic religious orders.
Order of the Star of RomaniaThe Order of the Star of Romania (Romanian: Ordinul Steaua României) is Romania's highest civil Order and second highest State decoration after the Order of Michael the Brave. It is the oldest Order of Romania. It is awarded by the President of Romania, and has six grades, from lowest to the highest: Knight, Officer, Commander, Grand Officer, Grand Cross, and Grand Cross with Collar. In 1863, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, the Domnitor of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, asked the Romanian representative to Paris to contact the then well-known jewellery house Krétly, to manufacture a state decoration.
ShillingThe shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence or one-twentieth of a pound before being phased out during the 1960s and 1970s. Currently the shilling is used as a currency in five east African countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Somalia, as well as the de facto country of Somaliland.
Chapel RoyalA chapel royal is an establishment in the British and Canadian royal households serving the spiritual needs of the sovereign and the royal family. Historically, the chapel royal was a body of priests and singers that travelled with the monarch. The term is now also applied to the chapels within royal palaces. In the Church of England, some of these royal chapels may also be referred to as royal peculiars, an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the monarch.
Alfonso XIIIAlfonso XIII (Spanish: Alfonso León Fernando María Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena; French: Alphonse Léon Ferdinand Marie Jacques Isidore Pascal Antoine de Bourbon; 17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941), also known as El Africano or the African due to his Africanist views, was King of Spain from his birth until 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He was a monarch from birth as his father, Alfonso XII, had died the previous year.
Colony of NatalThe Colony of Natal was a British colony in south-eastern Africa. It was proclaimed a British colony on 4 May 1843 after the British government had annexed the Boer Republic of Natalia, and on 31 May 1910 combined with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa, as one of its provinces. It is now the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. It was originally only about half the size of the present province, with the north-eastern boundaries being formed by the Tugela and Buffalo rivers beyond which lay the independent Kingdom of Zululand (kwaZulu in the Zulu language).
