Australia | Tradition

Australia Day (previously known as Anniversary Day, Foundation Day and ANA Day) is the official national day of Australia. Celebrated annually on 26 January, the day commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788, the hoisting of the British flag there, and the proclamation of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia.
Australia Day is an official public holiday in every state and territory of Australia and is marked by the Order of Australia and Australian of the Year awards, along with an address from the Prime Minister.
Although it was not known as Australia Day until over a century later, records of celebrations on 26 January date back to 1808, with Governor Lachlan Macquarie having held the first official celebration of the formation of New South Wales in 1818. In 2004, an estimated 7.5 million people attended Australia Day celebrations and functions across the country.

Ireland | Jeremy Irons

Jeremy John Irons (born 19 September 1948) is an English actor. After receiving classic training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and had since appeared in countless London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew and Richard II. In 1984, he made his Broadway debut in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing and garnered a Tony Award for Best Actor.

Irons is also an occasional television actor. He earned his first Golden Globe Award for his television debut in BBC's series Brideshead Revisited(1981). In 2006, Irons starred opposite Helen Mirren in HBO's miniseries Elizabeth I, for which he received his second Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In pop culture, He is also known for lending his voice to the Disney character Scar in The Lion King(1994).

Ireland | Food

Irish stew is a traditional irish stew made from lamb, beef or mutton, (mutton is used as it comes from less tender sheep over a year old and is fattier and more flavourful) as well as potatoes, carrots, onions and parsley. The essence of Irish stew is summed up in the recipe's entry in The Joy of Cooking: "This famous stew is not browned."






Recipe :

Ingredients
4 cups of water.
1 lb of diced/chopped mutton.

4 med size carrots.
2 med size onions.
A tablespoon of parsley.

5 med size potatoes.
2 stock cubes, or 1 pint of homemade/prepared stock.
Black pepper.

Method

Boil the mutton alone for about 1 hour.

Strain off most of the fat.

Chop the vegetables to spoon size.

Put all ingredients in a big pot including the stock, and bring to boil and simmer for 1 1/2 hours.

Ireland | Famous living person

Paul David Hewson, born 10 May 1960, most commonly known by his stage name Bono, is an Irish singer and musician, best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2.Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his future wife, Ali Hewson and the future members of U2. Bono writes almost all U2 lyrics, often using political, social, and religious themes. During their early years, Bono's lyrics contributed to U2's rebellious and spiritual tone.As the band matured, his lyrics became inspired more by personal experiences shared with members of U2.












Rock Band U2: On 25 September 1976, Bono, David Evans ("The Edge"), his brother Dik, and Adam Clayton responded to an advertisement on a bulletin board at Mount Temple posted by fellow student Larry Mullen Jr. to form a rock band. The band had occasional jam sessions in which they did covers of other bands. Tired of long guitar solos and hard rock, Bono wanted to play Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys songs. Unfortunately the band could not play covers very well, so they started writing their own songs.

USA | Sport

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal is to score by hitting a thrown runs ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team (the batting team) take turns hitting against the pitcher of the other team (the fielding team), which tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the batting team can stop at any of the bases and later advance via a teammate's hit or other means. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team records three outs. One turn at bat for each team constitutes an inning; nine innings make up a professional game. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins.

Rules and gameplay:A game is played between two teams, each composed of nine players, that take turns playing offense (batting or hitting) and defense (fielding or pitching). A pair of turns, one at bat and one in the field, by each team constitutes an inning; there are nine innings in a game. One team—customarily the visiting team—bats in the top, or first half, of every inning; the other team—customarily the home team—bats in the bottom, or second half, of every inning. The goal of a game is to score more points (runs) than the other team. The players on the team at bat attempt to score runs by circling, or completing a tour of, the four bases set at the corners of the square-shaped baseball diamond. A player bats at home plate and must proceed counterclockwise to first base, second base, third base, and back home in order to score a run. The team in the field attempts both to prevent runs from scoring and to record outs, which remove opposing players from offensive action until their turn in their team's batting order comes up again. When three outs are recorded, the teams switch roles for the next half-inning. If the score of the game is tied after nine innings, extra innings are played to resolve the contest. Children's games are often scheduled for fewer than nine innings.

USA | Tradition

Origin of name : The word Halloween is first attested in the 16th century and represents a Scottish variant of the fuller All-Hallows-Eve, that is, the night before All Hallows Day. Although the phrase All Hallows is found in Old English (ealra hálȝena mæssedæȝ, the feast of all saints), All-Hallows-Even is itself not attested until 1556. Thus there is no evidence of the term for this day before the 16th century Reformation.

Costumes : Halloween costumes are traditionally those of monsters such as ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils. They are said to be used to scare off demons. Costumes are also based on themes other than traditional horror, such as those of characters from television shows, movies, and other pop culture icons.

Foods : Because the holiday comes in the wake of the annual apple harvest, candy apples(known as toffee apples outside North America), caramel or taffy apples are a comm on Halloween treat made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, sometimes followed by rolling them in nuts.

USA | Food

McDonalds's is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast good restaurants, serving nearly 47 million customers daily. The business began in 1940, with a restaurant opened by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald in San Bernardino , California. Their introduction of the "Speedee Service System" in 1948 established the principles of the modern fast-food restaurant. The original mascot of McDonald's was a man with a chef's hat on top of a hamburger shaped head whose name was "Speedee." Speedee was eventually replaced with Ronald McDonald by 1967 when the company first filed a U.S. trademark on a clown shaped man having a puffed out costume legs. McDonald's first filed for a U.S. trademark on the name McDonald's on May 4, 1961, with the description "Drive-In Restaurant Services", which continues to be renewed through the end of December 2009.

Scotland | Traditions

The kilt is a knee-length garmet. Today Scotsman regard kilts formal dress or a national dress. Although there are still a few people who wear a kilt daily, it is usually owned or hired to be worn at weddings or other formal occasions. It is also worn on some sport events, and for example Highland games, but it has also been a part of Fashion. The Kilt first appeared as the "Great kilt", a full-length garment whose upper half could be worn as a cloak raped over the shoulder, or brought up over head as a cloak. The Scottish Kilt is unique in its appearance(design, construction). There are also accessories for Kilt: belt, jacket, kilt pin, sgian dubh(black knife) and so on.

Scotland | Sports

Golf is a club-and-ball sport. Players are called "Golfers". Players use different types of clubs (each club is composed of a shaft with a lance (grip) on the top end and a club head on the bottom. "Long" clubs are those meant to propel the ball a comparatively longer distance and "short" clubs a comparatively short distance.)and attempt to hit balls into holes. In the Rules of golf, golf is described as "playing a ball with a club from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules." It isn't known where golf came from. A golf course consists of a series of holes. The hole is highlighted with the pin and a cup. Typically a round consists of 18 holes that are played in a certain order. The player that does the less strikes to hit all the holes, is the winner. One intresting thing about this sport is that players use motorized carts to drive from one hole to another.

Scotland | Historic people

Sir William Wallace (1272-1305) is nowadays known as a patriot and a national hero. He was one of the two great people who defeated the English army at the battle of Stirling Bridge and he became Guardian of Scotland. Not much known about Wallace's family. The Wallace family may have originally come from Wales or Shorpshire as followers of Walter Fitzalan. There is a tale about Wallace's family. The tale (invented by Blind Harry) says that Wallace's father was killed along with his brother John in a skirmish at Loudoun hill in 1921 by the notorious Lambies, who came from the clan Lamont. Wallace himself was executed on 23th August 1305. He was stripped naked and dragged through the city at the heels of a horse to the Elms at Smithfield. He was there hanged and cut very brutally.