100px|Norwich Market, 2009
Norwich Market is an outdoor market consisting of around 200 stalls
in central Norwich, England. Founded in the latter part of the
11th century to supply Norman merchants and settlers moving to the area
following the Norman conquest of England, it replaced an earlier market
a short distance away. It has been in operation on the present site for
over 900 years. By the 14th century, Norwich was one of the largest and
most prosperous cities in England, and Norwich Market was a major
trading hub. In the Georgian era, Norwich became an increasingly
popular destination with travellers, and developed into a fashionable
shopping town. Following the First World War, the local authority began
to systematically buy up all the stalls on the market, eventually
bringing the entire market into public ownership, and the market was
radically redesigned in the 1930s. Stalls were arranged into parallel
rows, and a new City Hall was built along the entire western side of
the marketplace to replace the by now inadequate Guildhall. This new
arrangement survived with few significant changes for the rest of the
20th century. By the 1990s the market was becoming decrepit, and
proposals were made for another radical rebuilding of the area. These
proposals were abandoned in favour of a scheme which replaced the old
stalls with steel units of four stalls each. The rebuilt market was
completed in early 2006, and is one of the largest markets in Britain.
(more...)
Recently featured: Maple syrup – Xá Lợi Pagoda raids – USS
Arizona
Archive – By email – More featured articles...
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich_Market>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1799:
France became the first country to adopt the metric system as its
system for weights and measures.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system>
1884:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by American author Mark Twain was first
published in the United Kingdom and Canada.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn>
1911:
Calbraith Rodgers completed the first transcontinental flight across
the United States.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calbraith_Perry_Rodgers>
1948:
The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, representing the first global expression of rights to
which all human beings are inherently entitled.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights>
1983:
Raúl Alfonsín became the first democratically elected President of
Argentina to take office after the fall of the military dictatorship.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%BAl_Alfons%C3%ADn>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
gluck (v):
To flow or cause to flow in a noisy series of spurts, as when liquid is
emptied through the narrow neck of a bottle
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gluck>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The history of the human race has generated several papers articulating
basic moral imperatives, or fundamental principles, of human
coexistence that… substantially influenced the fate of humanity on this
planet. Among these historic documents, the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights … holds a very special, indeed, unique position. It is the
first code of ethical conduct that was not a product of one culture, or
one sphere of civilization only, but a universal creation, shaped and
subscribed to by representatives of all humankind. Since its very
inception, the Declaration has thus represented a planetary, or global
commitment, a global intention, a global guideline. For this reason
alone, this exceptional document — conceived as a result of a profound
human self-reflection in the wake of the horrors of World War II, and
retaining its relevance ever since — deserves to be remembered today.
--Václav Havel
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel>