Livonia (Livonian: Līvõmō, Estonian: Liivimaa, Finnish: Liivinmaa, German and Scandinavian languages: Livland, Latvian and Lithuanian: Livonija, Polish: Inflanty, archaic English Livland,, Liwlandia; Russian: Лифляндия / Liflyandiya) is a historic region along the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It was once the land of the Finnic Livonians inhabiting the principal ancient Livonian County Metsepole with its center at Turaida. The most prominent ruler of ancient Livonia was Caupo of Turaida.

During the Livonian Crusade, ancient Livonia was colonized by the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, later called the Livonian Order, and the name Livonia came to designate a much broader territory: Terra Mariana on the eastern coasts of the Baltic Sea, in present-day Latvia and Estonia. Its frontiers were the Gulf of Riga and the Gulf of Finland in the north-west, Lake Peipus and Russia to the east, and Lithuania to the south.

Livonia was inhabited by various Baltic and Finnic peoples, ruled by an upper class of Baltic Germans. Over the course of time, some nobles were polonized into the Polish–Lithuanian nobility (Szlachta) or russified into the Russian nobility (Dvoryanstvo).

Liv Lindeland (born 7 December 1945, Norway) is a Norwegian model and actress. She was chosen as Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month in January 1971 and as the Playmate of the Year for 1972. She became the first Playmate of the Month ever to show clearly visible pubic hair.Her original pictorial was photographed by Alexas Urba. Lindeland was the daughter-in-law of actress-dancer Cyd Charisse.

Lindeland went into acting following her Playboy appearance, and then segued into a career as a talent agent. She again posed nude for Playboy in the December 1979 pictorial, "Playmates Forever!"

Gottfried August Bürger (December 31, 1747 – June 8, 1794) was a German poet. His ballads were very popular in Germany. His most noted ballad, Lenore, found an audience beyond readers of the German language in an English adaptation and a French translation.

He was born in Molmerswende (now a part of Mansfeld), Principality of Halberstadt, where his father was the Lutheran pastor. He showed an early predilection for solitary and gloomy places and the making of verses, for which he had no other model than hymnals. At the age of twelve, Bürger was practically adopted by his maternal grandfather, Bauer, at Aschersleben, who sent him to the Pädagogium at Halle. He learned Latin with difficulty. In 1764 he passed to the University of Halle, as a student of theology, which, however, he soon abandoned for the study of jurisprudence. There he fell under the influence of Christian Adolph Klotz (1738–1771), who directed Bürger's attention to literature and encouraged his natural disposition to a wild and unregulated life. In consequence of his dissipated habits, he was in 1767 recalled by his grandfather, but on promising to reform was in 1768 allowed to enter the University of Göttingen as a law student.

Hugo Distler (Nuremberg, June 24, 1908 – Berlin, November 1, 1942) was a German organist, choral conductor, teacher and composer.

Born in Nuremberg, he attended Leipzig Conservatory from 1927 to 1931, first as a conducting student with piano as his secondary subject, but changing later, on the advice of his teacher, to composition and organ. He studied there with Martienssen (piano), Ramin (organ) and Grabner (harmony).

He became organist at St. Jacobi in Lübeck in 1931. In 1933 he married Waltraut Thienhaus. That same year he joined the NSDAP: reluctantly, but his continued employment depended on his doing so. In October 1933 Distler was appointed head of the chamber music department at the Lübeck Conservatory, and at about the same time he began teaching at the Church Music School, Spandau, Berlin.

In 1937 Distler was appointed as a lecturer at the Württemberg Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart, where he also directed its two choirs. In 1940 he moved to Berlin to teach and conduct at the Hochschule für Musik there, and in 1942 he was named the conductor of the State and Cathedral Choir.