- published: 19 Feb 2016
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Coordinates: 52°02′10″N 0°46′12″W / 52.036°N 0.770°W / 52.036; -0.770
Milton Keynes (i/ˌmɪltən ˈkiːnz/ mil-tən-KEENZ), sometimes abbreviated MK, is a large town in Buckinghamshire, about 45 miles (72 km) south-east of Leicester and 49 miles (79 km) north-west of London. It is the administrative centre of the Borough of Milton Keynes. It was formally designated as a new town on 23 January 1967, with the design brief to become a 'city' in scale.
At designation, its 89 km2 (34 sq mi) area incorporated the existing towns of Bletchley, Wolverton and Stony Stratford along with another fifteen villages and farmland in between. It took its name from the existing village of Milton Keynes, a few miles east of the planned centre.
At the 2001 census the population of the Milton Keynes urban area, including the adjacent Newport Pagnell, was 184,506, and that of the wider borough, which has been a unitary authority independent of Buckinghamshire County Council since 1997, was 207,063 (compared with a population of around 53,000 for the same area in 1961). The Borough’s population in 2009 is estimated to be nearly 241,000, with almost all the increase arising in the urban area.
David Bowie ( /ˈboʊ.i/ BOH-ee; born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947) is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He is known for his distinctive voice and the intellectual depth and eclecticism of his work.
Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in July 1969, when his song "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie's impact at that time, as described by biographer David Buckley, "challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day" and "created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture." The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona proved merely one facet of a career marked by continual reinvention, musical innovation and striking visual presentation.