- published: 29 Apr 2013
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Sam Kydd (15 February 1915 – 26 March 1982) was an Ulster-born British actor. An army officer's son, he was born in Belfast, but moved to London, England when he was a child. He was educated at Dunstable Grammar School in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England.
During the mid-1930s Kydd was as an MC for various big bands such as the Oscar Rabin Band. He would warm up audiences with jokes and impressions and even some tap dance routines then introduce the other singers and attractions on the bill. During the late 1930s he had joined the Territorial Army serving with the Queen Victoria's Rifles and when war broke out he was called up for active service.
Early in the war, he went to France with the British Expeditionary Force but was quickly captured, spending the rest of the war in Stalag XX-A, a camp near Thorn in German-occupied western Poland. Kydd later wrote of his experiences as a POW in his autobiographical book For You The War Is Over.
During his internment in the German prisoner-of-war camp, where he remained for the next five years, he took command of the camp's theatrical activities - devising and staging plays. He felt so strongly about his work there that, when he was offered repatriation after three years, he turned it down to continue with his theatrical work. In recognition of his valuable services during these years, he was awarded a pair of drama masks made by the Red Cross from barbed wire.
John Adams (October 30, 1735 (O.S. October 19, 1735) – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father, and the second President of the United States (1797–1801). He was also a lawyer, statesman, diplomat, political theorist, and a leading champion of independence in 1776. Hailing from New England, Adams, a prominent lawyer and public figure in Boston, was highly educated and represented Enlightenment values promoting republicanism. A Federalist, he was highly influential and one of the key Founding Fathers of the United States.
Adams came to prominence in the early stages of the American Revolution. As a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, he played a leading role in persuading Congress to declare independence and assisted Thomas Jefferson in drafting the Declaration of Independence. As a diplomat in Europe, he was a major negotiator of the eventual peace treaty with Great Britain, and chiefly responsible for obtaining important loans from Amsterdam bankers. A political theorist and historian, Adams largely wrote the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780 which soon after ended slavery in Massachusetts, but was in Europe when the federal Constitution was drafted on similar principles later in the decade. One of his greatest roles was as a judge of character: in 1775, he nominated George Washington to be commander-in-chief, and 25 years later nominated John Marshall to be Chief Justice of the United States.