Livonians

The Livonians or Livs are the indigenous inhabitants of Northern Latvia and Southwestern Estonia. They spoke the Uralic Livonian language, a language which was closely related to Estonian and Finnish. The last person to have learned Livonian as a mother tongue died in 2013. As of 2010, there were approximately 30 people who had learned it as a second language.

Historical, social and economic factors, together with an ethnically dispersed population, have resulted in the decline of the Livonian population, with only a small group surviving in the 21st century. In 2011, there were 250 people who claimed Livonian ethnicity in Latvia.

History

Prehistory

The exact date of the Uralic migration to the region has been disputed. Linguistic estimations place the arrival of ancestors of modern Livonians on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea around the Gulf of Riga as early as 1800 B.C., while a recent study of Y-chromosome haplogroups suggests an earlier arrival, 5,000 years ago, and that subsequent interactions and merging with Balts and Finnic tribes led to linguistic conversion of some neighboring groups of Uralic origin, such as Lithuanians and Estonians.

Disney Channel

Disney Channel (originally The Disney Channel from 1983 to 1997) is an American basic cable and satellite television network that serves as the flagship property of owner Disney Channels Worldwide, a unit of the Disney–ABC Television Group, itself a unit of the Disney Media Networks division of The Walt Disney Company.

The channel's programming consists of original first-run television series, theatrically-released and original made-for-cable movies and select other third-party programming. Disney Channel – which formerly operated as a premium service – originally marketed its programs towards families, and then at younger children by the late 1990s. Most of its original programming is aimed at children ages 6–14, while its Disney Junior programs are targeted at younger children ages 2–7.

As of February 2015, Disney Channel is available to approximately 96.2 million pay television households (82.7% of households with at least one television set) in the United States.

History

Conception (1977–83)

Liv and Maddie

Liv and Maddie is an American teen sitcom created by John D. Beck and Ron Hart and produced by It's a Laugh Productions for Disney Channel. The series stars Dove Cameron in a dual role as identical twins with entirely different personalities. Liv Rooney is a girly girl who was an actress in Hollywood for four years. She was offered more roles in other shows and movies, but decides to come home instead because she misses her family and wants to see them again. Her sister Maddie is a tomboy with an aptitude for sports, particularly basketball. The series revolves around Liv readjusting to normal family life after production on her successful television program Sing It Loud! ended.

Plot

Actress Liv Rooney has just come home to Stevens Point, Wisconsin after a four-year stint in Hollywood filming a popular television program called Sing It Loud!, which has just finished its run, to the open arms of her parents, brothers, and twin sister Maddie. The pair had hoped to resume their relationship from before Liv left, but instead have grown into opposing personalities with different interests. Liv has become very girly and enjoys any time someone mentions her former career, whereas Maddie has become a tomboy perfecting her basketball skills and is the captain of her basketball team. They have two brothers: Joey, a typical awkward teen, and Parker, a confident and clever child. Rounding out the Rooney clan is their mother Karen, the school psychologist and later vice-principal in the second season, and their father, Pete, Maddie's basketball coach, both of whom are now anxious to care for all their children under one roof. Some events take place at Ridgewood High, the high school where the three elder Rooney children, later all four due to Parker being advanced, attend and both parents work.

Disney Channel (UK and Ireland)

Disney Channel is a kids and teen's entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and Ireland since 1 October 1995. A one-hour timeshift service called Disney Channel +1 is available on Sky and Virgin Media. Disney Channel currently has two sister channels; Disney Junior and Disney XD. It currently focuses on live-action programming.

History

Disney Channel was originally planned to launch in 1989 on the newly launched Sky satellite service. It was featured in much of the promotional material surrounding the launch of Sky Television and the Astra satellite. The joint venture with Sky collapsed May 1989 after discussion about the venture had been taking place since November 1988, but Disney felt it was no longer on equal footing on "decision-making responsibility" in 50-50 partnership. Disney was supposed to start up two channels, but when the talks broke down, Sky issued a lawsuit against Disney, claiming £1.5 billion in damages. The suit was later settled with Disney selling its stake in the joint venture back to Sky, and agreeing to licence its movie library for a five-year period.

The Book Depository

Book Depository is a UK-based online book seller with a large catalogue offered with free shipping to over 160 countries. The store was founded by a former Amazon.com employee and was later acquired by Amazon.

History

The company was founded in 2004 by Andrew Crawford and current Chief Operating Officer Stuart Felton; its motto is to make "All Books Available to All".

On 4 July 2011, Amazon reached an agreement to acquire Book Depository.

Awards

In 2007, it was a finalist for the Retail/Leisure business of the Year Fast Growth Business Award and won two UK Startup Awards, Online Business of the Year and Retailer of the Year.

In 2008, it was ranked 5th in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100.

In 2009 and 2010 it won Direct Bookselling Company of the year at the Bookseller Industry Awards. and the Queen's Award For Enterprise

References

External links