Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet is the largest travel guide book publisher in the world. The company is owned by American billionaire Brad Kelley's NC2 Media, which bought it in 2013 from BBC Worldwide for US$77 million (the equivalent of £45.5 million in May 2014) after it was valued at US$250 million in 2008.

Originally called "Lonely Planet Publications", the company changed its name to "Lonely Planet" in July 2009 to reflect its broad travel industry coverage and an emphasis on digital products. After the Let's Go travel guide series that was founded in 1960, the Lonely Planet books were the second series of travel books aimed at backpackers and other low-cost travellers. As of 2011, the company had sold 120 million books since inception and by early 2014, it had sold around 11 million units of its travel apps.

As of 2014, Lonely Planet's largest office is located in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, but its Franklin, Tennessee, United States (U.S.) office is the company's de facto headquarters. Other Lonely Planet offices are spread throughout the world, in locations such as London, United Kingdom (U.K.); Beijing, China; and Delhi, India.

Armenia

Coordinates: 40°N 45°E / 40°N 45°E / 40; 45

Armenia (ⁱ/ɑːrˈmiːniə/, /-ˈmiːnjə/;Armenian: Հայաստան, tr. Hayastan, IPA: [hɑjɑsˈtɑn]), officially the Republic of Armenia (Armenian: Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն, tr. Hayastani Hanrapetut’yun), is a sovereign state in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located in Western Asia, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.

Armenia is a unitary, multi-party, democratic nation-state with an ancient cultural heritage. The Kingdom of Van was established in 860 BC and by the 6th century BC it was replaced by the Satrapy of Armenia. In the 1st century BC the Kingdom of Armenia reached its height under Tigranes the Great. Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion. In between the late 3rd century to early years of the 4th century, the state became "the first Christian nation." The official date of state adoption of Christianity was 301 AD. The ancient Armenian kingdom was split between the Byzantine and Sasanid empires around the early 5th century. Under the Bagratuni dynasty, the Armenian Kingdom was restored in the 9th century. Declining due to the wars against the Byzantines, the kingdom fell in 1045 and Armenia was soon after invaded by the Seljuk Turks. An Armenian principality and later a kingdom Cilician Armenia was located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the 11th and 14th centuries.

Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest (French: Concours Eurovision de la chanson), often shortened to ESC or Eurovision, is the longest-running annual TV song competition, held, primarily, among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956. The competition was based upon the existing Sanremo Music Festival held in Italy.

Each participating country submits an original song to be performed on live television and radio and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition. The contest has been broadcast every year for sixty years, since its inauguration in 1956, and is one of the longest-running television programmes in the world. It is also one of the most watched non-sporting events in the world, with audience figures having been quoted in recent years as anything between 100 million and 600 million internationally. Eurovision has also been broadcast outside Europe to several countries that do not compete, such as the USA and China. An exception was made in 2015, when Australia was allowed to compete as a guest entrant as part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the event. In November 2015, the EBU announced that Australia would return in 2016. Since 2000, the contest has also been broadcast over the Internet, via the Eurovision website.

Song Contest

Song Contest may refer to:

Eurovision Song Contest 2013

The Eurovision Song Contest 2013 was the 58th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. The contest took place in Malmö, located on the west coast of Sweden, following Loreen's win in the 2012 contest with the song "Euphoria". It was the fifth time that Sweden had hosted the contest, the last time being in 2000. Sveriges Television (SVT) chose Malmö Arena as the venue following the consideration of several venues in Sweden. The host for the contest was Petra Mede. Thirty-nine countries participated, including Armenia, which was last represented in 2011. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal, Slovakia and Turkey announced their withdrawal from the 2013 Contest.

The design of the contest was built around the theme "We Are One" – highlighting equality and unity of all the participating countries alongside the cultural diversity and influence of each participant. Compared to many of the previous contests in the history of Eurovision, rather than focusing on promoting its own country, Sweden chose to lay focus on the artists and their respective countries. The postcards presented before every song which have often been used to show the host country's nature, culture and social life, were changed to show the typical everyday life of each individual artist in their home countries scattered around Europe.