- published: 23 Mar 2016
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Flanders (Dutch: Vlaanderen (help·info)) is the (political) community of the Flemings, one of the communities of Belgium, and also a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
"Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp. Over the course of history, the geographical territory that was called "Flanders" has varied. In the second half of the twentieth century, there has been a gradual shift of political and economic power from French-speaking Wallonia (which was industrialized earlier) to the Flemish.
To the English-speaking peoples, Flanders meant historically (from circa 1000 AD) the land situated along the North Sea from the Strait of Dover to the Scheldt estuary. The southern borders were generally ill-defined. Over the last millennium, it was mostly the southern and western borders that receded to give the present day borders within northern Belgium.
Flanders has figured prominently in European history. Between the early 17th century and 1945, the political outcomes of modern Spain, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria were often decided by battles on the plains of Flanders. Even earlier in British and Irish history, the Flemings (or Flemish) were important allies of the Normans in their conquest of England (1066) and invasion of Ireland (1169–71).
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye (he added the 'e' as a young man), was an acclaimed American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range, who achieved major success in the 1960s and 1970s as an artist for the Motown Records label. He was shot dead by his father on April 1, 1984.
Starting his career as a member of the doo-wop group The Moonglows in the late 1950s, he ventured into a solo career after the group disbanded in 1960, signing with Motown Records subsidiary, Tamla. He started off as a session drummer, but later ranked as the label's top-selling solo artist during the 1960s. He was crowned "The Prince of Motown" and "The Prince of Soul". because of solo hits such as "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)", "Ain't That Peculiar", "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," and his duet singles with singers such as Mary Wells and Tammi Terrell.
His work in the early- and mid-1970s included the albums, What's Going On, Let's Get It On, and I Want You, which helped influence the quiet storm, urban adult contemporary, and slow jam genres. After a self-imposed European exile in the early 1980s, Gaye returned on the 1982 Grammy-Award winning hit, "Sexual Healing" and the Midnight Love album before his death.