Peter Griffin

Peter Griffin is one of the main characters of the American animated sitcom Family Guy. He is voiced by cartoonist Seth MacFarlane and first appeared on television, along with the rest of the family, in the 15-minute short on December 20, 1998. Peter was created and designed by MacFarlane himself. MacFarlane was asked to pitch a pilot to the Fox Broadcasting Company based on Larry & Steve, a short made by MacFarlane which featured a middle-aged character named Larry and an intellectual dog, Steve. After the pilot was given the green light, The Griffin family appeared on the episode "Death Has a Shadow".

Peter is married to Lois Griffin and is the father of Meg, Chris, and Stewie. He also has a dog named Brian, with whom he is best friends. He has worked at a toy factory, and at Quahog's Brewery. Despite the suburban blue-collar routine of his life, he has had a number of remarkable experiences.

Peter's voice was inspired by a janitor that MacFarlane heard at his school. His appearance was a redesign of the protagonist Larry from MacFarlane's previous animated short films The Life of Larry and Larry & Steve. He has appeared in several pieces of Family Guy merchandise, including toys, T-shirts and a video game, and has made crossover appearances in other shows, including The Simpsons, South Park, Drawn Together, American Dad!, and the Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show.

Peter, Duke of the Romans

Peter was a mediaeval Roman noble. He was the son of Alberic III, Count of Tusculum.

Family tree

Sources

Peter, the Lord's cat

Peter, the Lord's cat (1950 – 5 November 1964), also known as The Marylebone mog, was a cat who lived at Lord's Cricket Ground in London from 1952 to 1964. He is the only animal to be given an obituary in the standard cricket reference book, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.

The obituary appeared in the 1965 edition of Wisden, under the name "CAT, PETER". It described him as "a well-known cricket-watcher" who "could often be seen prowling on the field of play"; he "loved publicity" and "frequently appeared on the television". Despite this, it seems that no photographs of him are known, although his successor, Sinbad, was snapped during a Southern Schools v The Rest match in 1963.

Peter is mentioned in the title of a 2006 anthology of Wisden obituaries, Peter, the Lord's Cat: And Other Unexpected Obituaries from Wisden.

References

Van

A van is a kind of vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van it can be bigger or smaller than a truck and SUV, and bigger than an automobile. There is some varying in the scope of the word across the different English-speaking countries. The smallest vans, minivans, are commonly used for transporting people from a family. Larger vans with passenger seats are used for institutional purposes, such as transporting students. Larger vans with only front seats are often used for business purposes, to carry goods and equipment. Specially-equipped vans are used by television stations as mobile studios. Postal services and courier companies use large step vans to deliver packages.

Word origin and usage

Van meaning a type of vehicle arose as a contraction of the word caravan. The early records of van as a vehicle in English are in the mid 19th century meaning a covered wagon for transporting goods (earliest reported record 1829). Caravan with the same meaning has records since the 1670s. A caravan, meaning one wagon, had arisen as an extension or corruption of caravan meaning a convoy of multiple wagons.

Van, Turkey

Van (Armenian: ÕŽÕ¡Õ¶; Kurdish: Wan‎; Ottoman Turkish: Ù?ان‎) is a city in eastern Turkey's Van Province, located on the eastern shore of Lake Van. The city has a long history as a major urban area. It has been a large city since the first millennium BC, initially as the capital of Urartu in the 9th century BC and later as the center of the Armenian Kingdom of Vaspurakan. It remained an important center of Armenian culture until the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Today, Van has a Kurdish majority and a sizable Turkish minority.

In 2010 the official population figure for Van was 367,419, but many estimates put it much higher with a 1996 estimate stating 500,000 and former Mayor Burhan Yengun is quoted as saying it may be as high as 600,000. The Van Central district stretches over 2,289 square kilometres (884 square miles).

History

Archaeological excavations and surveys carried out in Van province indicate that the history of human settlement in this region goes back at least as far as 5000 BC. The Tilkitepe Mound, which is on the shores of Lake Van and a few kilometres to the south of Van Castle, is the only source of information about the oldest culture of Van.