St Albans

Coordinates: 51°45′18″N 0°20′10″W / 51.755°N 0.336°W / 51.755; -0.336

St Albans /sənt ˈɔːlbənz/, /seɪn.../ is a city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield about 19 miles (31 km) north-northwest of London, 8 miles (13 km) southwest of Welwyn Garden City, and 11 miles (18 km) south-southeast of Luton. St Albans was the first major town on the old Roman road of Watling Street for travellers heading north and became the Roman city of Verulamium. It is a historic market town and is now a dormitory town within the London commuter belt and the Greater London Built-up Area.

Toponymy

Saint Alban, the first British Christian martyr, was possibly beheaded in 308 CE by Maximian on the orders of Emperor Diocletian, who had denounced Christianity and ordered the deaths of all subjects and allies of the Roman Empire who refused to give up the faith. Saint Alban consequently gave the city its modern name.

St Albans has two official demonyms: Verulamian & Albanian. St Albans was a settlement of pre-Roman origin named Verlamion (or Verulam) by the Ancient British Catuvellauni tribe.

FA Cup

The FA Cup is an annual knockout cup competition in English football; first held in 1871–72, it is the oldest association football competition in the world. It is organised by and named after the Football Association, its official name being The Football Association Challenge Cup. For sponsorship reasons, from 2015 through to 2018 it is also known as The Emirates FA Cup. A concurrent women's tournament is also held, known as the FA Women's Cup.

The competition is open to any eligible club down to Level 10 of the English football league system, i.e. all 92 professional clubs (the Premier League and the three levels of the The Football League), as well as several hundred "non-league" teams in Steps 1 to 6 of the National League System. A record 763 clubs competed in 2011–12. The tournament is unseeded, although a system of byes based on league level ensures most competitors enter at progressively later stages. Played over 12 randomly drawn rounds followed by the semi-finals and final, the first six rounds are the Qualifying Competition, followed by six rounds of the Competition Proper, where 32 qualifiers meet professional sides for the first time.

The Farfarers

The Farfarers: Before the Norse is a non-fiction book by Farley Mowat, setting out a theory about pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. Mowat's thesis is that even before the Vikings, North America was discovered and settled by Europeans originating from Orkney who reached Canada after a generation-spanning migration that used Iceland and Greenland as 'stepping stones'. Mowat's ideas are controversial and have been accused of being over-speculative. The book has been published in the UK as The Alban Quest.

The 'Albans'

Mowat's premise is that North America was visited by a European pre-Celtic race. In the 7th century BC, Europe was settled by the highly successful Celtic peoples, who displaced earlier cultures about whom little is known. Mowat calls these people the 'Albans' and includes among them the Picts, Armoricans, and the 'broch-builders' of Scotland. He argues that these peoples were slowly pushed to the fringes of north-western Europe, and ultimately survived only in Orkney, off northern Scotland. There, he theorizes that, fueled by a burgeoning demand for walrus ivory in continental Europe extending as far as Rome and wealthy Slavic lands, they developed a seagoing culture that used sophisticated long-distance fishing crafts with hulls made of hide. These boats, themselves dependent on walrus-blubber tar to stay afloat, enabled them to discover and settle the North Atlantic islands around Baffin Bay, into the Hudson Bay and as far south as Labrador and possibly Newfoundland.

St Albans City

St Albans City may refer to: