Canada's Wonderland

Canada's Wonderland is a 330-acre (130 ha) theme park located in Vaughan, Ontario, a suburb approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) north of Toronto. Opened in 1981 by the Taft Broadcasting Company and The Great-West Life Assurance Company as the first major theme park in Canada, it remains the country's largest. The park was owned by Paramount Parks from 1993 to 2006 when it was known as Paramount Canada's Wonderland. Cedar Fair purchased the park in 2006 dropping Paramount from the title. Canada's Wonderland has been the most visited seasonal amusement park in North America for several consecutive years. In 2014, it was the second most visited park in the Cedar Fair chain, behind Knott's Berry Farm, with approximately 3.5 million visitors.

Canada's Wonderland is open daily from May to September, and then only on weekends through early November. The park features 16 roller coasters, tied with Cedar Point for the second most roller coasters in an amusement park behind Six Flags Magic Mountain. Canada's Wonderland also features a 20-acre (8.1 ha) water park called Splash Works, and during the fall season, a Halloween-themed event called Halloween Haunt.

Festival

A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect of that community and its religion or traditions, often marked as a local or national holiday, mela or eid. Next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agricultural. Food is such a vital resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere and Easter in the southern.

Festivals often serve to fulfill specific communal purposes, especially in regard to commemoration or thanksgiving. The celebrations offer a sense of belonging for religious, social, or geographical groups, contributing to group cohesiveness. They may also provide entertainment, which was particularly important to local communities before the advent of mass-produced entertainment. Festivals that focus on cultural or ethnic topics also seek to inform community members of their traditions; the involvement of elders sharing stories and experience provides a means for unity among families.

International

International mostly means something (a company, language, or organization) involving more than a single country. The term international as a word means involvement of, interaction between or encompassing more than one nation, or generally beyond national boundaries. For example, international law, which is applied by more than one country and usually everywhere on Earth, and international language which is a language spoken by residents of more than one country.

Origin of the word

The term international was coined by the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham in his Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation, which was printed for publication in 1780 and published in 1789. Bentham wrote: "The word international, it must be acknowledged, is a new one; though, it is hoped, sufficiently analogous and intelligible. It is calculated to express, in a more significant way, the branch of law which goes commonly under the name of the law of nations. The word was adopted in French in 1801.Thomas Erskine Holland noted in his article on Bentham in the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica that "Many of Bentham's phrases, such as 'international,' 'utilitarian,' 'codification,' are valuable additions to our language; but the majority of them, especially those of Greek derivation, have taken no root in it."

Edinburgh International Festival

The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual festival of performing arts in Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music (especially classical music), theatre, opera and dance from around the world to perform. The festival also hosts a series of visual art exhibitions, talks and workshops.

History

The idea of the Festival with a remit to "provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit" and enrich the cultural life of Scotland, Britain and Europe took form in the wake of the Second World War. The idea of creating an international festival within the UK was first conceived by Rudolf Bing, the General Manager of Glyndebourne Opera Festival, and Audrey Mildmay (wife of John Christie) during a wartime tour of a small-scale Glyndebourne production of The Beggar's Opera.

Rudolf Bing co-founded the Festival with Henry Harvey Wood, Head of the British Council in Scotland, Sidney Newman, Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University, and a group of civic leaders from the City of Edinburgh, in particular Sir John Falconer.

Edinburgh International

The Edinburgh International is an annual bonspiel, or curling tournament, that takes place in late November at the Murrayfield Curling Club in Edinburgh, Scotland. The tournament is held in a round robin format.

History

The tournament was started in 1922 as the Worlds Curling Championship, an open competition between Scottish curlers held at the Haymarket Ice Rink. The tournament was renamed the Edinburgh International Curling Championship in 1975 in order for the International Curling Federation to reserve the name "World Curling Championship" for the Air Canada Silver Broom, the men's world curling championship at the time. It became an invitational tournament, inviting the semifinalists of the same year's World Championships, and moved venues to the Murrayfield Curling Rink. A period of decreased interest in the tournament led to the event's relegation from a highly respected international tournament to a domestic circuit tournament. In 2007, the tournament became part of the World Curling Tour and the Curling Champions Tour, the European portion of the World Curling Tour, and was slotted to be held in late November.