The Pirates of Penzance

The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences and critics. Its London debut was on 3 April 1880, at the Opera Comique, where it ran for 363 performances, having already been playing successfully for over three months in New York.

The story concerns Frederic, who, having completed his 21st year, is released from his apprenticeship to a band of tender-hearted pirates. He meets Mabel, the daughter of Major-General Stanley, and the two young people fall instantly in love. Frederic soon learns, however, that he was born on 29 February, and so, technically, he only has a birthday each leap year. His indenture specifies that he remain apprenticed to the pirates until his 21st birthday and that he must serve for another 63 years. Bound by his own sense of duty, Frederic's only solace is that Mabel agrees to wait for him faithfully.

Pirate (disambiguation)

A pirate is a person who commits warlike acts at sea without the authorization of any nation.

Pirate or piracy may also refer to:

People

Criminal or unauthorized acts

Art, entertainment, and media

Fictional entities

Film

Major general

Major general (or major-general, short MG) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparently confusing phenomenon whereby a lieutenant general outranks a major general. (Though a major outranks a lieutenant, a lieutenant outranks a sergeant-major.)

In the Commonwealth and United States, it is a division commander's rank subordinate to the rank of lieutenant general and senior to the rank of brigadier/brigadier general.

In some countries, including much of Eastern Europe, major general is the lowest of the general officer ranks, with no brigadier-grade rank above colonel.

In France, major general (major général) is an appointment, normally of corps general. The major general assists a chief of staff. There is one major general for the chief of staff of the armed forces as a whole, and one for each of the four armed forces chiefs (army, navy, air force and gendarmerie).

Piracy

Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. Those who engage in acts of piracy are called pirates. The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilizations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding. Privateering uses similar methods to piracy, but the captain acts under orders of the state authorizing the capture of merchant ships belonging to an enemy nation, making it a legitimate form of war-like activity by non-state actors.(For a land-based parallel, compare the association of bandits and brigands with mountain passes.) Historic examples include the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, and the English Channel, whose geographic strictures facilitated pirate attacks.

Major

Major is a military rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces. When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicators, the rank is just senior to that of an army captain and right below the rank of lieutenant colonel. It is considered the most junior of the field officer ranks.

Majors are typically assigned as specialized executive or operations officers for battalion-sized units of 300 to 1,200 soldiers. In some militaries, notably France and Ireland, the rank of major is referred to as commandant, while in others it is known as captain-major. It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures, such as the New York State Police, New Jersey State Police and several others. As a police rank, Major roughly corresponds to the UK rank of Superintendent.

When used in hyphenated or combined fashion, the term can also imply seniority at other levels of rank, including general-major or major general, denoting a mid-level general officer, and sergeant major, denoting the most senior NCO of a military unit. The term Major can also be used with a hyphen to denote the leader of a military band such as in pipe-major or drum-major.