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Zeng Laishun (c. 1826 – 2 June 1895) was a Chinese interpreter, businessman, and educator. He was among the first Chinese students to study at a foreign college.[1] Born in Singapore to a Teochew father and a Malay mother, he was orphaned as a young child. He was educated by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, a Christian missionary organization, where he converted to Christianity. He was sent to the United States in 1843 and in 1846 was admitted to Hamilton College, but was unable to graduate due to a lack of funds. Zeng then traveled to China, and following several years of working as a missionary assistant in Guangzhou he left with his family to pursue a trading career in Shanghai.

In 1866, Zeng was hired by the imperial government as an English instructor at the newly established Fuzhou Navy Yard School. Seeking to gain experience with Western practices and institutions, the imperial government began the Chinese Educational Mission in 1871, amassing a group of 120 Chinese boys to study in the United States. He worked as an interpreter and English tutor for the mission under bureaucrat Chen Lanbin and Zeng's colleague Yung Wing. He returned to the United States in 1872, where he was frequently and erroneously hailed as the "Chinese Commissioner of Education".

Zeng settled with his family in Springfield, Massachusetts, and began giving public lectures on Chinese society alongside his participation in local civic life. He was briefly dispatched to Cuba around the end of 1873 to investigate the poor working conditions of Chinese indentured servants brought to the island as part of the coolie trade. He was abruptly recalled to China in late 1874, likely for diplomatic purposes; during his return, he traveled through Europe to assess universities for future educational missions. He became the Chief Private English Secretary of the statesman Li Hongzhang and served as an interpreter in diplomatic negotiations with the Western powers over the following two decades.

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Air Marshal Selwyn David Evans AC DSO AFC (3 June 1925 – 2 September 2020) was a senior commander of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and a writer and consultant on defence matters. He served as Chief of the Air Staff from 1982 to 1985. After leaving the RAAF, he published two military treatises, A Fatal Rivalry: Australia's Defence at Risk and War: A Matter of Principles, as well as an autobiography.

Enlisting in the Air Force in 1943, Evans graduated from flying school as a sergeant pilot, and was converting to Beaufort bombers when World War II ended. He gained his commission as a pilot officer in 1947. From 1948 to 1949, he was a member of the Australian contingent operating C-47 Dakota transports in the Berlin Airlift. He was a flying instructor in the early 1950s, before becoming a VIP captain with the Governor-General's Flight in 1954. His service in the flight earned him the Air Force Cross in 1957. In the 1960s Evans was twice posted to No. 2 Squadron, flying Canberra jet bombers, first as a flight commander when the unit was based in Malaysia from 1960 to 1962, then as its commanding officer during the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1968. The Canberras achieved a high degree of accuracy on their bombing missions under his leadership, and he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order after completing his tour in Vietnam.

Evans held senior staff positions in the early 1970s before serving as Officer Commanding RAAF Base Amberley from 1975 to 1977. Promoted to air vice-marshal, he then became Chief of Air Force Operations. In this role, he worked to improve the RAAF's strategy for the defence of Australia, to fully exploit the "air–sea gap" on the northern approaches to the continent. Appointed Officer of the Order of Australia in 1981, he was Chief of Joint Operations and Plans in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) before his promotion to air marshal and Chief of the Air Staff in April 1982. As head of the Air Force, he focussed on morale, air power doctrine, and improving defensive capabilities in northern Australia. He was raised to Companion of the Order of Australia in 1984. Retiring from the RAAF in May 1985, Evans began to write and lecture on defence matters, and also stood for election in federal politics. He was a board member of and defence advisor to British Aerospace Australia from 1990 to 2009, and chairman of the National Capital Authority from 1997 to 2003. In 2001, he was awarded the Centenary Medal for his services to the ADF and the Canberra community.

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The 1880 Republican National Convention convened from June 2 to June 8, 1880, at the Interstate Exposition Building in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Delegates nominated James A. Garfield of Ohio and Chester A. Arthur of New York as the official Republican Party candidates for president and vice president in the 1880 presidential election.

Of the 14 men in contention for the Republican nomination, the three strongest leading up to the convention were Ulysses S. Grant, James G. Blaine, and John Sherman. Grant had served two terms as president from 1869 to 1877, and was seeking an unprecedented third term in office. He was backed by the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party, which supported political machines and patronage. Blaine was a senator and former representative from Maine who was backed by the Half-Breed faction of the Republican Party. Sherman, the brother of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman, was serving as Secretary of the Treasury under President Rutherford B. Hayes. A former senator from Ohio, he was backed by delegates who did not support the Stalwarts or Half-Breeds.

With 379 votes required to obtain the nomination, on the first ballot Grant received 304 votes, Blaine 285, and Sherman 93. Balloting continued for several days without producing a nominee. After the thirty-fifth ballot, Blaine and Sherman switched their support to a new "dark horse", James Garfield. On the next ballot, Garfield won the nomination with 399 votes, 93 more than Grant. Garfield's Ohio delegation chose Chester A. Arthur, a Stalwart, as Garfield's running mate. Arthur won the vice presidential nomination with 468 votes, and the longest-ever Republican National Convention adjourned. The Garfield–Arthur Republican ticket narrowly defeated Democrats Winfield Scott Hancock and William Hayden English in the 1880 presidential election.

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Dos EPs is the first compilation album by the American stoner rock band Nebula.[9][10] It was released on May 28, 2002, by MeteorCity, and later reissued in 2018 by the band's current label, Heavy Psych Sounds Records.[11] The album contains songs from the Nebula/Lowrider and Sun Creature EPs, as well as three new tracks.

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Trafford Park is an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, opposite Salford Quays on the southern side of the Manchester Ship Canal, 3.4 miles (5.5 km) southwest of Manchester city centre and 1.3 miles (2.1 km) north of Stretford. Until the late 19th century it was the ancestral home of the Trafford family, who sold it to the financier Ernest Terah Hooley in 1896. Occupying an area of 4.7 square miles (12 km2), it was the first planned industrial estate in the world,[1] and remained the largest in Europe over a century later.[2][3]

Trafford Park is almost entirely surrounded by water; the Bridgewater Canal forms its southeastern and southwestern boundaries, and the Manchester Ship Canal, which opened in 1894, its northeastern and northwestern. Hooley's plan was to develop the Ship Canal frontage, but the canal was slow to generate the predicted volume of traffic, so in the early days the park was largely used for leisure activities such as golf, polo and boating. British Westinghouse was the first major company to move in, and by 1903 it was employing about half of the 12,000 workers then employed in the park, which became one of the most important engineering facilities in Britain.

Trafford Park was a major supplier of materiel in the First and Second World Wars, producing the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines used to power the Spitfire and the Lancaster. At its peak in 1945, 75,000 workers were employed in the park. Employment began to decline in the 1960s as companies closed in favour of newer, more efficient plants elsewhere. By 1967 employment had fallen to 50,000, and the decline continued throughout the 1970s. The new generation of container ships was too large for the Manchester Ship Canal, which led to a further decline in Trafford Park's fortunes. The workforce had fallen to 15,000 by 1976, and by the 1980s industry had almost disappeared from the park.

The Trafford Park Urban Development Corporation, formed in 1987, reversed the estate's decline. In the 11 years of its existence the park attracted 1,000 companies, generating 28,299 new jobs and £1.759 billion of private-sector investment. As at 2025 there were 1,400 companies within the park, employing 40,000 people.