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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a sovereign country in north-western Europe, off the north-­western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-­eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland. Otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south, and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea separates Great Britain and Ireland. The total area of the United Kingdom is 93,628 square miles (242,500 km²), with an estimated population in 2020 of 67 million.

The United Kingdom is a unitary parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy. The monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, has reigned since 1952. The capital and largest city is London, a global city and financial center with a metropolitan area population of 14 million. Other major cities include Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Leeds. The United Kingdom consists of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Other than England, the constituent countries have their own devolved governments, each with varying powers.

The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions, and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707 formed the Kingdom of Great Britain. Its union in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Most of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which formally adopted that name in 1927.

The nearby Isle of Man, Guernsey, and Jersey are not part of the UK, being Crown Dependencies with the British Government responsible for defense and international representation. There are also 14 British Overseas Territories, the last remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, encompassed almost a quarter of the world’s landmass and a third of the world’s population, and was the largest empire in history. British influence can be observed in the language, culture, and the legal and political systems of many of its former colonies.

The United Kingdom has the world’s fifth-largest economy by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), and the tenth-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). It has a high-income economy and a very high human development index rating, ranking 13th in the world. The UK became the world’s first industrialized country and was the world’s foremost power during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Today the UK remains one of the world’s great powers, with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific, technological, and political influence internationally. It is a recognized nuclear state and is ranked fourth globally in military expenditure. It has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946.

The United Kingdom is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Council of Europe, the G7, the Group of Ten, the G20, the United Nations, NATO, AUKUS, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Interpol, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). It was a member state of the European Communities (EC) and its successor, the European Union (EU), from its accession in 1973 until its withdrawal in 2020 following a referendum held in 2016. Wikipedia

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Red Rocks Amphitheatre is an open-air amphitheater built into a rock structure in the western United States, near Morrison, Colorado, ten miles (16 km) west of Denver. There is a large, tilted, disc-shaped rock behind the stage, a huge vertical rock angled outwards from stage right, several large outcrops angled outwards from stage left, and a seating area for up to 9,525.

In 1927, the City of Denver purchased the area of Red Rocks; construction of the amphitheater began in 1936 and was opened to the public in June 1941. Since then, many notable performances and recordings for film and television have taken place there. In June 2015, the Colorado Music Hall of Fame opened in the Trading Post at Red Rocks.

The elevation of the amphitheater’s top row is approximately 6,450 feet (1,965 m) above sea level, and the surrounding Red Rocks Park covers 868 acres (1.4 sq mi; 3.5 km²). The amphitheater is owned and operated by the City and County of Denver and is located in Red Rocks Park, part of the Denver Mountain Parks. The audience faces east-northeast, toward southern Denver, with the skyline of downtown visible to the left.

In 1957, the American Institute of Architects selected Red Rocks to be Colorado’s entry at the National Gallery of Art for the AIA’s Centennial Exhibition.

In 1999, after Pollstar magazine awarded Red Rocks the annual honor of best small outdoor venue for the eleventh time, the magazine changed the name of the award to the Red Rocks Award and removed Red Rocks from the running.

Construction began in October 2020 to replace the existing stage roof and structure.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, John Brisben Walker had a vision of artists performing on a stage nestled in the perfectly acoustic surroundings of Red Rocks, which likely were used by the Ute tribe in earlier times. Walker produced several concerts between 1906 and 1910 on a temporary platform; and from his dream, the history of Red Rocks as an entertainment venue began. It took the natural amphitheater of Red Rocks over 200 million years to form. The city of Denver acquired Red Rocks amphitheater from Walker for $54,133 (equivalent to $815,877 today), with a total area of 728 acres (1.1 sq mi; 2.9 km²). In addition to the platform, Walker also built the Mount Morrison Cable Incline funicular railway which carried tourists from a base at what is today the parking lot of the amphitheater up to enjoy the view from the top of Mount Morrison; the incline operated for about five years beginning in 1909. Wikipedia

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Albania, officially the Republic of Albania (Albanian: Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Sea within the Mediterranean Sea and shares land borders with Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, North Macedonia to the east, and Greece to the south. Tirana is its capital and largest city, followed by Durrës, Vlorë, and Shkodër.

Albania displays varied climatic, geological, hydrological, and morphological conditions, defined in an rea of 28,748 km² (11,100 sq mi). It possesses significant diversity with the landscape ranging from the snow-capped mountains in the Albanian Alps as well as the Korab, Skanderbeg, Pindus, and Ceraunian Mountains to the hot and sunny coasts of the Albanian Adriatic and Ionian Sea along the Mediterranean Sea.

Albania has been inhabited by different civilizations over time, such as the Illyrians, Thracians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Venetians, and Ottomans. The Albanians established the autonomous Principality of Arbër in the 12th century. The Kingdom of Albania and Principality of Albania formed between the 13th and 14th centuries. Prior to the Ottoman conquest of Albania in the 15th century, the Albanian resistance to Ottoman expansion into Europe led by Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg won them acclaim over most of Europe. Albania remained under Ottoman rule for nearly five centuries, during which many Albanians (known as Arnauts) attained high-ranking offices in the empire, especially in the Southern Balkans and Egypt. Between the 18th and 19th centuries, cultural developments, widely attributed to Albanians having gathered both spiritual and intellectual strength, conclusively led to the Albanian Renaissance. After the defeat of the Ottomans in the Balkan Wars, the modern nation-state of Albania declared independence in 1912. In the 20th century, the Kingdom of Albania was invaded by Italy which formed Greater Albania before becoming a protectorate of Nazi Germany. Enver Hoxha formed the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania after World War II, modeled under the terms of Hoxhaism. The Revolutions of 1991 concluded the fall of communism in Albania and eventually the establishment of the current Republic of Albania.

Albania is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic and a developing country with an upper-middle income economy dominated by the service sector, followed by manufacturing. It went through a process of transition following the end of communism in 1990, from centralized planning to a market-based economy. Albania provides universal health care and free primary and secondary education to its citizens. Albania is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, UNESCO, NATO, WTO, COE, OSCE, and OIC. It is an official candidate for membership in the European Union since 2014. It is one of the founding members of the Energy Community, including the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation and Union for the Mediterranean. Wikipedia

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