text:
Inside the Third Reich

Inside the Third Reich (Erinnerungen, "Memories") is a memoir written by Albert Speer, the Nazi Minister of Armaments from 1942 to 1945, serving as Adolf Hitler's main architect before this period. It is considered to be one of the most detailed descriptions of the inner workings and leadership of Nazi Germany, but is controversial because of Speer's lack of discussion of Nazi atrocities and questions regarding his degree of awareness or involvement with them. First published in 1969, it appeared in English translation in 1970.

At the Nuremberg Trials, Speer was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his use of prisoners in the armaments factories while Minister of Armaments. From 1946 to 1966, while serving the sentence in Spandau Prison, he penned more than 2,000 manuscript pages of personal memoirs. His first draft was written from March 1953 to 26 December 1954. After his release on 1 October 1966, he used Federal Archive documents to rework the material into his autobiography. He was aided editorially by Wolf Jobst Siedler, Ullstein and Propylaen, and Joachim Fest.

The manuscript led to two books: first Erinnerungen ("Recollections") (Propyläen/Ullstein, 1969), which was translated into English and published by Macmillan in 1970 as Inside the Third Reich; then as Spandauer Tagebücher ("Spandau Diaries") (Propyläen/Ullstein, 1975), which was translated into English and published by Macmillan in 1976 as Spandau: The Secret Diaries.

Summary
Inside the Third Reich begins with an account of Speer's childhood, followed by a description of his role as Heinrich Tessenow's assistant at the Technical University of Berlin. Speer first heard Adolf Hitler speak during an address to the combined students and faculty of Berlin University and his institute. Speer states he became hopeful when Hitler explained how communism could be checked and Germany could recover economically. Speer joined the National Socialist Party in January 1931; he wrote "I was not choosing the NSDAP, but becoming a follower of Hitler, whose magnetic force had reached out to me the first time I saw him and had not, thereafter, released me." Speer described the personalities of many Nazi officials, including Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Rudolf Hess, Martin Bormann, and, of course, Hitler himself. Speer went on to quote Hitler as telling him privately after the remilitarization of the Rhineland, "We will create a great empire. All of the Germanic peoples will be included in it. It will begin in Norway and extend to northern Italy. I myself must carry this out."

The main body of the book effectively ends when Speer, by this point having joined Karl Dönitz's government seated in Schleswig-Holstein, receives news of Hitler's death. This is followed by an epilogue dealing with the end of the war in Europe and the resulting Nuremberg trials, in which Speer was sentenced to a 20-year prison term for his actions during the war.

Special weapons
Starting in April 1942, Speer became aware of the potential of German nuclear research in developing, in his words, "a weapon which could annihilate whole cities." Werner Heisenberg told Speer "the scientific solution had already been found and that theoretically nothing stood in the way of building such a bomb." Yet development and production would take at least two years. This led to the development of Germany's first cyclotron. By the autumn of 1942 however, the estimated period for developing a weapon had increased to three to four years, much too long to affect the war. Instead, development turned to a "uranium motor", for use in the navy's submarines. Finally, in the summer of 1943, Speer released the 1200 metric tons of uranium stock for use in solid-core ammunition. Speer states that even if Germany concentrated all of its resources, it would have been 1947 before they could have had an atom bomb.

Speer describes Wunderwaffen such as the Me 262 project, flying wing jet planes, a remote-controlled flying bomb, a rocket plane, a rocket missile based on infrared homing, designs for a four engined jet bomber with the range to strike New York, and a torpedo based on sonar. He also cites the use of the V-2 as a terror weapon, rather than continued development of the ground-to-air defensive Waterfall rocket.

Holocaust and slave labor
Speer's involvement with concentration camp prisoners as a work force came about when Hitler agreed to Himmler's proposal they be used for the secret V-2 project. Speer's joint undertaking with the SS leadership resulted in the creation of Mittelwerk (Central Works) for underground production of the V-2. He goes on to say that at the Nuremberg Trial he stated he "had to share the total responsibility for all that had happened", and that he "was inescapably contaminated morally". Finally, Speer states, "Because I failed at the time, I still feel, to this day, responsible for Auschwitz in a wholly personal sense."

Reception
In a 23 August 1970 review published in The New York Times, John Toland wrote that the book "is not only the most significant personal German account to come out of the war but the most revealing document on the Hitler phenomenon yet written. It takes the reader inside Nazi Germany on four different levels: Hitler's inner circle, National Socialism as a whole, the area of wartime production and the inner struggle of Albert Speer. I recommend this book without reservations. Speer's full length portrait of Hitler has unnerving reality. The Führer emerges as neither an incompetent nor a carpet‐gnawing madman but as an evil genius of warped concepts endowed with an ineffable personal magic." A review by Kirkus Reviews on 27 August 1970 stated, "Speer's portrayals of the Nazi leadership, of the constant intrigues and rivalries among Hitler's entourage, and of Hitler himself, his histrionic virulence, his banality, and his peculiar magic, are engrossing and revealing."

On the other hand, in a 1973 Bryn Mawr College review, Barbara Miller Lane wrote, "Scholars have observed so many gaps in his account of the operation of his ministry as to shed considerable doubt on the whole." Martin Kitchen's 2015 biography of Speer comes to much the same conclusion.

Another kind of criticism is the claim that Speer pretended that he was unaware of the extermination camps and presented the figure of a "good Nazi". This criticism is mainly presented in the documentary film Speer Goes to Hollywood, by the director Vanessa Lapa. The film presents original videos from the Nazi Germany period and conversations with Speer, in which the great deception he tried to present at the Nuremberg trials and in his book is revealed.

title: Inside the Third Reich


text:
User:Ajiva rts

I am interested in credible information on Sri Vaishnavism. If you have any comments or suggestions you may email me.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Ajiva rts


text:
Ajax, Ontario

Ajax (2021 population: 126,666) is a waterfront town in Durham Region in Southern Ontario, Canada, located in the eastern part of the Greater Toronto Area.

The town is named for HMS Ajax (22), a Royal Navy cruiser that served in the Second World War. It is approximately 11 km east of Toronto on the shores of Lake Ontario and is bordered by the City of Pickering to the west and north, and the Town of Whitby to the east.

History
The indigenous peoples were active in the watersheds of the Duffins Creek and the Carruthers Creek since the Archaic period (7000-1000 BCE), although they did not build any major settlements in the area, presumably because of the poor navigability of these streams. In 1760, French Sulpician missionaries from Ganatsekwyagon reached the Duffins Creek area, but did not settle there.

After the British conquest of New France in 1760, the area became part of the Pickering Township. Mike Duffin, an Irish fur trader, is the earliest known European to have settled in the area, in the 1770s. The conversion of the main local trail into the Kingston Road in 1799 contributed to increased settlement in what is now Ajax. In the first half of the 19th century, the Pickering Village, now a neighbourhood in Ajax, evolved as the major population centre of the Township, supported by a timber and agricultural boom. In 1807, Timothy Rogers led Quaker families to settle in the area, and built saw and grist mills on the banks of the Duffins Creek. The War of 1812 increased military traffic on the Kingston Road, resulting in a better-maintained road, and leading to further development of the area.

In the mid-19th century, Audley, a smaller community, emerged as a stopover on the route to the port of Whitby. By the 20th century, much of the area of present-day Ajax had been converted into farmland. In 1926, James Tuckett of Toronto bought lakeshore farmland, and started the development of the Pickering Beach cottage community, which later became a permanent settlement.

After the start of the World War II in 1939, the Government of Canada expropriated most of the farmland in what is now southern part of Ajax, to establish the Defence Industries Limited Pickering Works munitions plant. Operated by Defence Industries Limited (DIL), the government-owned plant employed workers from different parts of Canada. The plant site, along with the residences and the facilities established for the workers, evolved into a self-contained community, whose residents called it a "village". As part of a contest, the DIL employee Frank Holroyd suggested the name "Ajax" for the community, in honour of the British warship HMS Ajax which had fought against the powerful Nazi battleship Admiral Graf Spee at the Battle of the River Plate in 1939.

After the plant shut down in 1945, the site was used as a war surplus warehouse and sales outlet, a University of Toronto campus (1946-1949), and a holding camp for war refugees from Europe (1949-1953). The government mandated the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to develop the site and its surrounding area into a modern industrial town. George Finley, the CMHC manager of the area, planned new housing subdivisions, commercial centres, and industrial areas.

In 1950, Ajax was incorporated as an Improvement District, a form of local administration managed by the Lieutenant Governor's appointees. The Improvement District Board created the community's first by-laws and hired employees for the local administration. In August 1954, as a result of a campaign by the Ajax Citizens Association, the Ontario Municipal Board declared Ajax a town, granting it full municipal status. The first town council members were elected on 11 December 1954, and assumed office on 1 January 1955. The first mayor of the town was Benjamin de Forest Bayly, better known as Pat Bayly.

In the early 1970s, the Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (MTRCA) acquired much of the land along the lakeshore. In the Pickering Beach area, several homes, a church, and a school were demolished to make way for a parkland.

On 1 January 1974, Ajax became a part of the newly formed Regional Municipality of Durham, which manages functions common to multiple municipalities in the region. The boundaries of the town of Ajax were expanded to include several areas of the former Pickering Township, including Pickering Village, Pickering Beach, and Audley.

Geography
Ajax is bordered to the west and north by the City of Pickering, to the east by the Town of Whitby and to the south by Lake Ontario.

Neighbourhoods
The town is made up of the following neighbourhoods:

 * Applecroft
 * Audley North
 * Audley Road Business Area
 * Audley South
 * Carruthers Creek
 * Carruthers Creek Business Area
 * Central Employment Area
 * Clover Ridge
 * Deer Creek
 * Discovery Bay
 * Downtown
 * Duffins Bay
 * Duffins Crossing
 * Hermitage
 * Lake Vista
 * Lakeside
 * Meadow Ridge
 * Memorial Village
 * Midtown
 * Nottingham
 * Pickering Beach
 * Riverside
 * Salem Business Area
 * Salem Heights
 * South Greenwood
 * Southwood
 * Village, better known as Pickering Village
 * Westney Heights

Downtown Ajax
Ajax Council and a private developer entered into an agreement in 2012 for the purchase and sale of 9 acre of vacant town-owned land at the corner of Bayly Street and Harwood Avenue. Called "Pat Bayly Square", it will provide residential, retail and office space, as well as a civic square and civic facility. Pat Bayly Square opened in September 2018.

Local government
Ajax is governed by an elected town Council consisting of a Mayor, and local Councillors representing each of the town's three wards. In addition, three Regional Councillors each represent a ward each. The Mayor and the Regional Councillors sit on both Ajax Town Council and Durham Region Council.

The members of the council elected in the 2022 municipal election are:

Mayor: Shaun Collier

Regional Councillors:
 * Ward 1: Marilyn Crawford
 * Ward 2: Sterling Lee
 * Ward 3: Joanne Dies

Councillors:

 * Ward 1: Rob Tyler-Morin
 * Ward 2: Nancy Henry
 * Ward 3: Lisa Bower

In the past, Council has sat for a three-year term, but the Ontario Legislature increased the length of municipal council terms in Ontario to four years, in 2006. In 2018, Ajax Council shifted from two regional councillors and four local councillors to three regional councillors and three local councillors.

Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Ajax had a population of $126,666$ living in $39,488$ of its $40,275$ total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2016 population of $119,677$. With a land area of 66.64 km2, it had a population density of in 2021.

According to the 2021 Census, the median age is 38.4 years, around 3 years less than the national average of 41.6 years; 18.8% of the population is under 15 years of age while 13.1% are 65 and over.

According to the 2016 Census, among those 25 to 64 years old, the highest levels of education are as follows: 66.6% of people have a post-secondary certificate, diploma, or degree, 25.3% have a high school diploma or equivalency certificate, and 8.2% have no certificate, diploma, or degree.

As of 2021, the median value of dwellings in Ajax is $850,000 compared to the provincial median value of $700,496, and the national figure of $472,000.

As of 2021, 92% of Ajax's residents are Canadian citizens, with 42% being immigrants. 8% of the population immigrated between 2011 and 2021. The main places of birth of the immigrant population are India (13%), Sri Lanka (11%), Jamaica (10%), Philippines (8%), Pakistan (8%), Guyana (6%), United Kingdom (5%), Trinidad and Tobago (4%), Afghanistan (4%), and China (3%). Among the 5010 recent immigrants, who immigrated between 2016 and 2021, 34% were from India.

Ethnicity
According to the 2021 Census, the main self-reported ethnic and cultural origins included English (12%), Indian (10%), Canadian (9%), Irish (9%), Scottish (9%), Jamaican (6%), Filipino (5%), Pakistani (5%), Sri Lankan (4%), Chinese (4%), and Tamil (4%). 65% of the town's population comprises visible minority, with the biggest of these groups being South Asian (26.2%), Black (16.8%), Filipino (5.3%), Chinese (3%), West Asian (3%), Arab (2%), and Latin American (1.3%). 3% of the people identify as belonging to multiple visible minority groups. Those with only indigenous ancestry make up 0.23% of the population, while those with mixed indigenous and non-indigenous ancestry make up 1.03% of the population. Ajax has the highest Black population percentage of any major Canadian municipality (population above 100,000).
 * Note: Totals greater than 100% due to multiple origin responses.

Religion
According to the 2021 Census, the largest religion in Ajax is Christianity (50.83%), with Catholics making up the largest group (22.25%). The next most reported religions are Islam (14.08%) and Hinduism (11.62%). 20.77% of the population reported no religious affiliation.

Language
According to the 2021 census, English is the most commonly understood language in the town, with 97.97% of the people knowing it. It is also the most common mother tongue: 64.79% of the people consider English as their only mother tongue, plus 5.75% consider English and another language as their mother tongues. Other common languages include the following:

Economy
In 1945, with the closing of D.I.L., there was no industry within the town, but in 1949, Dowty Aerospace started operations in Ajax. By 1969, major employers included Volkswagen Canada, DuPont, Paintplas, Ajax Textile, AEG Bayly Engineering and many others.

Shopping was virtually non-existent in the mid-1940s, but by 1970 major shopping centres such as Ajax Plaza, Harwood Place Mall and Clover Ridge Plaza were constructed. The 1980s saw an expansion of retail shopping malls to include Discovery Bay Plaza, Transit Square, Baywood Plaza, Westney Heights Plaza and most recently the Durham Centre at Harwood Avenue and Kingston Road.

The 1970s saw the beginning of many physical changes to the face of Ajax. New subdivisions spread over vacant land in central Ajax. The early 1980s brought extensive development to the southern part of Ajax with large, upscale housing units constructed along Lake Driveway.

The recession of the early 1980s did not stop residential development in Ajax. Westney Heights started north of Highway 2 and offered home buyers low interest rate mortgages while interest rates were then at an all-time high of 18% to 20%. Development north of Highway 2 stretched from Church Street in Pickering Village to Harwood Avenue, with the Millers Creek development south of the highway down to the edge of Highway 401.

Ajax Downs
Ajax Downs is a casino that is located on 50 Alexander's Crossing, near the intersection of Kingston Road and Audley Road. It has been controversial since the announcement of the Durham Live casino in 2018. The Ontario premier Doug Ford had promised to keep the Ajax Downs open after the completion of the casino. In 2022, The Durham Live casino was completed. Although it is referred to as the Pickering Casino, it lies on the border of the two small cities. This marks the first major casino operation in the Greater Toronto Area.

Amazon
in fall 2021, Amazon opened a 1 million square foot Amazon fulfillment centre, hiring about 1000 full-time warehouse associate positions.

Health care
The Ajax and Pickering General Hospital first opened in 1954 with 38 adult and children's beds. It was expanded to 50 beds in 1958 and a major expansion to 127 beds took place in 1964. The emergency and outpatient services were expanded in 1975. The large growth of population in the Town has prompted a further expansion. Approval was granted in the fall of 1990 to further expand. In 1999, the Hospital merged with Centenary Health Centre in Scarborough to become part of the Rouge Valley Health System. Construction on a $60 million expansion began in 2007, although that has been marred by the highly controversial closure of the 3 West Mental Health ward in 2008, which was originally to be part of the expansion.

Emergency services
The Durham Regional Police police Ajax from a station in Pickering. Durham Region provides Ambulance/emergency medical services. Ajax Fire & Emergency Services provides firefighting services from three fire stations.

Transportation
Ajax GO Station is served by GO Transit's Lakeshore East line, with service from Toronto and Oshawa.

In 1973, the Town of Ajax conducted a survey of potential transit ridership in Ajax. This led to the creation of Ajax Transit with bus service beginning in 1973 under a contract with Charterways Transportation Limited, which operated service using a fleet of school buses, with heaviest ridership between the Pickering Beach area and downtown Ajax.

In the late 1970s, the town brought the operations in house and began operations on the Elm, Duffins, and Beach routes, which exist to this day. In the early 1980s, the Harwood, Westney Heights, and Village routes began service. Service on the Puckrin route began in the late 1980s.

In 2001, Ajax Transit and the neighbouring Pickering Transit were amalgamated into the Ajax Pickering Transit Authority (APTA), which operated under the joint ownership and oversight of Ajax and Pickering.

In 2006, APTA was amalgamated into Durham Region Transit along with the other municipal transit services in Durham Region.

Road transportation in Ajax is dominated by Highway 401, which runs east–west through the town, dividing it in half. Access to Highway 401 both east and west is available via Westney Road and Salem Road. Only four streets allow transportation from the north end of town to the south end of town by crossing over or under Highway 401. These streets are (from west to east) Church Street, Westney Road, Harwood Avenue and Salem Road. Lakeridge Road crosses the highway, but it is traditionally held to be the border between the towns of Ajax and Whitby. Notable streets that run parallel to the highway are (from north to south) Taunton Road, Rossland Road, Kingston Road (Highway 2) and Bayly Street. At Salem Road is where Highway 401 narrows to three lanes each way, causing a severe traffic bottleneck eastbound during rush hours and special holidays due to increased travel to Ottawa and Montreal.

The closest international airport to Ajax is Toronto Pearson International Airport, located 50 kilometres to the west in Mississauga.

Education
Ajax is served by the Durham District School Board and the Durham Catholic District School Board. There are five high schools and several elementary schools. Two of the high schools are Catholic schools: Notre Dame Catholic Secondary School and Archbishop Denis O'Connor Catholic High School. The other three are the public secondary schools: Ajax High School, J. Clarke Richardson Collegiate and Pickering High School.

Music and dance
During 1955–1962, the Ajax Recreational Committee ran regular dances for the town's teenagers. The Saturday night dances, called "Ajax Teen Town", were held at the Ajax Community Centre, and were attended by as many as 500 teenagers at its peak. The Community Centre burnt down in 1960s, and the event attendance gradually declined, as music styles changed and as the members grew up.

For a short period beginning in the 1990s, Ajax became notable for its punk musicians, with the Maclean's magazine calling it the "punk-rock capital of Canada" in 2003. After the success of Sum 41, record labels began looking for upcoming artists at the local shows in the Durham region. Several other bands and artists from Ajax achieved popularity, including Closet Monster, Not by Choice, Matt Brann and Jesse Colburn (members of Avril Lavigne's back-up band). According to writer Alan Cross, punk became popular in Ajax as the local teens kept themselves busy with music, finding not much else to do in a small town. Chameleon Café (110 Dowty Road), an auto body garage converted into a music venue, became a popular spot for local bands during the mid-to-late 1990s, with hundreds of teens gathering there on weekends. According to producer Greig Nori, the popularity of Chameleon Café (which closed in 2001) and the proximity of Ajax to Toronto (where teens could attend major punk band concerts) helped the music scene in the town.

Sports
The members of the Ajax Aquatic Club, established in 1973, have included the Olympic medalists Anne Ottenbrite and Lori Melien. The Ajax Budokan Judo Club was also established in 1973, with 20 members, most of them high school students. Its members have included judokas Jessica Klimkait, Craig Weldon, Sandra Greaves, and Kevin Doherty. The Ajax Acros Gymnastic Club was formed as a feeder club in 1974, with 60 children. Lori Strong, who has won multiple medals at the Commonwealth Games, started her training at this club.

The Ajax-Pickering Rock (2003-2010) was a local box lacrosse team that played in the Ontario Lacrosse Association Senior "B" League during 2003–2010. In 2010, it was promoted to Senior "A" Major Series Lacrosse league, and played under the name Ajax Rock (2011-2012). The team faced challenges in attracting players and fan base because of competition from other teams in the Durham Region. In 2013, it moved from Ajax to the newly constructed Toronto Rock Athletic Centre (TRAC) in Oakville, and re-branded itself as Oakville Rock.

In 2022, the Ajax Pickering Minor Hockey Association was formed after the merger of the Ajax Minor Hockey (Ajax Knights), Pickering Minor Hockey (Pickering Panthers), and Ajax-Pickering Raiders; the team retains the name "Raiders". Ajax Spartans Minor Baseball Association (ASMBA) is a local minor league baseball team.

Ajax Wanderers, established in 1949, is the oldest rugby union club in Ontario. Its members have included Dave Moonlight of Whitby.

Other sports clubs in the town include the Ajax Soccer Club, Ajax United, Ajax-Pickering Dolphins (football), Ajax Pickering Ringette Association, Ajax Cricket Club, Ajax Scuba Club, and Ajax Skating Club. Ajax Ice Waves, a synchronized skating team of the Ajax Skating Club, won several local competitions in Ontario in the 2010s.

Notable people and groups

 * Isaiah Adams, NFL football player
 * Toya Alexis, musician, Canadian Idol finalist
 * Charlotte Arnold, actress
 * Benjamin deForest Bayly, inventor
 * Jeff Beukeboom, retired NHL player
 * Ruby Bhatia, Indian-Canadian VJ, television show host, and actress
 * Ryan Blanchet, touring car racer
 * Boi-1da, hip hop producer
 * Matt Brann, musician
 * Brendan Canning, musician
 * Munro Chambers, actor
 * Nichelle Prince, women's soccer player and Olympian
 * Candace Chapman, women's soccer player and Olympian
 * Closet Monster, punk rock band
 * Christian Corbet, painter, sculptor and forensic artist
 * Derek Cornelius, professional soccer player
 * Joe Dickson, MPP and owner of Dickson Printing
 * Janet Ecker, former Ontario Minister of Finance
 * Khashayar Farzam, powerlifter and physician; grew up in Ajax
 * Akeem Foster, CFL football player
 * Keith Godding, CFL football player
 * Glenn Healy, former NHL goaltender
 * Kyle Johnson, professional basketball player and Olympian; grew up in Ajax
 * The Johnstones, ska band
 * Kaza Kajami-Keane, professional basketball player, and Canadian national team player
 * Rabindranath Maharaj, novelist
 * Connor McMichael, NHL player
 * Nam Nguyen, national champion figure skater
 * Not by Choice, punk rock band
 * Emmett O'Connor, professional association football (soccer) player
 * Phan Thi Kim Phuc, subject of a famous photo from the Vietnam War
 * Matt Poitras, NHL player
 * Mike Ross, broadcaster, actor, PA announcer Toronto Maple Leafs
 * John Saunders, sports journalist for ESPN and ABC
 * Corey Sevier, actor
 * Ken Shaw, CTV Toronto news anchor
 * Nathan Shepherd, NFL football player
 * Devin Shore, current NHL forward
 * Rene Soetens, former Progressive Conservative MP
 * Sum 41, punk rock band
 * T-Minus, hip hop and R&B producer
 * Jessica Tyler, actress
 * Nigel Wilson, retired MLB player

title: Ajax, Ontario


text:
Talk:Sigismund I

Why has this page a redirect to Sigismund I of Poland?

As far as I can see thers more Sigismund I, and I can not see why the Polish king should have a patent of the title?

Wouldnt it be better to list the different rulers with the name Sigismund here?Dan Koehl 19:23 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)

 * If there have been more than one, then certainly. I imagine the person who made the redirect did so because they didn't know of any other Sigismund Is. By all means, change it if it's wrong. --Camembert

Theres [some links, I guess I should have some patience....[[User:Dan Koehl|Dan Koehl]] 20:48 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Sigismund I


text:
The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth is a children's fantasy adventure novel written by Norton Juster, with illustrations by Jules Feiffer, first published in 1961. The story follows a bored young boy named Milo who unexpectedly receives a magic tollbooth that transports him to the once prosperous, but now troubled, Kingdom of Wisdom. Along with a dog named Tock and the Humbug, Milo goes on a quest to the Castle in the Air seeking the kingdom's two exiled princesses, named Rhyme and Reason. As Milo learns valuable lessons, he finds a love of learning in a story full of puns and wordplay, such as exploring the literal meanings of idioms.

In 1958, Juster had received a Ford Foundation grant for a children's book about cities. Unable to make progress on that project, he turned to writing what became The Phantom Tollbooth, his first book. His housemate, Feiffer, a cartoonist, interested himself in the project. Jason Epstein, an editor at Random House, bought the book and published it. The Phantom Tollbooth received rave reviews and has as of 2021 sold almost five million copies, far more than expected. It has been adapted into a film, opera, and play, and translated into many languages.

Though the book is on its face an adventure story, a major theme is the need for a love of education; through this, Milo applies what he has learned in school, advances in his personal development, and learns to love the life that previously bored him. Critics have compared its appeal to that of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and to L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Additionally Maurice Sendak, in his introductory "An Appreciation" included in editions of the book since 1996, quotes a critic as comparing The Phantom Tollbooth to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress: "As Pilgrim's Progress is concerned with the awakening of the sluggardly spirit, The Phantom Tollbooth is concerned with the awakening of the lazy mind."

Plot
Milo is a boy bored by the world around him; every activity seems a waste of time. He arrives home from another boring day at school to find a mysterious package. Among its contents are a small tollbooth and a map of "the Lands Beyond," illustrating the Kingdom of Wisdom (which will also guide the reader from its place on the endpapers of the book). Attached to the package is a note "For Milo, who has plenty of time." Warned by an included sign to have his destination in mind, he decides without much thought to go to Dictionopolis, assuming this is a pretend game to be played on the floor of his room. He maneuvers through the tollbooth in his electric toy car and instantly finds himself driving on a road that is clearly not in his city apartment.

Milo begins with Expectations, a pleasant place where he starts on Wisdom's road. In Expectations, he seeks directions from the Whether Man, who is full of endless talk. As Milo drives on, he daydreams and gets lost in the Doldrums, a colorless place where nothing ever happens. Milo soon joins the inhabitants, the Lethargarians, in killing time there, a pastime angrily interrupted by the arrival of Tock, a talking, oversized dog with an alarm clock on each side (a "watchdog"), who tells Milo that only by thinking can he get out of the Doldrums. Head abuzz with unaccustomed thoughts, Milo is soon back on his road, and Tock joins him on his journey through Wisdom.

Milo and Tock travel to Dictionopolis, one of two capital cities of the divided Kingdom of Wisdom and home to King Azaz the Unabridged. They meet King Azaz's cabinet officials and visit the Word Market, where the words and letters are sold that empower the world. A fight between the Spelling Bee and the blustering Humbug breaks up the market, and Milo and Tock are arrested by the very short Officer Shrift. In prison, Milo meets Faintly Macabre, the Not-so-Wicked Which (not to be confused with Witch), long in charge of which words should be used in Wisdom. She tells him how the two rulers, King Azaz and his brother, the Mathemagician, had two adopted younger sisters, Rhyme and Reason, to whom everyone came to settle disputes. All lived in harmony until the rulers disagreed with the princesses' decision that letters (championed by Azaz) and numbers (by the Mathemagician) were equally important. They banished the princesses to the Castle in the Air and, since then, the land has had neither Rhyme nor Reason.

Milo and Tock leave the dungeon. King Azaz hosts them at a banquet where the guests literally eat their words, served to them on plates. After the meal, King Azaz lets Milo and Tock talk themselves into a dangerous quest to rescue the princesses. Azaz flatters the Humbug into being their guide, and boy, dog and insect set off for the Mathemagician's capital of Digitopolis as they must gain his approval before they can begin their quest.

Along the way, they meet such characters as Alec Bings, a little boy suspended in the air who sees through things and who will grow down until he reaches the ground. He then meets the world's smallest giant, the world's biggest dwarf, the world's thinnest fat man, and the world's fattest thin man, who turn out to just be one regular man. Milo then loses time in substituting for Chroma the Great, a conductor whose orchestra creates the colors of the world.

They meet a twelve-sided creature called the Dodecahedron, who leads them to Digitopolis. There, they meet the Mathemagician, who is still angry at Azaz and who will not give his blessing to anything that his brother has approved. Milo maneuvers him into saying he will permit the quest if the boy can show the two have concurred on anything since they banished the princesses. To the number wizard's shock, Milo proves that the two have agreed to disagree, and the Mathemagician gives his reluctant consent.

In the Mountains of Ignorance, the journeyers contend with demons like the Terrible Trivium and the Gelatinous Giant. After overcoming obstacles and their own fears, they reach the Castle in the Air. Princesses Rhyme and Reason welcome Milo and agree to return to Wisdom. Unable to enter the castle, the demons cut it loose, letting it drift away, but Milo realizes Tock can carry them down because 'time flies'. The demons pursue, but the armies of Wisdom arrive and repel them. Rhyme and Reason heal the divisions in the old Kingdom of Wisdom, Azaz and the Mathemagician are reconciled, and all enjoy a three-day celebration.

Milo says goodbye and drives back through the tollbooth. Suddenly he is back in his own room, and discovers he has been gone only an hour, though his journey seemed to take weeks. He awakens the next day with plans to return to the kingdom, but finds the tollbooth gone when he gets home from school. A note instead is there, "For Milo, who now knows the way." The note states that the tollbooth is being sent to another child who needs help finding direction in life. Milo is somewhat disappointed but agrees and looks at a now-interesting world around him, concluding that even if he found a way back, he might not have time to go, for there is so much to do right where he is.

Writing
Architect Norton Juster was living in his hometown of Brooklyn, after three years in the Navy. In June 1960, he gained a $5,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to write a children's book about cities. Juster argued that the young baby boomers would soon have responsibility for the cities, and many lived in the suburbs and did not know them. In his proposal, he said he wanted "to stimulate and heighten perception – to help children notice and appreciate the visual world around them – to help excite them and shape their interest in an environment they will eventually reshape." Beginning with great enthusiasm, he ground to a halt with too many notes and too little progress. He took a weekend break with friends at Fire Island, and came back determined to put aside the cities book and seek inspiration in another writing project.

Juster's guilt over his lack of progress on the cities book had led him to write pieces of stories about a little boy named Milo, which he began to develop into a book. Juster quit his job so that he could work on the book. His imagination fired by a boy who approached him on the street and with whom he discussed the nature of infinity, Juster wanted to finish the story about "a boy who asked too many questions" before returning to the book on cities. Juster shared his house in Brooklyn Heights with cartoonist Jules Feiffer whose bedroom was immediately below, and who could hear him pacing in the night. Feiffer was surprised to learn that his friend's insomnia was not caused by the cities book, but by a book about a boy. Juster showed Feiffer the draft to date and, unbidden, the artist began sketching illustrations. Feiffer knew Judy Sheftel, who put deals together in the publishing trade and was his future bride. Sheftel got Jason Epstein, an innovative editor at Random House with a deep appreciation for children's literature, to agree to review the manuscript. Some at Random House considered the book's vocabulary too difficult: at the time, educators advised against children's literature containing words the target audience did not already know, fearing the unfamiliar would discourage young learners. Based on seven chapters of manuscript, plus a three-page outline of the rest of the story, Epstein bought the book.

Since Juster did the cooking for the housemates, if Feiffer wanted to eat, he had to do the drawings. Feiffer quickly realized the book would require illustrations of the type and quality that John Tenniel had created for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and although a nationally known artist, doubted his competence to do the text justice. Feiffer considers the double-spread illustration of demons late in the book to be a success and one of his favorites. It differs from his usual style (which would involve a white background), and instead uses Gustave Doré's drawings as an inspiration.

It became a game, with Feiffer trying to draw things the way he wanted, and Juster trying to describe things that were impossible to sketch. These included the Triple Demons of Compromise—one short and fat, one tall and thin, and the third exactly like the first two. Feiffer got his revenge by depicting the author as the Whether Man, clad in a toga.

Repeated edits altered the protagonist's name (originally Tony), removed his parents entirely from the book, and deleted text attempting to describe how the tollbooth package had been delivered. Milo's age was removed from the text—early drafts have him aged eight or nine—as Juster decided not to state it, lest potential readers decide they were too old to care.

Themes
Since no one has ever bothered to explain the importance of learning to Milo, he regards school as the biggest waste of time in his life. Juster intended that the book speak to the importance of learning to love learning. Teaching methods that might bore children, by memorization for example, are mocked in the book, as in the case of the Spelling Bee. Like the Bee, the Humbug's insult to his fellow insect goes over Milo's head, but possibly not the reader's: "A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect." According to Mary Liston in her journal article on law in fantasy realms, "The Phantom Tollbooth concerns the difference between education and wisdom and what processes are conducive to synthesizing both, so as to encourage an attitude of engagement, alertness, and responsibility within an increasingly autonomous individual."

Another theme is the need for common sense to back up rules. Milo journeys through a land where, without Rhyme or Reason, the art of governance has been lost, leading to bizarre results. Milo repeatedly meets characters to whom words are more important than their meaning. The Whether Man, for all his talk, is unable to provide Milo with the information or guidance the boy wants, while Officer Shrift's investigation of the overturning of the Word Market contains the forms of law, without justice. The denizens around Digitopolis are little better; the twelve-faced Dodecahedron, named for what he is, turns the logic of his naming on its head when he asks if everyone with one face is called Milo. The attitudes now displayed by the adherents of both brothers are summed up by the Dodecahedron, "as long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?"

As Milo struggles with words and begins the process of making himself their master, he also has difficulty with numbers, especially when he speaks with .58 of a child, who with parents and two siblings (whom Milo does not meet) makes up an average family. Milo has had difficulties in school with mathematics and problem solving; his reaction to this encounter is to protest that averages are not real. The partial child enlightens Milo that there is beauty in math beyond the tedium of learning an endless set of rules, "one of the nicest things about mathematics, or anything else you might care to learn, is that many of the things which can never be, often are". Late in the book, Princess Reason counsels Milo, who has much learning ahead of him, not to be discouraged by its complexity, "You must never feel badly about making mistakes ... as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons". An index card in the Juster papers sets forth the germ of the princess' "memorable" counsel to Milo, "Quite often the road to Rhyme + Reason is through the right mistakes."

Although Milo is bored with learning, that does not mean he knew nothing before his journey. He exhibits characteristics of a well-schooled child of his time; his speech is polite and peppered with "please" and "thank you", and when he unexpectedly encounters the partial child, he requests pardon for staring. He can count to a thousand, though his tact in bringing up the subject in the presence of the numbers-hating King Azaz is not the best. Mindful of his mother's admonition to eat lightly when a guest, he initially orders a light meal at the banquet, only to find the waiters bringing in insubstantial light beams. Not realizing he will be asked to eat his words, he then makes a plausible start at a speech before being interrupted by the king. The Phantom Tollbooth displays Milo's growth; Leonard S. Marcus in his notes to its annotated edition writes that the boy learns to think in the abstract, pledging after his unintentional jump to Conclusions that he will not make up his mind again without a good reason. Milo does not accept the word of the demon of insincerity that he is a threat and is rewarded by learning he is not. Just for a moment, Milo is able to float in the air beside Alec Bings and see things from the perspective he will have as an adult, allowing the young reader to contemplate what it will be like to do the same. According to Liston, Milo "transforms himself from an unthinking and compliant Lethargarian to a young adult with greater consciousness, a firmer sense of self, and a newly found set of responsibilities".

Even though the day is won by Milo and his fellow questers, it is a great but not a permanent victory, as he hears the kingly brothers begin to argue again as he departs. Juster has written that it was his intent to get Milo out of there as quickly as possible, and that "the fight would have to be won again and again".

Milo's trip through the lands beyond the tollbooth teaches the previously bored child to appreciate both journey and destination. This is a lesson that had been unlearned by the citizens of Wisdom, as exemplified by the described fate of the twin cities of Reality and Illusions. Although the city of Illusions never actually existed, Reality was lost as its residents concentrated on getting to their destination as quickly as possible, and, unappreciated, the city withered away, unnoticed by the busy people who still hasten along its former streets. Milo meets his trials by defining himself as different from the kingdom's inhabitants, who either demand or accept conformity, as enforced by the kingdom's laws, which discourage (and even outlaw) thought. Milo cannot accept such laws, beginning when, in the Doldrums, he thinks, thus violating a local ordinance and separating himself from the thoughtless inhabitants. Liston opined that because the Kingdom of Wisdom's "laws require the impossible, they contradict what it means to be fully human".

Influences and comparisons
The Phantom Tollbooth contains allusions to many works, including those loved by Juster in his own upbringing. Some of Juster's favorite books as a child, including The Wind in the Willows, had endpaper maps; Juster insisted on one, over Feiffer's opposition, going so far as to sketch one and require that his collaborator reproduce it in his own style. Juster was also inspired by his father Samuel's love of puns, with which the book is more than sprinkled. In his childhood, Juster spent much time listening to the radio. According to Juster, the need to envision the action when listening to radio serials helped inspire The Phantom Tollbooth, as well as yielding the character of Tock, based on sidekick Jim Fairfield from Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. Jim gave Tock his wisdom, courage, and adventurous spirit. As a child, Juster had synesthesia, and could only do arithmetic by making associations between numbers and colors. He remembered that the condition affected word associations. "One of the things I always did was think literally when I heard words. On the Lone Ranger [radio serial] they would say, 'Here come the Injuns!' and I always had an image of engines, of train engines."

Some of the incidents in the book stem from Juster's own past. In Digitopolis, the Numbers Mine, where gemlike numerals are dug for, recalled one of Juster's architecture professors at the University of Pennsylvania, who compared numbers and equations to jewels. The Marx Brothers films were a staple for Juster as a child and his father would quote lengthy passages from the movies; this inspired the unending series of straight-faced puns that fills the book.

Growing up in a Jewish-American household where the parents demanded high achievement, Juster was intimately familiar with expectations, though in his case many of his parents' hopes were centered on his older brother, an academic star. The Terrible Trivium, the well-dressed, polite demon who sets the questers to mindless tasks, was Juster's way of representing his own tendency to avoid what he should be doing in favor of a more congenial occupation, such as his evasion of the grant project to write The Phantom Tollbooth. Juster drew on Feiffer's life experiences as well; the Whether Man's adage "Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens" was a favorite of the cartoonist's mother.

Juster had not read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland when he wrote The Phantom Tollbooth, but the two books, each about a bored child plunged into a world of absurd logic, have repeatedly been compared. According to Daniel Hahn in his 2012 article on the Juster book, "Alice is clearly Milo's closest literary kin". Milo's conversation with the Whether Man, which leaves him no more comprehending than when he came, recalls that of Alice with the Cheshire Cat. The questions of authority (something omnipresent for a child) and of justice run through both books; the Queen of Hearts' arbitrary justice is echoed, though with less violence, by Officer Shrift. Alice's sovereigns, representing the authority figures of Victorian childhood life, rule absolutely (though not necessarily effectively); a child of the post-World War II world, Milo journeys through a more bureaucratic realm. His quest is far more purposeful than the frustrating journey Alice experiences, and the outcome differs as well—Milo restores his kingdom while Alice overturns hers. Carroll leaves us uncertain if Alice has learned anything from her adventures, but Juster makes it clear that Milo has acquired tools he will need to find his way through life.

Publication and reception
The Phantom Tollbooth was published in September 1961. Its competition among new books for the minds and hearts of children included Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach. The Bronze Bow, set in the Biblical times, was newly available, and brought Elizabeth George Speare her second Newbery Award in three years. Neither publisher nor first-time author expected many sales for The Phantom Tollbooth, but Juster was nevertheless disappointed not to find his work on store shelves. His mother, Minnie, did her part, as her son put it, "terrorizing" bookstore owners into displaying it.

Juster says the book was rescued from the remainders table when Emily Maxwell wrote a strong review of it in The New Yorker. Maxwell wrote, "As Pilgrim's Progress is concerned with the awakening of the sluggardly spirit, The Phantom Tollbooth is concerned with the awakening of the lazy mind." Hers was far from the only positive piece; children's author Ann McGovern reviewed it for The New York Times, writing "Norton Juster's amazing fantasy has something wonderful for anyone old enough to relish the allegorical wisdom of Alice in Wonderland and the pointed whimsy of The Wizard of Oz". John Crosby wrote for the New York Herald Tribune, "In a world which sometimes seems to have gone mad, it is refreshing to pause and consider for a moment a book for children which contains a character called 'Faintly Macabre, the not-so-wicked Which.' The name of the book is The Phantom Tollbooth and it was written by a bearded elf named Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer, who is the cleverest of the young neurotics". Dissenting was the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, which in March 1962 deemed the book an "intensive and extensive fantasy, heavily burdened with contrivance and whimsy".

In 1962, the book was published in Britain. Siriol Hugh-Jones wrote for The Times Literary Supplement, "The Phantom Tollbooth is something every adult seems sure will turn into a modern Alice ... The obvious guess is that the appeal of this sort of writing is directed towards just the sort of adults who derive a perfectly grown-up pleasure from regularly rereading the Alices. As one might expect, it is illustrated by every grown-up's favourite child-like pictures with the built-in sad sophistication, the work of Jules Feiffer." Jennifer Bourdillon reviewed it for The Listener, "This is the story of an imaginary journey, a sort of Pilgrim's Progress of a little boy in his car ... One would hardly have thought from the sound of this that it would have so magnetic an appeal, but the brilliant verbal humour and the weird and wonderful characters (the Dodecahedron, the Watchdog, Faintly Macabre) make it that rare delight, a book which parents and children can share." It reached Australia in 1963; The Canberra Times' reviewer, J.E.B., deemed it memorable, causing readers to quote from it and leaf through its pages again.

Later history, editions and adaptations
After publication, Juster sent a copy of the book to the Ford Foundation, with an explanation of how the projected book on cities had transformed into The Phantom Tollbooth. He never heard back from them, and learned years later that they were delighted by the turn of events. With the book having become an unexpected hit, Juster found himself answering letters from young readers and a few parents. He found that children understood the wordplay at different ages, and he heard from the occasional college student as well. Some students wrote a second time after a gap of years "and they'll talk to me about a whole different book, normally. But now they've got a lot more of the words right. A lot more of the fun kind of crazy references". He learned too that readers were capable of more than he had intended, as in the case of the letter sent by the Mathemagician to King Azaz. Composed entirely of numbers, some readers assumed it was a code and set about breaking it, only to appeal to Juster for help when they were not successful. The numbers were not intended to have any meaning, and were meant to convey that the Mathemagician's letter could not have been understood by Azaz or his advisers.

As the book became acclaimed as a modern classic, it began to be used in the classroom, and Juster corresponded with some teachers. After the book's readers attained adulthood, they wrote of its influence on them. Novelist Cathleen Schine recalled, "it was as if someone had turned on the lights. The concepts of irony, of double entendre, of words as play, of the pleasure and inevitability of intellectual absurdity, were suddenly accessible to me. They made sense to me in an extremely personal way." British fantasy writer Diana Wynne Jones read her copy so often it fell apart: "it didn't occur to us that it might be about something. It struck us as a little like The Wizard of Oz, only better." One reader, signing himself "Milo", wrote to Rolling Stone in 1970, "If you want to get freaked out of your undernourished head, pick up The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. They tell you it's a kids' book, but take my word for it, no one who reads it is ever the same. No hype."

The book continued to garner positive reviews and comments. In 1998, Amanda Foreman wrote for The Sunday Times of London, "I want to shout about The Phantom from the rooftops. I want to stand in Waterloo and press copies into people's hands. This is a book that should be in every home. ... Whether you are 8 or 88 Juster's mixture of allegorical wisdom and logical whimsy will take you on a journey of the spirit. The Phantom is a mappa mundi of our hearts, proving once again that in laughter and simplicity lies the truth of life". In a 2011 article written for the book's fiftieth anniversary, Adam Gopnik wrote, "The book is made magical by Juster's and Feiffer's gift for transforming abstract philosophical ideas into unforgettable images."

The book has been translated into many foreign languages, including Chinese, Croatian, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Thai, Turkish and three different Spanish editions: one for Spain, one for Latin America, and one for Spanish speakers in the United States. Juster stated that he did not know if the wordplay of the original carries through to the translated works. In 1969, Chuck Jones made The Phantom Tollbooth into a musical film of the same name, produced and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1970. Milo's town and room were depicted in live action, with the film changing to animation beyond the tollbooth. Juster disliked the film, describing it as "drivel". In February 2010, director Gary Ross began development of a remake of The Phantom Tollbooth, with the first draft of the script written by Alex Tse. As of August 2016, the remake has moved to TriStar Pictures, with Michael Vukadinovich writing the adaption. The classical composer Robert Xavier Rodriguez in 1987 composed A Colorful Symphony based on the work. Audiobooks of The Phantom Tollbooth have been narrated by Norman Dietz, David Hyde Pierce, and Rainn Wilson. The Pierce version was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children in 2010.

In 2011, The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth was published, which includes sketches and copies of Juster's handwritten drafts and word lists, Feiffer's early drawings, and an introduction and annotations by Leonard S. Marcus. A fiftieth anniversary edition was also published, with appreciations by Maurice Sendak, Michael Chabon and Philip Pullman. More than three million copies have been sold of the original book in the U.S. alone. It has been adapted into a small-scale opera with music by Arnold Black, and a book by Juster and Sheldon Harnick, produced by Opera Delaware in 1995. It was then revamped into a musical that had its debut to strong reviews at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and then made a national tour.

The Phantom Tollbooth remains acknowledged as a classic of children's literature. Based on a 2007 online poll, the U.S. National Education Association listed it as one of the "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". In 2012, it was ranked number 21 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal.

In 2017, TriStar Pictures announced that Matt Shakman would direct its upcoming "live-action/hybrid" film adaptation of The Phantom Tollbooth. In 2018, Carlos Saldanha replaced Shakman due to scheduling conflicts. Theodore Melfi is drafting the screenplay after Michael Vukadinovich and Phil Johnston.

In 2011, Juster stated that he felt that his book still had relevance, even though children's lives had changed since 1961:

"When I grew up I still felt like that puzzled kid—disconnected, disinterested and confused. There was no rhyme or reason in his life. My thoughts focused on him, and I began writing about his childhood, which was really mine ... Today's world of texting and tweeting is quite a different place, but children are still the same as they've always been. They still get bored and confused, and still struggle to figure out the important questions of life. Well, one thing has changed: As many states eliminate tolls on highways, some children may never encounter a real tollbooth. Luckily there are other routes to the Lands Beyond. And it is possible to seek them, and fun to try."

title: The Phantom Tollbooth


text:
Brotherhood of Man

Brotherhood of Man are a British pop group who achieved success in the 1970s. They won the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest with "Save Your Kisses for Me".

Created in 1969 by songwriter and record producer Tony Hiller, Brotherhood of Man was initially an umbrella title for a frequently-changing line-up of session singers. Early on, they scored a worldwide hit with the song "United We Stand". By 1973 the concept had run its course and Hiller formed a definite four-member line-up consisting of Martin Lee (born Martin Barnes 26 November 1946 in London), Lee Sheriden (born Roger Pritchard 11 April 1944 in Bristol), Nicky Stevens (born Helen Maria Thomas 3 December 1949 in Carmarthen and Sandra Stevens (born 23 November 1944 in Leeds). In addition to This version of the group went on to score many hits around the world in the mid to late 1970s including "Kiss Me Kiss Your Baby", "Save Your Kisses for Me", "Angelo", "Oh Boy (The Mood I'm In)" and "Figaro". They achieved perhaps their biggest success in their native UK with three number one singles and four top twenty albums. The group under this line-up have continued into the 21st century performing shows throughout Europe. Altogether, they have released 16 studio albums, with worldwide sales topping 15 million records.

Original line-up
Brotherhood of Man was formed by record producer/composer Tony Hiller in 1969, and originally featured his co-writer John Goodison (who performed as Goodison but wrote under the pseudonyms Peter Simmons and Peter Simons) with Tony Burrows, Roger Greenaway, Sue Glover and Sunny Leslie. Greenaway was also a songwriter and had co-written hits such as "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart" and "Melting Pot". Burrows was a well-known session singer, performing in various line-ups on hit singles such as the No.1 hit "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" by Edison Lighthouse. The two female members, Glover and Leslie were an act in their own right, releasing singles as Sue and Sunny.

The group came together in 1969 and began recording some songs with Hiller. Their first single "Love One Another" failed to chart, but the follow-up "United We Stand" (released in January 1970) was a worldwide hit. "United We Stand" was heavily played on British radio, and broke into the American market. The single became a Top 20 hit in the UK, Canada, Australia and US. The song has since been used as the closing theme for television's Brady Bunch Hour and as an anthem for various causes. Burrows left the group soon after and as a four-piece, The Brotherhood of Man followed "United We Stand" with another hit, "Where Are You Going to My Love". The song charted in the UK, Canada, and US and has since been covered by Olivia Newton-John and The Osmonds among others. A début album United We Stand followed soon after.

Over the next two years, the group continued in varied line-ups. Goodison left the group at the beginning of 1971 and was replaced by American singer Hal Atkinson, Greenaway left soon after and was replaced by Russell Stone. They had one more minor hit in the US (1971's "Reach Out Your Hand"), but experienced no further success in the UK and split after being dropped by their record company.

Current line-up
Keen to keep the established name alive, Hiller set about putting a new line up together. In 1972 he got together a trio of session singers, Martin Lee, Nicky Stevens and Lee Sheriden.

Sheriden was already known to Hiller as a songwriter and had a solo career. Lee had a solo single to his name and was a budding songwriter. Stevens had been classically trained, but had since adapted her vocals and was performing as a cabaret singer. The trio began recording together, but their first single, "Rock Me Baby", to be released at the end of 1972, was cancelled due to the release of the song by David Cassidy. Finally their first two singles "Happy Ever After" and "Our World of Love" were released in 1973. Neither single charted and soon after, another female vocalist was added to the line up, Sandra Stevens. Stevens (no relation to Nicky) had been performing as a big-band singer since a teenager in the late 1960s. She had sung with the Joe Loss big band and alongside Eve Graham (of The New Seekers) in club group, The Nocturnes.

Now signed to the Pye spin off label, Dawn, the quartet released their first single, "When Love Catches Up on You" in January 1974. It failed to chart, but the follow-up single, "Lady" became a hit in Europe. Encouraged by this, the group set about recording their debut album. The album Good Things Happening was released later in the year along with two more singles, but none of these found success. Before the record label folded, Brotherhood of Man released one more single in the Summer of 1975. This was the upbeat "Kiss Me Kiss Your Baby" and it although failed to make an impression in the UK, it became a big hit in Europe, reaching Number one in Belgium and Number two in the Netherlands as well as top 10 placings in other countries. Brotherhood of Man toured extensively in Europe, honing their stage act and harmonies, while Hiller, Sheriden and Lee worked on composing songs for their second album. Among them was a song Sheriden had largely written called "Save Your Kisses for Me".

Eurovision victory
In early 1976, Hiller was keen for Brotherhood of Man to make an impact in the UK and decided to put "Save Your Kisses for Me" forward to the A Song for Europe competition. This year saw a change to the contest in that, since 1964, one specific artist had performed all the songs (e.g. Cliff Richard, Olivia Newton-John, Lulu, etc.), but 1976 saw the return to the format in which any artist was eligible to enter. "Save Your Kisses for Me" made it to the final twelve songs and on 25 February, Brotherhood of Man took the title, beating the second placed act, Co-Co by two points. Now signed to Pye Records, "Save Your Kisses for Me" was released as a single in March and hit the No.1 spot two weeks before the Contest final. On 3 April, the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest was staged in the Netherlands and Brotherhood of Man performed the song, dressed in red, white and black with simple choreography devised by Guy Lutman. "Save Your Kisses for Me" took the title with an overwhelming victory. As manager Hiller stated; "..."Kiss Me Kiss Your Baby" was a hit all over Europe in '75. I firmly believe it opened the door for us a year later and helped us do well because they knew us – every weekend we'd travel to do TV spots in France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland".

'' The song became a major hit around the world and reached No.1 in many countries and returned the group to the US Charts. The song eventually sold six million copies worldwide and is still the highest selling Eurovision winning single ever. In the UK, it stayed at No.1 for six weeks and earned them a platinum disc. It ended up the top selling single of the year and is still one of the few UK singles to sell a million.

Post Eurovision success
The group had already recorded a second album which had been released in several countries a year previously. Following their victory, Pye released the album with "Save Your Kisses for Me" added. Entitled Love and Kisses, the album was a success in the UK, reaching the top twenty, as well as other countries, gaining a number 6 position in Norway for instance. Soon after this, a follow-up single was released. Eager to cash in on their success, Pye decided against releasing anything from the album, as the earlier material had been more soul-based than the pop they were now successful with. The group instead released "My Sweet Rosalie" – almost a carbon copy of the previous hit, although the lyrical twist was that it was about a dog, rather than a child. The song failed to chart highly, only reaching number 30 in the UK, but fared better in other countries, particularly Belgium where it made number 2. Concerned by the lack of success for the single, the record company did not release anything else in the UK for the rest of 1976, despite the fact that in Europe a new album of material was released along with singles in various countries: "I Give You My Love" in Germany, Spain and others and "New York City" in France.

Early in 1977, the group released their next single, "Oh Boy (The Mood I'm In)". The song was a change to their previous hits in that it was female-led and much more in a contemporary pop style. The song was a hit in the UK, reaching the top 10 and fared well in Europe also. The album which had been released in Europe the previous year was now released in the UK with the new single added. The album, now titled Oh Boy!, did not follow their last album into the charts however.

Their progress was cemented with the release of their next single, "Angelo". which was released in the Summer of 1977 and was an instant success. The song rose to Number one in the UK Charts and became one of the biggest hits of the year as well as ending up among the 50 best selling singles of the decade. The group were invited to appear at the 1977 Royal Variety Performance, where they elected to sing "Angelo", rather than their then current single "Highwayman". Deprived of this vital promotion, the single failed to enter the chart (although was 'bubbling under' the top 50 at the time). It did however become a top 20 hit in both the Netherlands and Belgium. An accompanying album Images, similarly failed in the UK charts.

The group moved on into 1978 with the release of "Figaro", which brought them back into vogue and became their third UK Number one single. In May "Beautiful Lover" was released became another hit, reaching the UK top twenty, and spending three months in the charts. An album was released soon after, B for Brotherhood. The record company took no chances with this album, given the failure of their previous two, and so with a TV advertising campaign, the album entered the UK Charts, eventually peaking at number 18 – their most successful album so far.

As the year drew to a close another single, "Middle of the Night" was released along with a greatest hits compilation, Twenty Greatest. Apart from featuring all their own hits and a smattering of album tracks and new songs, the group re-recorded both "United We Stand" and "Where are You Going to My Love" for the album. Twenty Greatest became Brotherhood of Man's most successful album, reaching Number six in the UK Charts and spending fifteen weeks in the top 75.

Chart decline
1979 saw the group going into decline as the hits dried up. Three singles released in the first six months of the year all failed to make the charts as did their next album, Higher Than High. This was despite regular TV appearances and radio play, although the group remained popular on the live circuit.". As Pye Records were due to fold at the end of the year, one more album was released in December to fulfill their contract. The album Singing a Song was made up of unreleased songs mixed with new material, but no singles were released from the collection.

Manager Tony Hiller set up his own record company in 1980, Dazzle Records. Brotherhood of Man released the first single on the label, "Honey Don't Throw Our Love Away" which also did not chart, nor did the follow-up, a cover of the 1960s hit "Will You Love Me Tomorrow". An album was recorded but was only released in Australasia. Towards the end of the year, the group were offered a deal with Warwick Records to make an album of cover versions. Released in November, Sing 20 Number One Hits was the group's take on 20 number one UK hits from recent years. The album was a hit, peaking at No.14 – their biggest chart success for two years. The album remained in the top 50 for two months and was awarded a gold disc for sales of over 100,000. Keen to release a follow-up, Warwick offered them a double album deal the following year. Released as a buy one get one free package, 20 Disco Greats / 20 Love Songs – again, a collection of recent chart hits, came out in late 1981. This album did not match the success of the first and missed the UK Charts. Tracks from these albums appear frequently on CD releases of the group, interspersed with their own hit singles.

In early 1982, Sheriden opted to leave the group to study for a degree in music. Hiller took on 28-year-old Barry Upton, an up-and-coming songwriter. Upton was later to write hits for many artists including Sonia and Steps.

The previous year, the UK had won the Eurovision Song Contest (the first time since Brotherhood of Man) with the two-boy/two-girl pop act Bucks Fizz. Within twelve months they had chalked up three number one singles and, encouraged by their popularity, Hiller set about reviving Brotherhood of Man's fortunes. In 1982, Brotherhood of Man signed a deal with EMI in the hope that the new pop revival would encompass them. Armed with a new single, "Lightning Flash", written by Hiller, Lee, and Upton, the group were relaunched with a new contemporary image and sound. The song only reached No. 67 in the summer of 1982, but it was their first single to chart in nearly four years. A follow-up, "Cry Baby Cry", failed to capitalise on this, but nevertheless, the group began working on a new album.

In 1983, the songwriting team of Hiller, Lee, and Upton entered a song for the A Song for Europe competition. Their composition, "When the Kissing Stops", made it to the final eight, but although initially tempted, the group decided not to perform the number themselves ("We all agreed it would be better to be remembered as winners, and we couldn't bear to lose!" remembers Sandra Stevens). Hiller formed a male/female trio under the name Rubic to represent the song on 24 March 1983. The group lost out to another male/female trio, Sweet Dreams, and ended up in fifth place. Despite its failure, Brotherhood of Man recorded the song and chose it as their next single. Released in the summer of 1983, alongside their new album, Lightning Flash, neither record made the UK Chart and this brought to an end their contract with EMI. "When the Kissing Stops" remains Brotherhood of Man's final single release.

Brotherhood of Man continued to perform in concert throughout the UK and Europe, but less than a year later the group decided to split. This ended their twelve-year working relationship with Hiller.

Reformation
In 1985, Brotherhood of Man reunited for a one-off TV appearance and they discussed getting back together. Over the next year, and now back with Sheriden in place of Upton, the group formed their own management company and begin performing again. In late 1986, the group were back on the live circuit, but decided against attempting a chart comeback.

In 1990, Martin Lee got together with songwriters Paul Curtis and David Kane to compose a musical based on The Butterfly Children books by Angela and Pat Mills. The musical had its world premiere at the Mitchell Theatre in Glasgow, to open the 1990 Glasgow City of Culture and ran for a month and was performed by the Mitchell Theatre for Youth. Just three months later, the show transferred to the larger Kings Theatre in Glasgow and ran for two weeks. The show transferred in late 1992 to London's West End. Brotherhood of Man recorded the songs themselves and the nineteen track collection, available on cassette only, was available to buy at the theatre. The album was never commercially released, although some tracks did make it onto tie-in cassettes to go with the books a few years later. The Butterfly Children, essentially a children's show, featured many differing styles of music from rap to rock and country and western to the more familiar pop the group were known for. The show's run ended after a short season, and has not been performed since.

In 1991, the group went back into the recording studio and made an album of re recorded hits and some new material with Dutch producer Eddy Ouwens. Not only was this their first recording for eight years, but it was their first without Hiller. The album remains unreleased in the UK, but was released in Spain under the title Grandes Exitos and in some other countries as The Golden Hits of Brotherhood of Man.

Throughout the nineties the group continued to perform live around the world in TV, concert and in cabaret and in 1997, they recorded another album, based on their live show. Again, the album contained re-recordings of their hits as well as cover versions that they perform in concert, such as "1999" by Prince and "Juke Box Hero" by Foreigner. The album contained one new song, the title track "Greenhouse", rescued from the 1991 sessions. Like the previous album, this was never commercially released and was only available to buy at their shows.

As the 2000s dawned, the group went into semi-retirement and cut back on touring. However, in 2002, they devised a new live show based on their roots in the 1970s. Entitled The Seventies Story, the show comprised a trip through the decade, with the group performing well known songs from each year along with a narration of contemporary events. The group returned to the studio and recorded an album of the show's songs. Again, this album was not released in shops, but was available on CD at the show's venues. The tracks did get a general release later on however on various compilation albums. In 2004, the first Brotherhood of Man DVD was released, featuring TV performances of many of their singles.

The group continued to do occasional shows with both The Seventies Story and with their own material. They also teamed up with the current incarnation of Bucks Fizz and together they performed as a two-part show. They frequently played to sold-out houses, The Seventies Story being particularly successful in receiving good reviews.

Brotherhood of Man found themselves in demand on both the Nostalgia and Eurovision circuit. They appeared a number of times at London's G-A-Y theatre and regularly appeared on TV both in the UK and abroad, especially around Eurovision time each year. In 2006, they appeared at the 50th anniversary of the Eurovision Song Contest gala held in Denmark, where they were voted in the top 5 Eurovision songs of all time – the highest of any UK entry.

In 2009, Cherry Red Records released the first four albums by the Eurovision line up as two double CDs. This was the first time these albums were available on CD. They also got to No 29 in the UK album charts in May 2019.

The group announced their retirement from touring on 24 December 2022, having last performed live in October 2020. However, they noted that "the four of us are still together"

Brotherhood of Man I (1969–1972)

 * John Goodison (1969–1971)
 * Tony Burrows (1969–1970)
 * Roger Greenaway (1969–1971)
 * Sue Glover (1969–1972)
 * Sunny Leslie (1969–1972)
 * Hal Atkinson (1971–1972)
 * Russell Stone (1971–1972)

Brotherhood of Man II (1972–present)

 * Martin Lee (1972–present)
 * Lee Sheriden (1972–1981, 1986–present)
 * Nicky Stevens (1972–present)
 * Sandra Stevens (1973–present)
 * Barry Upton (1982–1984)

Discography
Albums
 * United We Stand (Deram, 1970)
 * We're the Brotherhood of Man  (Deram, 1972)
 * The World of the Brotherhood of Man (Decca, 1973)
 * Good Things Happening (Dawn, 1974)
 * Love and Kisses (Pye, 1976)
 * Oh Boy! (Pye, 1977)
 * Images (Pye, 1977)
 * B for Brotherhood (Pye, 1978)
 * Twenty Greatest (K-tel/Pye, 1978)
 * Higher Than High (Pye, 1979)
 * Singing a Song (Pye, 1979)
 * Good Fortune (Dazzle, 1980)
 * Sing 20 Number One Hits (Warwick, 1980)
 * 20 Disco Greats / 20 Love Songs (Warwick, 1981)
 * Lightning Flash (EMI, 1983)
 * The Butterfly Children (1992)
 * Greenhouse (1997)
 * The Seventies Story (2002)

title: Brotherhood of Man


text:
User:Arwel Parry

cy:User:Arwel_Parry

 * Age: Mid-60s.
 * Political Affiliations: Leftish
 * Location: Crewe, Cheshire, UK
 * Personal Vices: Wikiholic.
 * 10/10/2003: Became a sysop on English Wikipedia, having been one on Welsh Wikipedia since about July. Thanks to everybody who supported my nomination.

=Awards=

=My Wiki Contributions=

title: User:Arwel Parry


text:
Aurora, Ontario

Aurora (2021 population: 62,057 ) is a town in central York Region in the Greater Toronto Area, within the Golden Horseshoe of Southern Ontario, Canada. It is located north of the City of Richmond Hill and is partially situated on the Oak Ridges Moraine. In the Canada 2021 Census, the municipal population of Aurora was the 92nd largest in Canada, compared to 95th for the 2016 Census and 97th for the 2006 Census. Aurora is twinned with Leksand, Sweden.

History
Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe gave the order for Yonge Street to be extended to Holland Landing in 1793, the first step toward the establishment of a community where Aurora now stands. Yonge Street opened between 1794 and 1796. In 1795, the first house in Aurora was built at Yonge Street and Catherine Avenue. The government began granting deeds to land in 1797. By 1801 there were fourteen homes.

Establishing a village
In 1804, Richard Machell became the first merchant at the crossroads of Yonge and Wellington and the hamlet soon became known as Machell's Corners. Charles Doan was another early businessman at Machell's Corners and became the first postmaster and later the first reeve. The post office was originally known as "Whitchurch". As postmaster, he was influential in renaming the village Aurora, after the goddess Aurora from Roman mythology. Machell proposed to rename the town "Match-Ville", ostensibly for the match factory in the town, but the name Aurora was more popular and ultimately chosen as the town's name. Flour and grist mills were built around 1827. With the coming of the railway in 1853, Aurora emerged as an important centre north of Toronto. The Fleury plough works foundry opened in 1859, making agricultural implements.

The community was first known as Machell's Corners and had only 100 residents in 1851. The population of Aurora in 1863 was 700, and by 1869 it had grown to 1,200.

Becoming a town
The settlement was incorporated as a village in 1863 with Charles Doan as the first reeve. Records from 1885 describe Aurora as the "largest village in the county" an "enterprising and stirring business community" with several factories and mills, five churches, a school house with 210 students, and two weekly newspapers. The population in 1881 was 1540. The population reached 2,107 by 1888.

By the turn of the century, many industries moved out of Aurora and as a result, the town suffered a downturn and reverted to its agricultural roots. From then on the town experienced slow growth until the rise of suburbia after the end of the Second World War, when Aurora was rejuvenated and experienced a boom in development due to its proximity to Toronto.

Aurora was the childhood home of Lester B. Pearson, Prime Minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968, when his father, Rev. Edwin Pearson, was the Methodist minister.

Recent developments
For most of the 20th century, development in Aurora centred primarily around its historic downtown core at Yonge and Wellington Streets, bounded on the east by Industrial Parkway. Starting in the early 21st century, the town has expanded eastward beyond Industrial Parkway to Highway 404. Since then, Aurora has grown considerably, with new developments stretching the built boundary of the town to be contiguous with Newmarket in the north and Highway 404 in the east. New developments have pulled the economic focal point within the town increasingly eastward towards Highway 404. Aurora's downtown has suffered economically over the years as a result of recent developments.

Aurora is noted for preserving its historical built form in the older parts of town and in 2008 was awarded The Prince of Wales Prize for Municipal Heritage Leadership. In 2009, the town received the Lieutenant Governor's Ontario Heritage Award for Community Leadership in heritage conservation and promotion. Northeast Old Aurora was designated in 2006 as a provincial Heritage Conservation District.

On April 8, 2010, the town reopened the historic and fully renovated Church Street School as the Aurora Cultural Centre.

Geography
Aurora is situated just north of the Oak Ridges Moraine and borders Newmarket in the north, Richmond Hill in the south, King City in the west and Whitchurch–Stouffville in the east.

Cherry
Cherry is a residential area found at the western end of Ridge Road located northwest of Bloomington Road and Yonge Street.

Aurora Village
The town main strip is located on Yonge Street at Wellington Street began as Machell's Corners and Whitchurch as post office name.

Hills of St. Andrew
A residential area around Bathurst Street and St. John Sideroad developed in the 1980s and alongside St. Andrew's College.

Petchville
A former community centred along Wellington Street and Leslie Street. Settled by Jonathan Petch in 1818 on clergy reserve and was not acquired by Petch as their farm until 1840. The growth was shifted to neighbouring Wesley Corner at the eastside of Petch's farm at Woodbine Avenue. The current community's southside remains less developed when compared to the north which is now a residential subdivision of Aurora North. The community hosts a retail complex (Smart Centre Aurora North), Stronach Aurora Recreational Complex and Magna Golf Course.

White Rose
White Rose is found near Lebovic Golf Club on Leslie Street north of Bloomington Road and was formerly located within what is now Whitchurch-Stouffville. The former community appeared around 1837 and centred on Samuel Wilton Jr. farm. The Wilton farm had a grist mill producing 999White Rose flour and for which the area was named after. The farm disappeared by the late 19th century due to poor conditions and remained agricultural.

Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Aurora had a population of $62,057$ living in $21,506$ of its $22,253$ total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2016 population of $55,445$. With a land area of 50 km2, it had a population density of in 2021. The 2021 Census reported that average household income in Aurora was $161,800 in 2020, making it one of Canada's most affluent towns.

As of the 2021 census, English was the mother tongue of 58.8% of Aurora residents. The next most common first languages were Chinese languages (13.4% including 8.1% Mandarin and 5.0% Cantonese), Persian (6.0%), Russian (2.8%), Italian (1.9%) and French (1.0%). 3.3% listed both English and a non-official language as mother tongues, while 0.4% listed both English and French.

In 2021, 60.4% of Aurora's population was white/European, 38.9% were visible minorities, and 0.7% were Indigenous. The largest visible minority groups were Chinese (17.7%), West Asian (7.1%), South Asian (4.0%), Black (1.9%), and Filipino (1.6%).

The most common ethnic origins in Aurora were Chinese (16.7%), English (16.0%), Irish (12.9%), Scottish (12.3%), Italian (10.3%), Canadian (8.9%), German (5.3%), Iranian (5.2%), French n.o.s (4.3%), British Isles, n.o.s. (3.8%), Russian (3.1%), and Polish (3.0%).

50.7% of residents were Christian, down from 67.6% in 2011. 24.5% were Catholic, 12.0% were Protestant, 7.3% were Christian n.o.s, 5.2% were Christian Orthodox and 1.8% belonged to other Christian denominations or Christian-related traditions. 37.3% were non-religious or secular, up from 25.2% in 2011. 11.9% believed in other religions, up from 7.2% in 2011. The largest non-Christian religions in Aurora were Islam (5.8%), Judaism (2.4%), Buddhism (1.3%), and Hinduism (1.3%).

Government
The Town of Aurora municipal government is composed of a mayor and six councillors. As of the 2022 election, the deputy mayor role rotates between councillors and may proxy for the mayor. The mayor is a member of York Regional Council. In the municipal elections of 2022, Tom Mrakas was re-elected mayor. Starting with the 2022 municipal election, the switched to a ward-based system with six wards, electing one mayor and six councillors (one per ward).

The town is part of the federal riding of Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill. The riding is represented in the House of Commons of Canada by Leah Taylor Roy, a member of the Liberal Party of Canada, who was first elected in the 2021 federal election. Aurora is also part of the provincial riding of Newmarket—Aurora. The member of Provincial Parliament is Christine Elliott, who was elected in the 2018 Ontario general election. Elliot belongs to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.

Emergency services
Local police services are provided by the York Regional Police, who are currently headquartered within the town and serve all of the municipalities of the region. Fire protection services are provided by Central York Fire Services, a shared arrangement with the town of Newmarket.

Public health services are managed by York Region. There is currently no hospital within Aurora's boundaries; the nearest is Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket.

Education
Aurora is served by schools from three publicly funded school boards: the York Region District School Board (the English Public Board), the York Catholic District School Board (the English Catholic Board), and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir (the French-language Catholic Board). The Conseil scolaire Viamonde (the secular French-language board) also has Aurora in its territory.

Both publicly funded English boards maintain head offices in Aurora. The York Region District School Board is located at 60 Wellington Street West, just west of the historical downtown area, and the York Catholic District School Board is located at 320 Bloomington Road West. Both boards operate a number of elementary schools in Aurora. Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir operates one elementary school and one secondary school in Aurora.

The York Region District School Board operates ten public elementary schools within the Town of Aurora:
 * Aurora Heights Public School.
 * Aurora Grove Public School.
 * Wellington Public School.
 * Regency Acres Public School.
 * Northern Lights Public School.
 * Highview Public School.
 * Hartman Public School.
 * Devins Drive Public School.
 * Rick Hansen Public School.
 * Lester B. Pearson Public School.

The York Region District School Board operates two high schools in Aurora:
 * Dr. G.W. Williams Secondary School
 * Aurora High School

The York Catholic District School Board currently operates five public Catholic elementary schools within Aurora:
 * Our Lady of Grace Elementary School.
 * St. Jerome Catholic Elementary School.
 * Holy Spirit Elementary School.
 * St. Joseph Catholic Elementary School.
 * Light of Christ Catholic Elementary School.

The York Catholic District School Board operates two high schools in Aurora:
 * Cardinal Carter Catholic High School
 * St. Maximillian Kolbe Catholic High School

Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir operates one elementary school in the Town of Aurora:
 * École élémentaire catholique Saint-Jean.

Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir operates one high school in Aurora:
 * École secondaire catholique Renaissance (formerly ÉSC Cardinal-Carter).

St. Andrew's College, a private, independent school for boys, also operates in Aurora. Two other private educational institutions, Aurora Preparatory Academy and Aurora Montessori School are found in Aurora.

Aurora residents have access to a wide range of other educational facilities including daycares and nurseries. The Aurora Public Library is a public library funded and operated by the town.

Growth and urban planning
A large area in the southeastern part of Aurora is designated as protected under Ontario Government's Greenbelt legislation which enforces limits on growth in designated Green Belt locations. The majority of future growth will be split between currently undeveloped portions Aurora along Leslie Street and St John's sideroad, along with intensification within existing built-up areas. The stretch of Yonge Street within Aurora has been designated as a "Regional Corridor" by York Region and will likely accommodate the majority of intensification, with upgrades to the Viva bus rapid transit system being anticipated.

The portion of the 2C Lands between Highway 404 and Leslie Street has been designated as a significant employment zone by the region and the town. Construction has commenced on the lands, which are anticipated to provide approximately 6,000 jobs at full build-out. The town's Official Plan includes for major office growth to occur in the area. Residential growth is restricted to the west side of Leslie Street, which has seen several new developments of detached homes, townhouses, and condominium apartments in the late 2010s.

The Regional Municipality of York has proposed the area surrounding Aurora GO Station to be designated as a Major Transit Station Area (MTSA). Under this designation, the area would undergo intensification and experience an increased density of jobs and residents.

As of 2020, the Town of Aurora is conducting a review and update of its Official Plan.

The Aurora Promenade
As part of the town's 2010 Official Plan review, a sub-committee of Council developed a plan in 2010, called the Aurora Promenade, that sets out new and redevelopment for the coming years. More than 30 public meetings, open-houses and workshops were held to create the plan. It is anticipated that 2,930 additional residents will live along the Yonge and Wellington Street corridors, close to new major transportation systems being implemented by Viva. The study was expected to stimulate new and redevelopment along both corridors in the coming years and to reinvigorate the downtown core.

The plan may be subject to change pending the 2020 Official Plan Review.

Aurora Town Square
In 2020, the Aurora Town Council approved and commenced the construction of Aurora Town Square (previously referred to under the working title of Library Square), a new Town Square to be located directly between the Aurora Public Library building and the Aurora Cultural Centre (previously the Church Street School). The project will include the construction of a new performing arts centre directly adjacent to the Aurora Cultural Centre and a covered pedestrian footbridge to connect the new performing arts building with the library building.

The Capital Project Budget for the Square is a total of $51.6 million and is being implemented as part of a long-term strategy to transform and revitalize Aurora's ailing downtown core.

Library
The Aurora Public Library is located in the northeast corner of the intersection of Yonge Street and Church Street. A library was first established in Aurora in 1855, and was moved to the current location in 2001. The library is open seven days a week, but closed on Sundays between May 17 and September 11, and between December 20 and January 2.

Roads
Major roads running through Aurora include Bathurst Street at its western border, Yonge Street, Bayview Avenue, Leslie Street, Bloomington Road at the southern border with The City of Richmond Hill, Wellington Street, and St. Johns Sideroad located approximately 100 m south of the border with The Town of Newmarket. Wellington Street is the town's major east-west road, with the Yonge-Wellington area having the busiest traffic volume in Aurora.

The town is serviced by Highway 404, located at its eastern border with the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville. It is serviced by two interchanges at Bloomington Rd E. (shared with Richmond Hill) and Wellington Rd E. There is also a currently unfunded proposal for a future interchange to be built at St. John's Sideroad.

Public transit
The Town of Aurora is serviced by York Region Transit (YRT), including several local routes as well as its Viva Blue Bus Rapid Transit service. There are also plans to link the Newmarket and Richmond Hill Yonge Street Rapidway segments through portions of Aurora, though funding has not yet been allocated for the proposal.

The Aurora GO Station is a stop on GO Transit's Barrie Line. Trains depart approximately every 15–30 minutes southbound towards Toronto during weekday morning peak periods, and northbound towards Barrie approximately every 30 minutes during the afternoon peak. On evenings, weekends, holidays, as well as during the weekday midday period, trains operate approximately every hour between Aurora and Toronto with GO Bus connections at Aurora to and from Barrie.

Under the GO Transit Regional Express Rail plan, by a target date of 2024 service will be increased to run every 15 minutes during peak, midday, evenings, and weekends between Aurora and Toronto using electric trains rather than the current diesel trains, and every along the full route between Barrie and Toronto every 30 minutes during peak and every 60 minutes off-peak. This will include upgrades to Aurora GO Station as well as a second track and a grade-separation project at Wellington Street.

Media
Local media include Metroland-owned The Banner (formerly the Era Banner) and The Auroran (a member of the Simcoe York Group of Newspapers) newspapers and Aurora programming provided by Rogers Cable (formerly Aurora Cable Internet).

Radio
Radio stations from Toronto are typically available, as in the nearby towns of Newmarket, south into Richmond Hill and Bradford.

Theatre
Aurora has a long history of theatre, with its own community theatre group, Theatre Aurora. Founded in 1958 as the Aurora Drama Workshop, the group joined with the Aurora Musical Society in 1973 to form Theatre Aurora. The next year the group moved into its current home at the Factory Theatre on Henderson Drive. The group has performed a wide variety of shows, and currently produces five shows each year, along with two youth shows.

A new performing-arts facility is to be built as part of the "Library Square" project. It is not currently determined if Theatre Aurora will relocate to the new facility or not once it is complete.

Economy
The auto parts giant Magna International, founded by Frank Stronach, is based in Aurora.

TC Transcontinental has a printing plant for magazines in Aurora, formerly operated by Quebecor World and Quad/Graphics.

Architecture
The Aurora armoury is a recognized Federal Heritage building, listed in 1991 on the Register of the Government of Canada Heritage Buildings.

Aurora is also home to Hillary House and Koffler Museum of Medicine. Hillary House is recognized by the National Historic Sites and Monuments Board as one of Canada's best examples of Gothic Revival architecture.

Sports
Aurora FC is a semi-professional soccer team that plays in League1 Ontario in both the men's and women's divisions. It is also a youth soccer club.

The Aurora Tigers is the town's ice hockey club, part of the Ontario Junior Hockey League, with their home arena within the Aurora Community Centre.

Notable residents

 * John W. Bowser, project construction superintendent of the Empire State Building
 * Lloyd Chadburn, World War II pilot, recipient of the French Croix De Guerre avec Palme
 * Norm Dennis, retired NHL player
 * Tie Domi, retired NHL player
 * Darren Dutchyshen, sportscaster - TSN
 * James Duthie, sportscaster
 * Morgan Frost, NHL player, drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers (2017)
 * Barclay Goodrow, NHL player
 * Hap Holmes, goaltender, won the Stanley Cup four times
 * Mike Hough, retired NHL player
 * Alistair Johnston, professional soccer player with Celtic F.C. and the Canadian national team
 * Kris King, retired NHL player
 * Mike Kitchen, former Toronto Maple Leafs Assistant Coach and St Louis Blues Head Coach
 * Frank Klees, Retired Progressive Conservative MPP
 * Derek Livingston, Olympic snowboarder
 * Gord MacFarlane, minor-league hockey player
 * Ryan Murphy, NHL player with Carolina Hurricanes
 * Andrew Nembhard, basketball player
 * Lester B. Pearson, the Prime Minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968, lived in Aurora in his childhood
 * Mark Rowswell, recipient of the Order of Canada, is known as Dashan in China, where he is a TV personality.
 * Brian Stemmle, Champion Olympic Alpine skier
 * Karl Stewart, NHL player, Tampa Bay Lightning
 * Belinda Stronach, businesswoman and politician
 * Frank Stronach, CM, founder of Magna International
 * Robert Thomas, NHL player, Stanley Cup winner (2019), St. Louis Blues
 * James Tuck, Canadian football player
 * Anne Elizabeth Wilson (1901-1946), writer, poet, editor

Sister cities

 * 🇸🇪 Leksand, Dalarna County, Dalarna, Sweden

title: Aurora, Ontario