Armenia

Coordinates: 40°N 45°E / 40°N 45°E / 40; 45

Armenia (ⁱ/ɑːrˈmiːniə/, /-ˈmiːnjə/;Armenian: Հայաստան, tr. Hayastan, IPA: [hɑjɑsˈtɑn]), officially the Republic of Armenia (Armenian: Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն, tr. Hayastani Hanrapetut’yun), is a sovereign state in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located in Western Asia, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.

Armenia is a unitary, multi-party, democratic nation-state with an ancient cultural heritage. The Kingdom of Van was established in 860 BC and by the 6th century BC it was replaced by the Satrapy of Armenia. In the 1st century BC the Kingdom of Armenia reached its height under Tigranes the Great. Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion. In between the late 3rd century to early years of the 4th century, the state became "the first Christian nation." The official date of state adoption of Christianity was 301 AD. The ancient Armenian kingdom was split between the Byzantine and Sasanid empires around the early 5th century. Under the Bagratuni dynasty, the Armenian Kingdom was restored in the 9th century. Declining due to the wars against the Byzantines, the kingdom fell in 1045 and Armenia was soon after invaded by the Seljuk Turks. An Armenian principality and later a kingdom Cilician Armenia was located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the 11th and 14th centuries.

Iveta Mukuchyan

Iveta Mukuchyan (Armenian: Իվետա Մուկուչյան, born 14 October 1986) is an Armenian singer, actress and model, who grew up in Hamburg, Germany. She will represent Armenia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016.

Early life

Iveta Mukuchyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia (then part of the Soviet Union) on 14 October 1986. She went to kindergarden in Yerevan. Her family moved to Germany in 1992. She went to school in Germany and from 1998 to 2006, she attended the Catholic Sankt-Ansgar-Schule in Hamburg. She returned to Armenia in 2009 as she says by "parents' advice" and stayed in her home country despite all the difficulties she had. Mukuchyan started studying jazz-vocal at the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory.

Career

2010–12: Hay Superstar & The Voice of Germany

Mukuchyan participated in the fourth season of Hay Superstar song contest in 2010. She came in fifth place. In 2012 she participated on the second season of The Voice of Germany song contest. She performed Loreen's "Euphoria". She was chosen by Xavier Naidoo to be part of his team. Mukuchyan was the winning contestant from Naidoo's team in the second phase of the contest, where the participants sang "Many Rivers to Cross". In December 2012, she was named the sexiest Armenian by El Style magazine. In the same year Mukuchyan was featured in record producer Lazzaro's single "Freak", which gained wide reaction in Armenian media.

Press Conference (TV series)

Press Conference was a public-affairs television series aired in the United States in the mid-1950s.

Press Conference was similar in format and content to the long-running Meet the Press and was moderated by one of that program's creators, pioneering female journalist Martha Rountree. On the program, a current newsmaker, generally but not always a politician, was questioned by a panel of newspersons in a typical press conference format. As usually done in a traditional press conference, the subject was allowed to make an opening statement (although not all chose to do so) prior to fielding questions.

Press Conference was launched on NBC in July 1956, but that fall moved to ABC. Initially shown in prime time, the program drew only a minimal, public-affairs oriented audience running against two high-profile Sunday night variety series, The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS and The Steve Allen Show on NBC; however, its appearance helped ABC to meet the public-interest requirements imposed on U.S broadcasters by the Federal Communications Commission. Press Conference was moved to Sunday afternoon for three months in early 1957, prior to returning to prime time in April of that year under a new title, Martha Rountree's Press Conference. The program ended in July 1957.

Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest (French: Concours Eurovision de la chanson), often shortened to ESC or Eurovision, is the longest-running annual TV song competition, held, primarily, among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956. The competition was based upon the existing Sanremo Music Festival held in Italy.

Each participating country submits an original song to be performed on live television and radio and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition. The contest has been broadcast every year for sixty years, since its inauguration in 1956, and is one of the longest-running television programmes in the world. It is also one of the most watched non-sporting events in the world, with audience figures having been quoted in recent years as anything between 100 million and 600 million internationally. Eurovision has also been broadcast outside Europe to several countries that do not compete, such as the USA and China. An exception was made in 2015, when Australia was allowed to compete as a guest entrant as part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the event. In November 2015, the EBU announced that Australia would return in 2016. Since 2000, the contest has also been broadcast over the Internet, via the Eurovision website.

Eurovision Song Contest 2016

The Eurovision Song Contest 2016 will be the 61st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It will take place in the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, Sweden, following Sweden's victory at the 2015 Contest in Vienna with the song "Heroes", performed by Måns Zelmerlöw. This will be the third time the contest has taken place in Stockholm, after 1975 and 2000, the latter also being held at the Globe. The contest will consist of two semi-finals on 10 and 12 May and the final on 14 May 2016. The three live shows will be hosted by Zelmerlöw and Petra Mede.

Forty-three countries will participate, equalling the record number of participants set in 2008 and 2011. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia and Ukraine will return after absences from recent contests, while Australia will also return after débuting as a special guest in 2015. However, Portugal will withdraw.

Location

The contest will take place in the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, following Sweden's victory at the 2015 Contest in Vienna with the song "Heroes", performed by Måns Zelmerlöw. The Ericsson Globe has a capacity of approximately 16,000 attendees, and this will be the second time the contest has been staged at the venue, after 2000.