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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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S4C
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(Sianel Pedwar Cymru, Welsh for Channel 4 Wales) The only TV channel in Britain to have been the result of an intense political campaign. *Plaid Cymru and others had argued the case for a Welsh-language channel to preserve *Welsh against the encroachments of English and American, and the argument seemed to have been won when the first Queen's Speech of the new Conservative administration in 1979 included a commitment to 'seek an early start with the fourth television channel in Wales'.
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But in September of that year the home secretary, William Whitelaw, said there would be no Welsh TV channel. In May 1980 the leader of Plaid Cymru, Gwynfor Evans, declared that he would start a hunger strike in October. A summer of demonstrations was followed by the capitulation of the government in September. S4C began broadcasting in 1982 and was soon transmitting 23 hours a week in Welsh in peak evening time.
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