Harry Beck Harry Beck Henry Charles Beck (4 June 1902 – 18 September 1974), known as Harry Beck, was an English technical draughtsman best known for creating the present London Underground Tube map in 1931. Beck drew up the diagram in his spare time while working as an engineering draftsman at the London Underground Signals Office. London Underground was initially sceptical of Beck's radical proposal, an uncommissioned spare-time project, but tentatively introduced it to the public in a small pamphlet in 1933. It was immediately popular, and the Underground has used topological maps to illustrate the network ever since. Prior to the
International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition The United Nations General Assembly declared 2004 as the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition (having welcomed the fact that UNESCO had proclaimed it as such earlier). The General Assembly resolution in its entirety (of which this declaration was a single paragraph) was voted against by the Israel, Palau and the United States, with Australia and Canada abstaining. The United Nations International Years, beginning with the World Refugee Year in 1959/1960, are designated in order to focus world attention on important issues. The proclamation