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Queen Victoria made Osborne House on the Isle of Wight her summer home for many years and, as a result, it became a major holiday resort for members of European royalty, whose many houses could later claim descent from her, through the widely flung marriages of her offspring. During her reign, in 1897, the World's first radio station was set up by Marconi, at the Needles battery, at the western tip of the Island.
In 1904, a mysterious illness began to kill honeybee colonies on the Island and had nearly wiped out all hives by 1907, when the disease spread to the mainland and decimated beekeeping in the British Isles. Called the Isle of Wight Disease, the cause of the mystery ailment was not identified until 1921, when it was traced to the mite Acarapis woodi. The disease (now called Acarine Disease) frightened many other nations, because of the importance of bees in pollination of many food plants. Laws against importation of honeybees were passed, but this merely delayed the eventual spread of the parasite to the rest of the world.
The Isle of Wight Festival could describe several events, but usually the term refers to one very large rock festival that took place near Afton Down, West Wight in 1970, following two smaller concerts in 1968 and 1969. The 1970 show was notable both for being one of the last public performances by Jimi Hendrix and for the number of attendees reaching, by many estimates, 600,000 (despite only 50,000 tickets being sold), and overtaking the attendance at Woodstock in the previous year. The Festival was revived in 2002 and is now an annual event, with other, smaller musical events of many different genres across the Island becoming associated with it.
Isle of Wight is approximately diamond in shape and covers an area of 147 square miles (380 square km). Slightly more than half of the Island, mainly in the west of the Island, is designated as the Isle of Wight Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The Island has 99.6 square miles of farmland, 20 square miles of developed areas, and 57 miles of coastline. The landscape of the Island is remarkably diverse, leading to its oft-quoted description of "England in Miniature". The West Wight is predominantly rural, with dramatic coastlines dominated by the famous chalk downland ridge, running across the whole Island and ending in The Needles stacks perhaps the most photographed aspect of the Isle of Wight. The highest point on the Island is St Boniface Down, at 241m/791ft, which is also a Marilyn.
The rest of the Island landscape also has great diversity, with perhaps the most notable habitats being the soft cliffs and sea ledges, which are spectacular features as well as being very important for wildlife, and are internationally protected. The River Medina flows north into the Solent, whilst the other main river, the River Yar flows roughly north-east, emerging at Bembridge Harbour on the eastern end of the Island. Confusingly, there is another entirely separate river at the western end also called the River Yar flowing the short distance from Freshwater Bay to a relatively large estuary at Yarmouth. Where distinguishing the two becomes necessary, each may be referred to as the eastern or western Yar.
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