FemaleTown

Arts, Central Asian, Paleolithic cultures

2005-04-05T08:10:00.000-07:00

The earliest artifacts discovered in Central Asia were found in Siberia and western Turkistan and are from about the 13th millennium BC. During the millennia that followed, migrants entered the region from various directions, regardless of the geographic obstacles they encountered. As a result, some of their artifacts correspond with those produced at a similar

Nicholson, Ben

2005-04-04T22:58:00.000-07:00

The son of the painter Sir William Nicholson, he was largely self-taught and only briefly attended the Slade School of Fine Art (1910–11), London. He traveled extensively in Europe between 1911 and 1914 and in 1917 visited

Ling Canal

2005-04-04T05:44:00.000-07:00

Chinese (Wade-Giles) Ling Ch'ü , or (Pinyin) Ling Qu canal in northern Chuang autonomous ch'ü (region) of Kwangsi, China. Ling Canal was constructed to connect the headwaters of the Hsiang River flowing north into Hunan sheng (province), with the Li River, one of the headwater tributaries of the Kuei River, a tributary of the Hsi River leading eventually to Canton. Near the city of Hsing-an in northern Kwangsi, these two rivers

Anisotropy

2005-04-03T05:05:00.000-07:00

In physics, the quality of exhibiting properties with different values when measured along axes in different directions. Anisotropy is most easily observed in single crystals of solid elements or compounds, in which atoms, ions, or molecules are arranged in regular lattices. In contrast, the random distribution of particles in liquids, and especially in gases,

France, History Of, The Directory

2005-04-02T09:19:00.000-08:00

The new regime, referred to as the Directory, began auspiciously in October 1795 with a successful constitutional plebiscite and a general amnesty for political prisoners. But as one of its final acts the Convention added the “Two-thirds Decree” to the package, requiring for the sake of continuity that two-thirds of its deputies must sit by right in the new legislature

China, Drainage

2005-04-02T03:32:00.000-08:00

The three principal rivers of

Arts, Islamic, Turkish

2005-03-31T19:14:00.000-08:00

In Turkey, the adoption of Western forms began in the 1920s. Of major importance in modern Turkish literature was Orhan Veli Kanik, who combined perfect technique with “Istanbulian” charm. His work is sometimes melancholy, sometimes frivolous, but always convincing. He strongly influenced a group of poets whose names are connected with the avant-garde literary magazine

Abu Al-faraj Al-isbahani

2005-03-31T14:27:00.000-08:00

Abu al-Faraj was a descendant of Marwan II, the last Umayyad caliph of Syria. Despite the enmity of this family and the 'Alids, he was a Shi'ite Muslim, upholding the rights of the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law

Antwerp, Government

2005-03-31T09:34:00.000-08:00

Like all Belgian municipalities, Antwerp is governed by an elected city council, which in turn elects a board of aldermen, headed by a burgomaster, nominated by the king on recommendation of the council. Generally the burgomaster is a member of the elected council, but this is not obligatory. Each alderman has a specified department to manage, but decisions and resolutions

Brian

2005-03-30T21:58:00.000-08:00

In 976 Brian became king of a small state, later called Dál Cais, and also king of Munster, whose Eóghanachta rulers had been defeated (964) by Brian's half brother. Brian destroyed first the Eóghanachta septs and then the Northmen, constructing a fleet to drive them from the Shannon. Under his rule Munster

Bey

2005-03-30T09:18:00.000-08:00

Turkish Bey, Old Turkish Beg, Arabic Bay, or Bey, title among Turkish peoples traditionally given to rulers of small tribal groups, to members of ruling families, and to important officials. Under the Ottoman Empire a bey was the governor of a province, distinguished by his own flag (sancak, liwa). In Tunis after 1705 the title become hereditary for the country's sovereign. Later “bey” became a general title of respect in Turkish

Tradición

2005-03-29T11:32:00.000-08:00

In Spanish-American literature, short prose sketch in which a historical incident is related in an imaginative and literary style. An evocation of the South American past, the tradición may be set in the precolonial era, the age of discovery and conquest, the prerevolutionary era of romance and political intrigue, or the time of the struggle for self-determination

Education, History Of, The cultural revival under Charlemagne and his successors

2005-03-28T16:08:00.000-08:00

Charlemagne (742/743–814) has been represented as the sponsor or even creator of medieval education, and the Carolingian renaissance has been represented as the renewal of Western culture. This renaissance, however, built on earlier episcopal and monastic developments; and, although Charlemagne did help to ensure the survival of scholarly traditions in a relatively bleak

Bezruc, Petr

2005-03-28T13:08:00.000-08:00

Bezruc studied in Prague and became a postal official in Moravia until his retirement in 1927. His literary reputation rests on a remarkable series of poems written during 1899 and 1900 and published in the periodical Cas between 1899 and 1903. The subject of almost

Fabian Society

2005-03-27T02:51:00.000-08:00

The name of the society is derived from the Roman general Fabius Cunctator, whose patient and elusive tactics in avoiding pitched battles secured his ultimate

Ikeja

2005-03-26T21:04:00.000-08:00

Town and capital of Lagos state, 10.5 miles (17 km) northwest of Lagos, southwestern Nigeria. Originally settled by the Yoruba people, the locality was raided for slaves until the mid-19th century. Early in the 20th century it became an agricultural hinterland for Lagos; kola nuts were first grown in Nigeria in this area. The opening of the Lagos-Ibadan railway in 1901 and the growth of

Maass, Clara

2005-03-25T18:06:00.000-08:00

Maass graduated from the Newark (New Jersey) German Hospital School of Nursing in 1895 and shortly afterward was named head nurse of the school. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898, she volunteered to serve as a contract

Sete Lagoas

2005-03-24T03:22:00.000-08:00

City, central Minas Gerais estado (“state”), Brazil. Sete Lagoas lies in the highlands near the Espinhaço Mountains. It is a commercial centre for an agricultural region that raises corn (maize), feijão (beans), sugarcane, cassava, and rice, as well as livestock. Manufacturing and dairy and food-processing plants are in the city, which is on the Rio de Janeiro–Brasília highway

Genet, Jean

2005-03-23T18:37:00.000-08:00

Genet, an illegitimate child abandoned by his mother, Gabrielle Genet,

Arzawa

2005-03-23T13:47:00.000-08:00

Ancient kingdom of western or southwestern Anatolia (its exact location is disputed). Although Arzawa was for long periods a rival of the Hittite kingdom, it was occasionally conquered and made a vassal by some of the more powerful Hittite kings, such as Labarnas I (c. 1680–c. 1650 BC). During the period of Hittite decline after the end of the Old Kingdom (c. 1500 BC), Arzawa's power and prominence

Aeschylus

2005-03-22T23:07:00.000-08:00

Aeschylus grew up in the turbulent period when the Athenian democracy, having thrown off its tyranny (the absolute rule of one man), had to prove itself against both self-seeking politicians at home and invaders from abroad. Aeschylus himself took part in his city's first struggles against the invading Persians. Later Greek chroniclers believed that Aeschylus was

Adam, Robert

2005-03-22T11:01:00.000-08:00

Scottish architect and designer who, with his brother James (1730–94), transformed Palladian Neoclassicism in England into the airy, light, elegant style that bears their name. His major architectural works include public buildings (especially in London), and his designs were used for the interiors of such country mansions as Syon

Schaeffer, Pierre

2005-03-21T09:29:00.000-08:00

French composer, acoustician, and electronics engineer who in 1948, with his staff at Radio-diffusion et Télévision Française, introduced musique concrète (q.v.), in which sounds of natural origin, animate and inanimate, are recorded and manipulated so that the original sounds are distorted and combined in a musical fashion. The means

Atitlán, Lake

2005-03-20T17:26:00.000-08:00

Spanish Lago De Atitlán, lake in southwestern Guatemala. It lies in the central highlands at about 5,128 feet (1,563 m) above sea level. The lake, 1,049 feet (320 m) deep, is 12 miles (19 km) long and 6 miles (10 km) wide, with an area of 49.3 square miles (127.7 square km). It occupies a valley dammed by volcanic ash; on its borders are three cone-shaped volcanoes: Atitlán, Tolimán, and San Pedro. The shores of the spectacular lake are dotted with Indian

Tagalog

2005-03-20T09:09:00.000-08:00

Largest cultural-linguistic group in the Philippines. They form the dominant population in the city of Manila; in all provinces bordering Manila Bay except Pampanga; in Nueva Ecija to the north; and in Batangas, Laguna, Marinduque, Mindoro, and Quezon to the south. Tagalog is an Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language like the other Philippine languages. The mother

Quantification

2005-03-20T05:50:00.000-08:00

In logic, the attachment of signs of quantity to the predicate or subject of a proposition. The universal quantifier, symbolized by (-) or (-), where the blank is filled by a variable, is used to express that the formula following holds for all values of the particular variable quantified. The existential quantifier, symbolized ($-), expresses that the formula following holds

Ibn Abi 'asrun

2005-03-19T10:46:00.000-08:00

After completing his theological

Akosombo Dam

2005-03-18T21:13:00.000-08:00

Rock-fill dam on the Volta River, near Akosombo, Ghana, completed in 1965 as part of the Volta River Project. Its construction was jointly financed by the government of Ghana, the World Bank, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The dam rises 440 feet (134 m) above ground level and has a crest 2,201 feet (671 m) wide and a volume of 10,451,000 cubic yards (7,991,000 cubic m). The dam impounds Lake Volta; this huge reservoir

Ramadi, Ar-

2005-03-18T19:53:00.000-08:00

Capital of al-Anbar muhafazah (governorate), central Iraq. It lies on the Euphrates River just northwest of Hawr (Lake) al-Habbaniyah. Ancient settlements existed in the vicinity, but ar-Ramadi was founded only in 1869 to encourage settlement by the nomadic Dulaym tribes, a goal that has been partially fulfilled. The town prospered after becoming the departure point of a trade route

Computers

2005-03-18T14:01:00.000-08:00

A computer might be described with deceptive simplicity as “an apparatus that performs routine calculations automatically.” Such a definition would owe its deceptiveness to a naive and narrow view of calculation as a strictly mathematical process. In fact, calculation

Holbein Rug

2005-03-16T17:46:00.000-08:00

A different series, probably made in another area, have fields subdivided into rectangular panels, each

Farrukh Beg

2005-03-16T09:20:00.000-08:00

A Kalmyk of Central Asia, Farrukh Beg first worked at Kabul under Mirza Hakim, the half brother of the Mughal emperor Akbar. After Hakim died Farrukh Beg joined Akbar's service (1585). His earliest paintings are strongly Persian in character, and he continued to be a

Hokinson, Helen

2005-03-15T18:59:00.000-08:00

Hokinson attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and began a career

Sacramento

2005-03-15T07:31:00.000-08:00

City, capital of California, U.S., seat (1850) of Sacramento county, in the Central Valley, where the Sacramento and American rivers meet. John Augustus Sutter established the colony of New Helvetia in 1839 on the site, a Mexican land grant, and between 1840 and 1842 built a palisaded trading post known as Sutter's Fort. His community, initially populated by fellow Swiss immigrants, prospered

Biblical Literature, The Great Bible

2005-03-15T02:00:00.000-08:00

In an injunction of 1538, Henry VIII commanded the clergy to install in a convenient place in every parish church, “one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume in English.” The order seems to refer to an anticipated revision of the Matthew Bible. The first edition was printed in Paris and appeared in London in April 1539 in 2,500 copies. The huge page size earned it the sobriquet the

Palencia

2005-03-14T05:07:00.000-08:00

Capital of Palencia provincia, in the Castile-León comunidad autónoma (“autonomous community”), north-central Spain. It lies on the Campos Plain southwest of Burgos. Called the Pallantia by the ancient Greek geographers Strabo and Ptolemy, it was the chief town of the Vaccaei, an Iberian tribe. Its history during the Gothic and Moorish periods is obscure, but it was the

Fisher

2005-03-14T04:52:00.000-08:00

Also called fisher marten, fisher cat, Pennant's marten, Pennant's cat, big marten, black fox, black cat , or Pekan (species Martes pennanti) rare North American carnivore of northern forests, trapped for its valuable brownish black fur (especially fine in the female). It is a member of the weasel family (Mustelidae). The fisher has a weasellike body, bushy tail, tapered muzzle, and low, rounded ears. Adults are usually 50–63 cm (20–25 inches) long, excluding the 33–42-centimetre tail, and weigh 1.4–6.8 kg (3–15 pounds). Males are

Claudius, Matthias

2005-03-14T02:02:00.000-08:00

After studying at Jena, Claudius held a series of editorial and minor official positions until in 1788 he acquired a sinecure in the Schleswig-Holstein bank. He edited the Wandsbecker Bote (1771–75), popular not only

Madeira

2005-03-13T21:21:00.000-08:00

Madeira wine is fortified with brandy during fermentation to raise its alcoholic content to 18–20 percent. Madeiras, ranging from dry to sweet,

Alabastron

2005-03-12T13:39:00.000-08:00

Elongated, narrow-necked flask, used as a perfume or unguent container. The Greek alabastron has no handles but often lugs (ear-shaped projections), sometimes pierced with string holes. There are three types of classical alabastron: a basic Corinthian bulbous shape about 3 to 4 inches (8 to 10 cm) high that appeared from the mid-7th century BC and was common in Greece (see ); a long, pointed

Argentina, The Gran Chaco

2005-03-12T11:01:00.000-08:00

The harsh physical conditions of the Gran

Essen

2005-03-12T00:05:00.000-08:00

City, North Rhine-Westphalia Land (state), western Germany, between the Rhine-Herne Canal and the Ruhr River. It was originally the seat of an aristocratic convent (founded 852), still represented by the cathedral (the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop), completed in the 15th century. In the suburb of Werden, the abbey church was founded in 796 as part of a monastery. The convent and the

Wright, Frank Lloyd

2005-03-10T22:17:00.000-08:00

Original name Frank Lincoln Wright architect and writer, the most abundantly creative genius of American architecture. His “Prairie style” became the basis of 20th-century residential design in the United States.

Strabane

2005-03-10T17:41:00.000-08:00

Irish An Srath Bán town, seat, and district (established 1973), formerly in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The town is located on the River Mourne at its confluence with the Finn to form the River Foyle near the Irish Republic border. It is a market and employment centre for both Strabane district and County Donegal, Irish Republic, to the west. Long a flax-spinning centre, the town of Sion Mills,

Côte D'azur

2005-03-10T15:06:00.000-08:00

(French: “Coast of Azure”), cultural region in southeastern France encompassing the French Riviera (see Riviera) between Menton and Cannes in Alpes-Maritimes département and extending into southern Var département. The population is predominantly urban. Traditional inland towns in Alpes-Maritimes include Gourdon, Èze, Utelle, and Peille; many such towns are perched

Anthony Of Egypt, Saint

2005-03-09T22:34:00.000-08:00

A disciple of Paul of Thebes, Anthony began

Joule's Law

2005-03-09T07:08:00.000-08:00

In electricity, mathematical description of the rate at which resistance in a circuit converts electric energy into heat energy. The English physicist James Prescott Joule discovered in 1840 that the amount of heat per second that develops in a wire carrying a current is proportional to the electrical resistance of the wire and the square of the current. He determined

Antiaircraft Gun

2005-03-08T18:25:00.000-08:00

Artillery piece that is fired from the ground or shipboard in defense against aerial attack. Antiaircraft weapons development began as early as 1910, when the airplane first became an effective weapon. In World War I, field artillery pieces up to about 90 mm (3.5 inches) in calibre were converted to antiaircraft use by mountings that enabled them to fire nearly vertically. Aiming

Earth

2005-03-08T07:29:00.000-08:00

More than 90 percent of the Earth's mass is composed of iron, oxygen, silicon, and magnesium, elements that can form the crystalline minerals known as silicates. However, in terms of chemical and mineralogical composition, as in physical properties, the Earth is far from homogeneous. Apart from the superficial lateral heterogeneities near the surface (i.e., in the compositions

Ottoman Empire, Origins and expansion of the Ottoman state, c. 13001402

2005-03-07T05:01:00.000-08:00

In their initial stages of expansion, the Ottomans were leaders of the Turkish warriors for the faith of Islam, known as ghazis, who fought against the shrinking Christian Byzantine state. The ancestors of Osman I, the founder of the dynasty, were members of the Kayi tribe who had entered Anatolia along with a mass of Turkmen Oguz nomads. These nomads, fleeing from the Mongols

Safaqis

2005-03-06T03:16:00.000-08:00

Also spelled Sfax, major port town, east-central Tunisia on the northern shore of the Gulf of Gabes. Built on the site of two small settlements of antiquity, Taparura and Thaenae, the town grew as an early Islamic trading centre for nomads. Temporarily occupied in the 12th century by Sicilian Normans and in the 16th century by the Spanish, it later served as a stronghold of the Barbary pirates.

Metal Carbonyl

2005-03-05T17:58:00.000-08:00

Any coordination or complex compound consisting of a heavy metal such as nickel, cobalt, or iron surrounded by carbonyl (CO) groups. Some common metal carbonyls include: tetracarbonylnickel Ni(CO)4, pentacarbonyliron Fe(CO)5, and octacarbonyldicobalt Co2(CO)8. In general, the metal carbonyls are produced by direct action of carbon monoxide on the finely divided metal. They

Xavier, Saint Francis

2005-03-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

Francis was born in Navarre (now in northern Spain), at the family castle of Xavier, where Basque was the native language. He was the third son of the president of the council of the king of Navarre, most of whose kingdom was soon to fall to the crown of Castile (1512). Francis grew up at Xavier and received his early education there. As was often the case with younger sons of the nobility,

Vedantadesika

2005-03-05T00:55:00.000-08:00

Vedantadesika was born into a distinguished Srivaisnava family that followed the teachings of Ramanuja, an 11th–12th-century

Murchison River

2005-03-04T23:05:00.000-08:00

Ephemeral river in Western Australia, rising north of Meekatharra on Peak Hill in the Robinson Ranges and fed by its tributaries, the Sandford and Roderick. It flows sporadically (chiefly in winter) west, south, and again west to enter the Indian Ocean at Kalbarri, north of Geraldton, after a course of 440 miles (710 km). The explorer George Grey reached the river in 1839 on a forced march

Arabia, History Of, Ghassan

2005-03-04T19:53:00.000-08:00

The dynasty of the Ghassanids, though often called kings, were in fact Byzantine phylarchs (native rulers of subject frontier states). They had their headquarters well within the Byzantine Empire, a little east of the Sea of Galilee at Jabiyah in the Jawlan (Golan) area; but they controlled large areas of northwestern Arabia, as far south as Yathrib, serving as a counterpoise

Morón

2005-03-04T02:18:00.000-08:00

In the 16th century Morón served as a way station for travelers en route to the area that is now Chile and Peru. The present-day county was part of the Pago (country district) de las Conchas during the 17th and early 18th centuries.

Light

2005-03-03T18:43:00.000-08:00

Electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by the human eye. In terms of wavelength, electromagnetic radiation occurs over an extremely wide range, from gamma rays with a wavelength of 3 ´ 10-14 centimetre to long radio waves measured in millions of kilometres. In that spectrum the wavelengths visible to humans occupy a very narrow band, from about 7 ´ 10-5 centimetre (red light)

Samaritan

2005-03-02T22:53:00.000-08:00

Member of a community of Jews, now nearly extinct, that claims to be related by blood to those Jews of ancient Samaria who were not deported by the Assyrian conquerors of the kingdom of Israel in 722 BC. The Samaritans call themselves Bene-Yisrael (“Children of Israel”), or Shamerim (“Observant Ones”), for their sole norm of religious observance is the Pentateuch (first five books

Anatolian Religion

2005-03-02T13:47:00.000-08:00

The earliest evidence of religious beliefs has come to light at the mound of Çatal Hüyük, to the south of modern Konya. Here in four seasons of excavations (1961–65), James Mellaart discovered remains of a Neolithic village of mud-brick houses, many of which could be identified as shrines. They are dated by radiocarbon to about 6500–5800 BC (calculated with a half-life of 5,730 years). Huge figures

Marsh Marigold

2005-03-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

The stem of a marsh marigold is hollow, and the leaves are kidney-shaped, heart-shaped, or round. The glossy flowers are 2.5 to 5 cm (1 to 2 inches) across and have pink, white, or yellow sepals. Petals are absent. The stems, leaves, and roots

Wolf, Christa

2005-03-01T06:29:00.000-08:00

Wolf was reared in a middle-class, pro-Nazi family. With the defeat of Germany in 1945, she moved with her family to East Germany. She studied at the Universities of Jena and Leipzig (1949–53), thereafter working as editor of the

Arosa

2005-02-28T20:53:00.000-08:00

Alpine village, health resort, and winter sports centre, Graubünden canton, eastern Switzerland, on the Plessur River. The village, at an elevation of 5,689 feet (1,734 m), stretches along a wooded valley holding two small lakes, the Untersee and the Obersee, that are used for fishing, swimming, and boating in the summer. Arosa is noted as a fashionable winter-sports centre, particularly

Mckean

2005-02-28T02:20:00.000-08:00

The county was formed in

Pavía Y Lacy, Manuel

2005-02-27T21:50:00.000-08:00

Pavía was encouraged to enter the military by his father, an infantry colonel, and eventually was admitted to the elite Guards regiment. When Isabella became queen in 1833, he fought for her against her uncle Don Carlos in the

Cosimo I

2005-02-27T17:49:00.000-08:00

Cosimo was the great-great-grandson of Lorenzo the Elder, the son of Giovanni di Bicci and brother of Cosimo the Elder, and was thus a member of a branch of the Medici family that had taken an active part in Medici affairs but had played no political role. Nevertheless, when

Danbury Hatters' Case

2005-02-27T15:23:00.000-08:00

Formally Loewe v. Lawlor (208 U.S. 274) U.S. Supreme Court case in which unions were held to be subject to the antitrust laws. In 1902 the United Hatters of North America, having failed to organize the firm of D.E. Loewe in Danbury, Conn., called for a nationwide boycott of the firm's products. The firm brought suit under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and in 1908 the union was assessed triple damages. The case was a severe setback

Gatun Lake

2005-02-25T22:15:00.000-08:00

Spanish Lago Gatún, long artificial lake in Panama, constituting part of the Panama Canal system; its area is 166 square miles (430 square km). It was formed by damming the Chagres River and its smaller affluents at Gatun at the north end of the lake. Its dam (completed 1912) and spillway, a key structure of the Panama Canal, operate at a range of 5 feet (1.5 m) between water levels of 87 and 82 feet (26.5 and 25 m) above sea level. The

Biblical Literature, Exodus

2005-02-25T17:34:00.000-08:00

The title (in the Greek, Latin, and English versions) means “a going out,” referring to the seminal event of the liberation of Israel from Egyptian bondage through the wondrous acts and power of God. The book celebrates and memorializes this great saving event in song and story and also the awesome revelation and covenant at Mt. Sinai. The contents of the book may be summarized

Buzau

2005-02-25T16:09:00.000-08:00

Judet (county), southeastern Romania, occupying an area of 2,344 square miles (6,072 square km). The Buzau mountain range, part of the Eastern Carpathians and the sub-Carpathian mountains, lies in the west, rising above settlement areas in the valleys and lowlands. The Buzau River and its tributaries drain eastward. Buzau city, the county capital, has been an economic centre with ties to

Bähr, George

2005-02-25T10:39:00.000-08:00

Bähr was apprenticed to a carpenter at a very early age. Official records indicate that he was also involved in working on the mechanics of the camera obscura, then a popular device, and the workings

Roman Catholic Church Of Romania

2005-02-24T06:16:00.000-08:00

An Eastern Catholic church of the Byzantine rite, in communion with Rome. The Byzantine rite Catholic Church originated after the Turks ceded Transylvania to the Catholic Habsburgs (1699); at that time a large group of Orthodox Romanians, pressed by the imperial government, accepted the authority of Rome. In 1948 the Byzantine rite church was legally suppressed by the Communist

Moschops

2005-02-24T04:25:00.000-08:00

Extinct genus of mammallike reptiles found as fossils in rocks of Permian age (286 to 245 million years ago) in southern Africa. Moschops, which is representative of a group of mammallike reptiles (see therapsid) that became adapted to a diet of plant food, was about 2.6 m (8 feet) long. The body was massive; the skull was high and shortened front to back. Numerous chisel-edged teeth suitable

Ring-necked Duck

2005-02-23T21:48:00.000-08:00

(species Aythya collaris), diving duck (family Anatidae), a popular game bird that is considered excellent table fare. The ring-necked duck is about 43 cm (17 inches) long. The male has a purplish black, iridescent head, a black back, and gray sides with a vertical wedge-shaped white patch in front of the wing. The female is brown with a white eye ring. Both sexes have an inconspicuous

Spangenberg, August Gottlieb

2005-02-23T04:48:00.000-08:00

As a law student at Jena, Spangenberg was converted in 1722 to Pietism, a religious movement emphasizing biblical study, morality, and Christian living, and he began

Chan-chiang

2005-02-22T21:27:00.000-08:00

Originally Chan-chiang was a minor fishing port in the area dominated by the city of Hai-k'ang (Lei-chou), some 22 miles (35 km) to the southwest, and at one time harboured a notorious

Ring-necked Duck

2005-02-22T00:38:00.000-08:00

Any of four species of toothless insect-eating mammals found in tropical savannas and forests from southern Mexico to Paraguay and northern Argentina and Paraguay. The four species are long-tailed animals with elongated skulls and tubular muzzles. The mouth opening of the muzzle is small, but the salivary glands are large and secrete

Athletics, Modern development

2005-02-21T16:50:00.000-08:00

The development of the modern sport, however, has come only since the early 19th century. Organized amateur footraces were held in England as early as 1825, but it was from 1860 that athletics enjoyed its biggest surge to that date. In 1861 the West London Rowing Club organized the first meet open to all amateurs, and in 1866 the Amateur Athletic Club (AAC) was founded and conducted the first

Daedalus

2005-02-20T16:35:00.000-08:00

(Greek: “Skillfully Wrought”), mythical Greek architect and sculptor, who was said to have built, among other things, the paradigmatic Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete. Daedalus fell out of favour with Minos and was imprisoned; he fashioned wings of wax and feathers for himself and for his son Icarus and escaped to Sicily. Icarus, however, flew too near the Sun, and his wings

Akershus

2005-02-20T02:23:00.000-08:00

Fylke (county), southeastern Norway. Covering 1,898 square miles (4,917 square km), it extends north from Oslo Fjord to the southern end of Lake Mjøsa and east to the Swedish frontier. The Vorma River flows through Akershus from Mjøsa into the Glomma (Glåma) River and on to Lake Øyeren. The national capital, Oslo, is the county seat, though it is a separate fylke and bykommune (urban commune)

Benacerraf, Baruj

2005-02-19T17:36:00.000-08:00

From the age of five until the outbreak of World War II, Benacerraf

Dow Chemical Company

2005-02-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

Dow Chemical Company was founded in 1897 by chemist Herbert H. Dow of Midland to supplement the Midland Chemical Company (1890) and Dow Process Company (1895). Created in part because Dow required

Agustín, José

2005-02-18T21:49:00.000-08:00

Agustín was educated at National Autonomous University of Mexico and at Centro Mexicano de Escritores. He was a leader of Onda, a youth movement sympathetic to rock music and drug culture, and

China, The Imperial succession

2005-02-18T13:43:00.000-08:00

The succession of emperors was hereditary, but it was complicated to a considerable extent by a system of Imperial consorts and the implication of their families in politics. Of the large number of women who were housed in the palace as the emperor's favourites, one was selected for nomination as the empress; and while it was theoretically possible for an emperor

Radio Direction Finder

2005-02-17T14:26:00.000-08:00

The antenna, usually a loop antenna, rotates and pinpoints the direction from which a

Leadbelly

2005-02-17T08:11:00.000-08:00

Musical from childhood, Leadbelly played accordion, 6- and 12-string guitar, bass, and harmonica. He led a wandering life, learning songs by absorbing oral tradition.

Andrew Of Caesarea

2005-02-16T07:28:00.000-08:00

Andrew's exposition of the book of Revelation is marked by a specific Christian interpretation of history which

Kahn, Gustave

2005-02-15T21:09:00.000-08:00

After study in Paris, Kahn spent four years in North Africa, returning to Paris in 1885. He helped found or edit several literary reviews, including La Vogue, Le Symboliste, and La Revue Indépendante, which printed his poems and discussed the various theories

Kaddish

2005-02-15T02:06:00.000-08:00

Also spelled Qaddish in Judaism, a doxology (hymn of praise to God) that is usually recited in Aramaic at the end of principal sections of all synagogue services. The nucleus of the prayer is the phrase “Glorified and sanctified be God's great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days.” The congregation

Latitudinarian

2005-02-14T13:11:00.000-08:00

Any of the 17th-century Anglican clerics whose beliefs and practices were viewed by conservatives as unorthodox or, at best, heterodox. After first being applied to the Cambridge Platonists, the term was later used to categorize churchmen who depended upon reason to establish the moral certainty of Christian doctrines rather than argument from tradition. Limiting

China, The Late T'ang (755907)

2005-02-13T15:39:00.000-08:00

The rebellion of An Lu-shan in 755 marked the beginning of a new period. At first the rebellion had spectacular success. It swept through the northeastern province of Hopeh, captured the eastern capital, Lo-yang, early in 756, and took the main T'ang capital, Ch'ang-an, in July of the same year. The Emperor fled to Szechwan, and on the road his consort Yang Kuei-fei and other members of

Aschelminth, General form and external features

2005-02-13T04:07:00.000-08:00

The great majority of nematodes have slender, elongated cylindrical bodies, without obvious external appendages, that move in graceful curves. The external cuticle that covers the whole body is often transparent and may be smooth, but it usually has closely spaced grooves, which at high magnification can be seen encircling the body (annulation) and which give the

Neap Tide

2005-02-13T00:08:00.000-08:00

Tide of minimal range occurring near the time when the Moon and the Sun are in quadrature. This condition is geometrically defined as the time at which the line from the Earth to the Moon is at right angles to the line from the Earth to the Sun. Thus, the tide-producing effects of the Sun and the Moon cancel each other, and tidal ranges are usually 10 to 30 percent less than the

Mahan, Larry E.

2005-02-12T08:16:00.000-08:00

In 1962 Mahan won the all-around Oregon championship and also won the bareback bronc and bulldogging

Performing Arts, Spain and Portugal.

2005-02-12T04:01:00.000-08:00

Spain maintained a substantial popular production. Notable films included José Luis Garci's Una historia de entonces (You're the One), the story of an aspiring woman writer in the 1940s who returns to her home village after the death of her lover; Álex de la Iglesia's high-spirited comic group portrait of the denizens of a rundown old Madrid tenement, La comunidad; and

Rough Rider

2005-02-11T21:37:00.000-08:00

Member of 1st Volunteer Cavalry in the Spanish–American War, one of a regiment of U.S. cavalry volunteers recruited by Theodore Roosevelt and composed of cowboys, miners, law-enforcement officials, and college athletes, among others. Their colourful and often unorthodox exploits received extensive publicity in the U.S. press. Col. Leonard Wood resigned as White House physician to command the regiment;

Korcula

2005-02-11T19:10:00.000-08:00

Italian Curzola, Greek Corcyra Melaina, island in the Adriatic Sea, on the Dalmatian coast, in Croatia. With an area of 107 square miles (276 square km), it has a hilly interior rising to 1,863 feet (568 m). The Greeks colonized it in the 4th century BC. Korcula was subsequently occupied by the Romans, Goths, Slavs, Byzantines, and Genoese; the kings of Hungary and Croatia and the Bosnian dukes resided there; and such powers as Russia, France,

Sophist

2005-02-11T05:41:00.000-08:00

In addition to their teaching, the Sophists wrote many books, the titles of which are preserved by writers such as Diogenes Laërtius, who probably derived them from library catalogues. It has usually been supposed that the writings themselves hardly survived beyond the period of Plato and Aristotle, but this view requires modification in the light of papyrus finds,

Ear, Human, Nerves

2005-02-10T03:38:00.000-08:00

The seventh cranial nerve, called the facial nerve, passes by a somewhat circuitous route through the facial canal in the petrous portion of the temporal bone on its way from the brain stem to the muscles of expression of the face. A small but important branch, the chorda tympani nerve, emerges from the canal into the middle ear cavity and runs forward along the inner

Suboscine

2005-02-09T21:32:00.000-08:00

In general, any bird of the suborders Eurylaimi, Tyranni, and Menurae of the order Passeriformes (perching birds, or passerines) as distinguished from an oscine, or songbird (q.v.), a member of the suborder Passeres. The term suboscine implies, perhaps rightly, that birds of this group are more primitive in anatomy and behaviour than the oscines, which are usually considered

FemaleTown

Arts, Central Asian, Paleolithic cultures

Nicholson, Ben

Ling Canal

Anisotropy

France, History Of, The Directory

China, Drainage

Arts, Islamic, Turkish

Abu Al-faraj Al-isbahani

Antwerp, Government

Brian

Bey

Tradición

Education, History Of, The cultural revival under Charlemagne and his successors

Bezruc, Petr

Fabian Society

Ikeja

Maass, Clara

Sete Lagoas

Genet, Jean

Arzawa

Aeschylus

Adam, Robert

Schaeffer, Pierre

Atitlán, Lake

Tagalog

Quantification

Ibn Abi 'asrun

Akosombo Dam

Ramadi, Ar-

Computers

Holbein Rug

Farrukh Beg

Hokinson, Helen

Sacramento

Biblical Literature, The Great Bible

Palencia

Fisher

Claudius, Matthias

Madeira

Alabastron

Argentina, The Gran Chaco

Essen

Wright, Frank Lloyd

Strabane

Côte D'azur

Anthony Of Egypt, Saint

Joule's Law

Antiaircraft Gun

Earth

Ottoman Empire, Origins and expansion of the Ottoman state, c. 13001402

Safaqis

Metal Carbonyl

Xavier, Saint Francis

Vedantadesika

Murchison River

Arabia, History Of, Ghassan

Morón

Light

Samaritan

Anatolian Religion

Marsh Marigold

Wolf, Christa

Arosa

Mckean

Pavía Y Lacy, Manuel

Cosimo I

Danbury Hatters' Case

Gatun Lake

Biblical Literature, Exodus

Buzau

Bähr, George

Roman Catholic Church Of Romania

Moschops

Ring-necked Duck

Spangenberg, August Gottlieb

Chan-chiang

Ring-necked Duck

Athletics, Modern development

Daedalus

Ottoman Empire, Origins and expansion of the Ottoman state, c. 13001402

China, The Late T'ang (755907)