NaturalFowl

Auchincloss, Louis

2005-04-04T05:08:00.000-07:00

Auchincloss studied at Yale University from 1935 to 1939 and graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1941. He was admitted to the New York state bar that same year and began a legal career that would last

Vihari

2005-04-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

Also spelled Vehari, town, south-central Punjab province, Pakistan. The town lies on a flat alluvial plain bordered by the Sutlej River on the southeast. It is a market and processing centre for cotton and oilseeds. Wheat, rice, sugarcane, and vegetables are also grown nearby, and there are rice and flour mills in the area. Vihari lies on the main road between Multan and Lahore. Pop. (1981) town, 53,799.

Arabia, History Of, The sharifs of the Holy Cities

2005-04-03T14:37:00.000-07:00

At Mecca in the mid-10th century commenced the 1,000-year ascendancy of the 'Alid sharifian families. Mecca now became capital of the Hejaz, replacing Medina, the centre from which it had been ruled since the Prophet's days. The sharifs, though at times subject to such foreign overlords as the rulers of Egypt and of other parts of Arabia, exercised virtual independence. Throughout

Ob River

2005-04-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

Politically, most of the Ob basin is within Russia, but its southern portion forms the northernmost part of Kazakhstan. Russians and other Slavs constitute the majority of the population, but there also are numerous non-Slavic peoples. These include the Kazakhs in the south, the Altay and Shor peoples of the mountains, the Tatars of the Irtysh basin, the Khanty (Ostyak)

Hawkins, Sir John

2005-04-02T02:02:00.000-08:00

A kinsman of Sir Francis Drake, Hawkins began his career as a merchant in the African trade and soon became the first English slave trader. By carrying slaves from Guinea, in West Africa,

Pennsylvania Academy Of The Fine Arts

2005-04-02T00:41:00.000-08:00

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is the oldest art academy and museum in the United States, founded 1805. Specializing in American painting and sculpture of the 18th to the 20th century, the Academy's Art Museum was built between 1872 and 1876 according to designs by architect Frank Furness (1839–1912). The building's architectural style is high Victorian. For its centennial year (1976), which coincided

Toba Sojo

2005-03-31T06:20:00.000-08:00

Toba is traditionally regarded as the artist of a series of important narrative scrolls featuring humorous secular subjects: “History of Mount Shigi” and “Scrolls of Frolicking Animals.” The “History of Mount Shigi” consists of illustrations

Waigeo Island

2005-03-30T04:54:00.000-08:00

Indonesian Pulau Waigeo , also spelled Waigeu largest island of the Raja Ampat group in the Dampier Strait, Irian Jaya provinsi (“province”), Indonesia. Waigeo Island lies about 40 miles (64 km) northwest of the Doberai (Vogelkop) Peninsula and across the strait from Irian Jaya. It is 70 miles (110 km) long (east-west) and 30 miles (48 km) wide (north-south). The island, which is almost bisected by a narrow inlet of the Dampier Strait, has a rocky and

Gladstone, William Ewart

2005-03-29T10:45:00.000-08:00

Gladstone's first Cabinet (1868–74) was perhaps the most capable of the century. Its prime minister tried to supervise the work of each department, devoting his main efforts to Irish and foreign policy. The Irish Protestant church was successfully disestablished in 1869, and a first attempt to grapple with oppressive landlordism in Ireland was made unsuccessfully in 1870; abroad,

Mithradates Ii

2005-03-28T20:22:00.000-08:00

Mithradates recovered the eastern provinces that had been overrun by invading Saka nomads during his father's reign. In the west he conquered Mesopotamia and defeated the Armenian king Artavasdes, whose son Tigranes (later Tigranes II) became a Parthian hostage and was redeemed only for the cession

Teramo

2005-03-28T17:51:00.000-08:00

City, capital of Teramo provincia, Abruzzi regione, central Italy. It lies at the confluence of the Tordino and Vezzola rivers, between the Adriatic Sea and the Gran Sasso d'Italia mountain group, northwest of Pescara. Teramo was built on the site of Interamna (Interamnia), a town of the ancient Praetuttii tribe, and was destroyed during the barbarian invasions. It was

Uccello, Paolo

2005-03-26T17:10:00.000-08:00

The standard and most readable and complete work on Uccello (and his followers) in English is John Pope-Hennessy, Paolo Uccello, 2nd ed. (1969). Eve Borsook discusses Uccello's Florentine frescoes in The Mural Painters of Tuscany, from Cimabue to Andrea del Sarto (1960). Uccello's role in the investigation of perspective is mentioned by John White in The Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space, 2nd ed. (1967); and this subject is treated more fully by Alessandro Parronchi in Studi su la dolce prospettiva (1964).

Marpurg, Friedrich Wilhelm

2005-03-26T13:59:00.000-08:00

Nothing is known of his musical education. In 1746 he was secretary to a Prussian general in Paris, where he met Voltaire and the composer Jean Rameau. He later lived in Berlin and Hamburg and from 1763 to 1795 directed the Prussian

Chrissie, Lake

2005-03-24T14:51:00.000-08:00

The lake lies in the farming region known as New Scotland, which was settled about 1866 by Alexander McCorkindale.

Burton, Virginia Lee

2005-03-24T01:11:00.000-08:00

Burton grew up from the age of seven in Sonora, California. After graduating from high school she studied both dancing and drawing, and later she continued taking art lessons at the Boston Museum School. In 1929 she became

Aerospace Industry, Aerospace companies and projects

2005-03-23T23:34:00.000-08:00

David Weldon Thornton, Airbus Industrie: The Politics of an International Industrial Collaboration (1995), describes the integration of Europe's disparate aerospace industries into an industrial power that ended the American monopoly in the commercial airliner business. Additional accounts of the Airbus consortium are found in Guy Norris and Mark Wagner, Airbus (1999); and Matthew Lynn, Birds of Prey: Boeing vs. Airbus, a Battle for the Skies, rev. ed. (1997). Brian Trubshaw, Concorde: The Inside Story (2000); and Christopher Orlebar, The Concorde Story, new ed. (1997), cover the development of the British-French supersonic passenger transport. The collapse and recovery of Britain's aerospace business in the last decades of the 20th century is recounted in Richard Evans and Colin Price, Vertical Take-Off: The Inside Story of British Aerospace's Comeback from Crisis to World Class (1999). Specific American aerospace companies are examined in Eugene E. Bauer, Boeing: The First Century (2000); Robert Redding and Bill Yenne, Boeing: Planemaker to the World, rev. and updated ed. (1997); Bill Yenne, McDonnell Douglas: A Tale of Two Giants (1985), and Rockwell: The Heritage of North American (1989); and Walter J. Boyne, Beyond the Horizons: The Lockheed Story (1998). Accounts of individual Soviet design bureaus and the men who shaped them are found in R.A. Belyakov (R.A. Belíàkov) and J. Marmain, MiG: Fifty Years of Secret Aircraft Design, trans. from Russian (1994); Vladimir Antonov et al., OKB Sukhoi: A History of the Design Bureau and Its Aircraft (1996); Paul Duffy and Andrei Kandalov, Tupolev: The Man and His Aircraft (1996); and James Harford, Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon (1997).

Kyrgyzstan, Plant and animal life

2005-03-22T22:54:00.000-08:00

Woodlands run along the lower valleys and on slopes of the north-facing ranges. These are coniferous forests, containing the striking Tien Shan white spruce and occupying 3 to 4 percent of the country's area. The brown bear, wild pig, lynx, gray wolf, and ermine live in the woodlands. Wooded ravines and the valleys of the mountainous steppe regions provide the abode of the

France, History Of, Foreign policy

2005-03-21T07:54:00.000-08:00

Meanwhile, some important successes were being scored in the field of foreign policy. For two decades after 1871 France had remained diplomatically isolated in Europe. Bismarck, to ward off potential ideas of revenge in France, had shrewdly encouraged French governments to embark on colonial conquest overseas and had negotiated alliances with all those European

Italy

2005-03-21T02:14:00.000-08:00

The first major power in the peninsula was the Etruscans. From Etruria, Etruscan

Nicholas Of Hereford

2005-03-19T07:35:00.000-08:00

Nicholas was ordained in 1370 and later received a doctorate

Arnold, Matthew

2005-03-18T15:16:00.000-08:00

The work that gives Arnold his high place in the history of literature and the history of ideas was all accomplished in the time he could spare from his official duties. His first volume of verse was The Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems. By A. (1849); this was followed (in 1852) by another under the same initial: Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems. In 1853 appeared the first volume of poems

Water Buffalo

2005-03-17T22:38:00.000-08:00

(Bubalus bubalis), also called Indian Buffalo, a ruminant mammal of the ox family (Bovidae). The water buffalo was domesticated in Asia from earliest recorded times. Large and massively built, the animal stands 1.5–1.8 m (5–6 feet) or more at the shoulder, reaches a length of 2.4–2.8 m, and weighs about 1,000 kg (2,200 pounds). It has a dull black or dark gray body with little hair and huge horns, which may measure

Lur

2005-03-16T15:16:00.000-08:00

The Lurs and their neighbours, the Bakhtyari, are partly agricultural and partly pastoral tribes. Lush grazing pastures between the mountain ranges enabled the

Alabama, Transportation

2005-03-16T02:16:00.000-08:00

Together, the six major rivers of Alabama provide about 1,300 miles of navigable waterways, while Mobile Bay has been deepened by a ship channel. Mobile developed as a modernized port and ranks among the top dozen seaports of the nation. The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway, a 234-mile canal opened in 1985, connected two of the state's main river systems. Although railroad transportation,

Bishop's Cap Cactus

2005-03-15T15:40:00.000-08:00

All four species of Astrophytum, which is sometimes regarded as a subgenus of Echinocac

Lajes

2005-03-15T09:20:00.000-08:00

Also spelled Lages, city, east-central Santa Catarina estado (“state”), southern Brazil, lying north of the Caveiras River in the Paraná Mountains, at 3,000 feet (900 m) above sea level. Formed as a municipality in 1800, it was settled chiefly by Germans and in 1866 was elevated to city status. Livestock raising and industry are now the main economic activities. Principal products include lumber, corn (maize), feij

Aethra

2005-03-14T14:03:00.000-08:00

Later she guarded Helen after she had been stolen from Sparta by Theseus; in retribution

Theatre

2005-03-13T15:08:00.000-08:00

Though the word theatre is derived from the Greek theaomai, “to see,” the performance itself may appeal either to the ear or to the eye, as is suggested by the interchangeability of the terms spectator

Qa

2005-03-12T19:53:00.000-08:00

Also spelled qû or ka ancient Babylonian liquid measure equal to the volume of a cube whose dimensions are each one handbreadth (3.9 to 4 inches, or 9.9 to 10.2 cm) in length. The cube held one great mina (about 2 pounds, or 1 kg) of water by weight. Five qa made up a šiqlu, 100 qa equaled an imeru (donkey load), and 300 qa equaled a gur. The gur was the equivalent of about 80 U.S. gallons (302 litres).

Durango

2005-03-12T08:42:00.000-08:00

Although first settled in 1556, it was not officially founded until 1563. It was the political and ecclesiastical capital of Nueva Vizcaya,

Dievs

2005-03-11T01:31:00.000-08:00

Also called Debestevs (Latvian), Lithuanian Dievas , Old Prussian Deivas in Baltic religion, the sky god. Dievs and Laima, the goddess of human fate, determine human destiny and world order. Dievs is a wooer of Saule, the sun. As pictured by the pre-Christian Balts, he is an Iron Age Baltic king who lives on a farmstead in the sky. Wearing a silver gown, pendants, and a sword, he occasionally rides down to earth, on horseback or in a horse-drawn chariot,

Hop-hornbeam

2005-03-10T21:59:00.000-08:00

Any of about seven species of ornamental trees constituting the genus Ostrya of the birch family (Betulaceae), native to Eurasia and North America. A hop-hornbeam has shaggy, scaling bark and thin, translucent, green leaves with hairy leafstalks. The hoplike, green fruits are composed of many bladderlike scales, each bearing a small, flat nut. The European

Ares

2005-03-10T13:59:00.000-08:00

In Greek religion, god of war or, more properly, the spirit of battle. Unlike his Roman counterpart, Mars (q.v.), he was never very popular, and his worship was not extensive in Greece. He represented the distasteful aspects of brutal warfare and slaughter. From at least the time of Homer, who established him as the son of the chief god, Zeus, and Hera, his consort, Ares was one of the

Dow, Herbert H.

2005-03-09T22:39:00.000-08:00

Dow first became interested in brines (concentrated solutions of salts and water) while attending Case School of Applied Science (now Case Western Reserve University) in Cleveland (B.S.; 1888). His analysis of brines from several sites revealed

Auerbach, Red

2005-03-09T06:10:00.000-08:00

Auerbach began coaching at St. Alban's Preparatory School (1940) and Roosevelt High School (1940–43), both in Washington, D.C. He served during World War II in the U.S. Navy (1943–46) and after the war coached the Basketball

Biblical Literature, Book of Esther

2005-03-08T13:17:00.000-08:00

The Book of Esther is a romantic and patriotic tale, perhaps with some historical basis but with so little religious purpose that God, in fact, is not mentioned in it. The book may have been included in the Hebrew canon only for the sake of sanctioning the celebrations of the festival Purim, the Feast of Lots. There is considerable evidence that the stories related in

Roman Religion

2005-03-07T09:53:00.000-08:00

Beliefs and practices of the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula from ancient times until the ascendancy of Christianity in the 4th century AD.

Paasikivi, Juho Kusti

2005-03-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

Paasikivi studied law and history at the universities of Stockholm, Uppsala, and Leipzig and from 1902 to 1903 was a lecturer in law at the University

General Sarmiento

2005-03-07T05:48:00.000-08:00

Partido (county) of Gran (“Greater”) Buenos Aires, Argentina. It lies northwest of the city of Buenos Aires, in Buenos Aires provincia. The early settlement of the county centred on the agricultural plantation San José del Pilar, established by Adolfo Sordeaux in 1862. This plantation settlement led Sordeaux to establish the towns of San Miguel and Bella Vista in 1872. In 1889 General

Corcoran Gallery Of Art

2005-03-05T20:19:00.000-08:00

The museum also houses the private collection of

Andosol

2005-03-05T00:46:00.000-08:00

One of the 30 soil groups in the classification system of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Andosols are highly porous, dark-coloured soils developed from parent material of volcanic origin, such as volcanic ash, tuff, and pumice. They are found from Iceland to Indonesia, but they typically occur in wooded highland areas of the continental lands bordering

Anatolian Languages, Luwian

2005-03-04T11:28:00.000-08:00

Luwian (or Luvian), the language of Anatolia's southern coast, is known from texts stemming from three major periods: (1) the Hittite New Empire (c. 1400–c. 1190 BC); (2) the period of the Neo-Hittite states (c. 1190–c. 700 BC); (3) the period of the Lycian monumental inscriptions (c. 400–200 BC). In addition to the various time periods, there is also a variation in writing system—Mesopotamian cuneiform, Anatolian hieroglyphs

Great Kei River

2005-03-03T07:32:00.000-08:00

Afrikaans Groot-kei, river, Eastern province, South Africa. Formed southeast of Queenstown by the junction of the White Kei (Wit Kei) and the Black Kei (Swart Kei) rivers, it flows approximately 140 miles (225 km) southeast to the Indian Ocean. Its longest tributary is the Tsomo (north). The river and its headwaters follow winding courses.

Deighton, Len

2005-03-03T06:38:00.000-08:00

Deighton was educated at St. Martin's School of Art, London, and the Royal College of Art. He worked at a number of jobs after graduation, including pastry cook,

Bernese Alps

2005-03-02T09:16:00.000-08:00

Also called Bernese Oberland, German Berner Alpen, or Berner Oberland, French Alpes Bernoises, segment of the Central Alps lying north of the Upper Rhône River and south of the Brienzer and Thunersee (lakes) in Bern and Valais cantons of southwestern Switzerland. The mountains extend east-northeastward from the bend of the Rhône near Martigny-Ville to Grimsel Pass and Haslital (valley of the upper Aare River). Many peaks rise to more than 12,000 ft (3,660 m); Finsteraarhorn

Appian Of Alexandria

2005-03-01T23:53:00.000-08:00

In addition to a lost autobiography, Appian wrote in Greek a Romaica,

Gauss Elimination

2005-03-01T06:38:00.000-08:00

In linear and multilinear algebra, a process for finding the solutions of a system of simultaneous linear equations by first solving one of the equations for the first variable (in terms of all the others) and then substituting this expression into the remaining equations. The result is a new system in which the number of equations and variables is one less than in

Ili River

2005-03-01T01:48:00.000-08:00

Ili also spelled I-li, Kazak Ile, Chinese (Wade-Giles) I-li Ho, or (Pinyin) Yili He, river in western Uighur Autonomous Region of Sinkiang, China. It is 870 miles (1,400 km) long and drains the basin between the Tien Shan (“Celestial Mountains”) to the south and the P'o-lo-k'o-nu Mountains to the north. Both ranges are extremely high. The drainage basin of the Ili and its principal tributaries—the K'a-shih, K'ung-chi-ssu, and T'e-k'o-ssu rivers—is rugged and mountainous, the axes

Szolnok

2005-02-26T20:08:00.000-08:00

Town and seat of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok megye (county), east-central Hungary, at the confluence of the Zagyva and Tisza rivers. Under the Árpád kings (c. 890–1301) Szolnok was a market town and distributing centre for rock salt from the Maramures Mountains (now in Romania). Later in the European Middle Ages it was a strategic settlement fiercely contested by Magyars and Turks. In modern

Jurassic Period, Eurasia and Gondwana

2005-02-26T15:07:00.000-08:00

The Tethyan geosyncline on the margins of both Eurasia and Gondwana accumulated thick sequences of Jurassic rock ranging from carbonates and evaporites to sandstone. The carbonates include shallow-water marl, limestone and reefs, and deep-water siliceous limestone. The presence of radiolarian cherts strongly indicates a deep-water origin for some of the sediments.

Baptist General Conference

2005-02-26T14:12:00.000-08:00

Conservative Baptist denomination that was organized in 1879 as the Swedish Baptist General Conference of America; the present name was adopted in 1945. It developed from the work of Gustaf Palmquist, a Swedish immigrant schoolteacher and lay preacher who became a Baptist in 1852. He established the first Swedish Baptist Church in Rock Island, Ill., that same year. Palmquist and

Aetolia And Acarnania

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

Most of Acarnania

Spoleto

2005-02-24T21:21:00.000-08:00

The site of an Umbrian township from at least the 7th to the 6th century BC, Spoleto became a Roman colony in 241 BC. It successfully

Rybnik

2005-02-24T17:54:00.000-08:00

Beginning as a fishing village in the 10th century, Rybnik became capital of the Racibórz principality

Peter Of Alcántara, Saint

2005-02-22T05:09:00.000-08:00

Of noble birth, he entered the Franciscan Order at Alcántara in 1515 and was ordained priest in 1524. As a friar, Peter emphasized the penitential aspects

Sagua La Grande

2005-02-22T02:23:00.000-08:00

City, north-central Villa Clara provincia, north-central Cuba. Lying on the Sagua la Grande River, 15 miles (24 km) from its mouth, the city is a major port and regional manufacturing and commercial centre. The area is known primarily for its sugarcane, but rice, black beans, and livestock also are economically significant. Foundries, distilleries, railroad shops, lumberyards,

Allen, Walter

2005-02-21T09:06:00.000-08:00

Allen graduated from the University of Birmingham (B.A., 1932) and taught briefly at his old grammar school before accepting the first of several visiting lectureships and professorships in North America and elsewhere. In 1945 he left teaching to become

Christian Brother

2005-02-21T00:12:00.000-08:00

The Institute of the Brothers of Christian Schools (F.S.C.) was founded by St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle at Reims, France, in 1684 for the education of boys, especially of poor families; the congregation is now established on all continents. Besides teaching in elementary,

Xylophone

2005-02-20T07:31:00.000-08:00

(from Greek xylon and phone: “wood” and “sound”), percussion instrument consisting of a set of graduated, tuned wooden bars supported at nodal (nonvibrating) points and struck with padded mallets. The xylophone possibly originated in Southeast Asia or Oceania and today exists in forms as simple as two

Art And Architecture, Egyptian, Ivory and bone

2005-02-19T11:09:00.000-08:00

Of the few small ivory figurines to have survived from pharaonic times, two royal representations found in the Early Dynastic temple at Abydos (Egyptian Museum and British Museum) are outstanding. There can be little doubt, in spite of the paucity of survivals, that fine decorative objects of ivory were made at all periods. A gazelle and a grasshopper of the 18th dynasty

Panchen Lama

2005-02-18T09:04:00.000-08:00

The title Panchen (a short form of the Sanskrit-Tibetan Pandita Chen-po, or “Great Scholar”) was that traditionally

Metastable State

2005-02-18T07:37:00.000-08:00

In physics and chemistry, particular excited state of an atom, nucleus, or other system that has a longer lifetime than the ordinary excited states and that generally has a shorter lifetime than the lowest, often stable, energy state, called the ground state. A metastable state may thus be considered a kind of temporary energy trap or a somewhat stable intermediate

Ezion-geber

2005-02-17T19:40:00.000-08:00

Modern Tall al-Khalifah seaport of Solomon and the later kings of Judah, located at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba in what is now Ma'an muhafazah (governorate), Jordan. The site was found independently by archaeologists Fritz Frank and Nelson Glueck. Glueck's excavations (1938–40) proved that the site had been a fortified settlement surrounded by strong walls from the 10th to the 4th century BC. It was almost

Augustine, Saint, Controversial writings

2005-02-17T11:25:00.000-08:00

Of his works against the Manichaeans, the Confessions probably remains the most attractive and interesting; the sect itself is too little known today for detailed

Marsaxlokk

2005-02-16T21:58:00.000-08:00

Also called Marsa Scirocco, village, southeastern Malta. It lies along Marsaxlokk Bay, southeast of Valletta. It was the first landing place and anchorage of the Turkish fleet in the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. A fortress (now housing the marine sciences laboratory of the University of Malta) was built there in the early 17th century, and its garrison drove off a later Turkish landing attempt in 1614. There

North Ossetia

2005-02-14T10:13:00.000-08:00

North Ossetia is mountainous, with the Glavny (Main) Range reaching 15,682 feet (4,780 m) at Mount Dzhimara and other peaks in the republic reaching more than 14,000 feet (4,250 m). Parallel to the Glavny crest range is a series

Royal Courts Of Justice

2005-02-14T05:51:00.000-08:00

Within its confines are held sessions of the Court of Appeal, the High Court of Justice, and the Crown Court. Prior to the opening of the complex in 1882, civil cases were decided

Saavedra (ramírez De Baquendano), ángel De, Duque De Rivas

2005-02-14T01:38:00.000-08:00

After entering politics Saavedra was condemned to death in 1823 for his extreme liberal views. He fled to London and lived subsequently in Italy,

Fable, Parable, And Allegory, The Greeks

2005-02-13T18:53:00.000-08:00

Hellenic tradition after Homer stands in sharp contrast to this concentration on the fulfilling of a divine plan. The analytic, essentially scientific histories of Herodotus and Thucydides precluded much confident belief in visionary providence. The Greeks rather believed history to be structured in cycles, as distinct from the more purposive linearity

Gippsland

2005-02-12T18:23:00.000-08:00

Region of southeastern Victoria, Australia, extending northeast from Western Port (near Melbourne) to the New South Wales border and south from the Eastern Highlands to the coast, with an area of 13,600 square miles (35,200 square km). Fertile and well watered (34 inches [860 mm] annually), Gippsland is the focus of the state's dairy industry, supplying most of Melbourne's liquid milk. Lignite

Ogburn, William Fielding

2005-02-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

Ogburn was a professor at Columbia University (1919–27) and the University of Chicago (1927–51). He frequently served as a labour mediator

Olympic Games, Oslo, Norway, 1952

2005-02-10T22:36:00.000-08:00

With the awarding of the sixth Winter Olympics to Oslo, the Games were held for the first time in a Scandinavian country. While some questioned the country's ability to stage the competition, the worries proved unfounded. New facilities were built and existing ones were refurbished to meet the high Olympic standard. Oslo saw the Winter Games debut of the Olympic torch,

Ekoi

2005-02-10T18:17:00.000-08:00

Group of peoples situated in extreme southeastern Nigeria and extending eastward into neighbouring Cameroon. Ekoid Bantu languages are spoken by many groups, including the Atam, Boki, Mbembe, Ufia, and Yako. The Ekoi live in proximity to the Efiks of southeastern Nigeria and claim to have migrated from the north to that area. The inhabitants of Kwa, located near Calabar,

Arroyo

2005-02-09T22:30:00.000-08:00

Also called Wadi, Wash, Dry Wash, or Coulee, Arabic Wadi, French Oued, a dry channel lying in a semiarid or desert area and subject to flash flooding during seasonal or irregular rainstorms. Such transitory streams, rivers, or creeks are noted for their gullying effects, especially for their rapid rates of erosion, transportation, and deposition. There have been reports of up to 8 feet (2 m) of deposition in 60 years and like amounts of erosion

Scandinavian Literature, The literary Renaissance in Denmark

2005-02-09T20:11:00.000-08:00

The literary Renaissance reached Denmark in the 1600s, giving rise to a strict adherence to classical patterns and blind belief in authority in political, religious, and literary matters. In religious literature Latin dogmatics and pamphlets reflecting the superstitions of the century were dominant. It was, however, a great era of scholarship. Ole Worm is famous for

Breitinger, Johann Jakob

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

He studied theology and became professor at the Collegium Carolinum in Zurich. He lectured on Hebrew, Greek, Latin, logic, and rhetoric; showed excellence as a philologist in many editions; and advocated education on humanist lines

Procedural Law

2005-02-07T21:10:00.000-08:00

Also called adjective law the law governing the machinery of the courts and the methods by which both the state and the individual (the latter including societies, whether incorporated or not) enforce their rights in the several courts. It prescribes the means of enforcing rights or providing redress of wrongs and comprises rules relative to jurisdiction, pleading and practice, evidence,

Regency Style

2005-02-06T19:43:00.000-08:00

Decorative arts produced during the regency of George, prince of Wales, and the opening years of the 19th century as well as his entire reign as King George IV of England, ending in 1830. The major source of inspiration for Regency taste was found in Greek and Roman antiquity, from which designers borrowed both structural and ornamental elements. The classical revival of

Mola Di Bari

2005-02-06T04:08:00.000-08:00

Town, Bari provincia, Puglia (Apulia) regione, southern Italy. In the European Middle Ages it was an embarkation point for the crusaders, and it has a 13th-century cathedral of Renaissance reconstruction. A fishing port and bathing resort, the modern town has tanneries and soap and button factories. Pop. (1989 est.) mun., 26,942.

Placidia, Aelia Galla

2005-02-05T05:15:00.000-08:00

Captured in Rome when the city fell to the Goths in 410, she was carried off to Gaul and married (414) to the Visigothic chieftain Ataulphus, who was

Education, Philosophy Of, Lockean view

2005-02-04T23:08:00.000-08:00

John Locke, the 17th-century English philosopher, has been credited with formulating the classical liberal defense of individual freedom against the authorities of state and church. Opposed both to what he deemed the stagnation of unreflective tradition and the perils of enthusiastic radicalism, Locke saw science, reason, and experience as the best safeguards

Kildare

2005-02-04T01:16:00.000-08:00

Irish Cill Dara county in the province of Leinster, east-central Ireland. It comprises part of the lowland west of the Wicklow Mountains and part of the Irish central lowland. With an area of 654 square miles (1,694 square km), it is bounded on the north by County Meath, on the east by Dublin and Wicklow, on the south by Carlow, and on the west by Laoighis and Offaly. The River Liffey forms a gorge at Pollaphuca

China, Constitutional movements after 1905

2005-02-03T03:43:00.000-08:00

Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) aroused a cry for constitutionalism in China. Unable to resist the intensifying demand, the court decided in September 1906 to adopt a constitution, and in November it reorganized the traditional six boards into 11 ministries in an attempt to modernize the central government. It promised to open consultative provincial assemblies

Diebitsch, Johann (karl Friedrich Anton), Graf

2005-02-03T00:31:00.000-08:00

Although he was of German parentage and was educated at the Berlin cadet school, Diebitsch joined the Russian Army in 1801, and, after fighting against Napoleon in the battles of Austerlitz, Eylau, Friedland,

Pacific Islands, Changing administrations

2005-02-02T10:44:00.000-08:00

Two United Nations trust territories were the first to achieve sovereignty as independent nations—Western Samoa (now Samoa) in 1962 and Nauru in 1968. The first continued to rely on New Zealand in foreign affairs, while Nauru ended its trusteeship ties with Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. New Zealand, a Commonwealth member with a self-conscious Maori Polynesian

Baffin, William

2005-02-01T19:00:00.000-08:00

Navigator who searched for the Northwest Passage and gave his name to Baffin Island, now part of the Northwest Territories, Canada, and to the bay separating it from Greenland. His determination of longitude at sea by observing the occultation of a star by the Moon is said to have been the first of its

Sorrento

2005-02-01T09:44:00.000-08:00

Latin Surrentum, town and archiepiscopal see, Napoli provincia, Campania regione, southern Italy. It lies on a peninsula separating the Bay of Naples, which it faces, from the Gulf of Salerno, south-southeast of Naples. The backbone of the peninsula is formed by the Lattari Mountains, which culminate in Mount Sant'Angelo (4,734 feet [1,443 m]). Probably of Greek origin, the town was the ancient Surrentum,

China, Drainage

2005-01-31T23:57:00.000-08:00

The three principal rivers of

Alasehir

2005-01-29T23:33:00.000-08:00

Town, western Turkey. It lies in the Kuzu River valley, at the foot of the Boz Mountain. Founded about 150 BC by a king of Pergamum, it became an important town of the Byzantine Empire. It was not taken by the Ottomans until after all other cities of Asia Minor had surrendered to Ottoman rule. Conquered by Timur (Tamerlane) in 1402, it was recaptured under the Ottoman sultan Murad II (reigned

Stainless Steel

2005-01-29T13:23:00.000-08:00

Any one of a family of alloy steels usually containing 10 to 30 percent chromium. In conjunction with low carbon contents, chromium imparts remarkable resistance to corrosion and heat. Other elements such as nickel, molybdenum, titanium, aluminum, niobium, copper, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, and selenium may be added to increase corrosion resistance to specific environments,

Paramaribo

2005-01-29T10:10:00.000-08:00

Largest town, capital, and chief port of Suriname (formerly Dutch, or Netherlands, Guiana). It lies 9 miles (15 km) from the Atlantic Ocean on the Suriname River. It originated as an Indian village that became a French settlement (c. 1640) and was later the site of an English colony planted in 1651 by Lord Willoughby of Parham. In 1667 Paramaribo was one of the settlements ceded to the Dutch under

Agapetus I, Saint

2005-01-28T21:15:00.000-08:00

Pope from 535 to 536. Of noble birth, he was an archdeacon at the time of his election (May 13, 535). At the urging of the Ostrogothic king Theodahad, he headed an unsuccessful mission to Constantinople to deter the emperor Justinian I from his plans to reconquer Italy. While there he secured the election of, and consecrated,

Tedder (of Glenguin), Arthur William Tedder, 1st Baron

2005-01-27T09:15:00.000-08:00

Marshal of the Royal Air Force and deputy commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force under General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who contributed significantly to the success of the Allied invasion of Normandy (June 6, 1944) and the German defeat on the Western Front during World War II through his policy of bombing

Mercouri, Melina

2005-01-27T03:30:00.000-08:00

Mercouri came from a politically prominent family. She graduated from the Drama School of the National Theatre of Greece. Her first major role, at the age of 20, was Lavinia in Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra,

Shaker Furniture

2005-01-26T17:50:00.000-08:00

Furniture designed for the religious colonies of Shakers founded in America in the last quarter of the 18th century, characterized by austerity of decoration and truth to materials. Deeply dedicated to ideals of communal living and asceticism, the Shakers designed and constructed furniture that reflected their belief that to make a thing well was in itself an

Wolfram Von Eschenbach

2005-01-25T21:27:00.000-08:00

An impoverished Bavarian knight, Wolfram apparently served a succession of Franconian lords: Abensberg, Wildenberg, and Wertheim are among the places he names in his work. He also knew the court of

Well-made Play

2005-01-25T05:25:00.000-08:00

French Pièce Bien Faite, a type of play, constructed according to certain strict technical principles, that dominated the stages of Europe and the United States for most of the 19th century. The technical formula of the well-made play, developed around 1825 by the French playwright Eugène Scribe, called for complex and highly artificial plotting, a build-up of suspense, a climactic scene in which

La Marmora, Alfonso Ferrero

2005-01-24T17:24:00.000-08:00

A graduate of the Turin Military Academy, La Marmora entered the army in 1823 and first distinguished himself in the Italian wars of independence against Austria, especially at Borghetto and Peschiera (May 1848). He also

Golf, The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA)

2005-01-24T00:33:00.000-08:00

Several professional tournaments for women were staged during the 1920s and '30s; important players from this era include Glenna Collett from the United States and Joyce Wethered of Great Britain. It was not until the 1940s that efforts began in earnest to form a professional golf organization for women. The first, the Women's Professional Golf Association (WPGA), was chartered

Rachmaninoff, Sergey

2005-01-21T14:03:00.000-08:00

Rachmaninoff was born on an estate belonging to his grandparents, situated near Lake Ilmen in the Novgorod district. His father was a retired army officer and his mother the daughter of a general. The boy was destined to become an army officer until his father lost the entire family fortune through risky financial ventures and then deserted the family. Young Sergey's