FirstKettle

Marsa Matruh

2005-04-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

Town and capital of Matruh muhafazah (governorate), on the Mediterranean coast, Western Desert, in northwestern Egypt. The town serves as a market and distribution centre for the surrounding agricultural region. Olives, barley, and fruits are grown, and there are vineyards as well. Sheep and goats are raised. Winter rains (5–8 inches [125–200 mm]) provide most of the water needed in the coastal

World War I, The Turkish entry

2005-04-05T04:04:00.000-07:00

The entry of Turkey (or the Ottoman Empire, as it was then called) into the war as a German ally was the one great success of German wartime diplomacy. Since 1909 Turkey had been under the control of the Young Turks, over whom Germany had skillfully gained a dominating influence. German military instructors permeated the Turkish Army, and Enver Pasa, the leader of the Young Turks,

Hadrian's Villa

2005-04-05T00:38:00.000-07:00

Also called Villa Adriana country residence built (c. AD 125–134) at Tivoli near Rome by the emperor Hadrian. This villa is considered the epitome in architecture of the opulence and elegance of the Roman world. Covering approximately 7 square miles (18 square km), the complex was more an imperial garden city than a traditional villa. Its buildings were designed to follow the natural lay of the land and included

Murasaki Shikibu

2005-04-03T15:39:00.000-07:00

Her real name is unknown; it is conjectured that she acquired the sobriquet of Murasaki from the name of the heroine of her novel. The main source of knowledge about her life

Husted, Marjorie Child

2005-04-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

Husted attended public schools and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1913. She remained at the university to take a degree in education the next year. After a

Anthem

2005-04-02T00:16:00.000-08:00

At first, unaccompanied choral writing, or

Checkerwork

2005-04-01T18:17:00.000-08:00

In architecture, masonry built of two materials, usually stone and flint or stone and brick, so arranged as to make a checkerboard pattern and to give variety in texture and colour. Stone and flint checkerwork is common in the parish churches and smaller houses of East Anglia, England; and both combinations were much used after the Reformation, when the suppressed

Sa'ib

2005-04-01T04:57:00.000-08:00

Sa'ib was educated in Esfahan, and in about 1626/27 he traveled to India, where he was received into the court of Shah Jahan. He stayed for a time in Kabul and in Kashmir, returning home after several years abroad. After his

Lahun, Al-

2005-03-31T02:48:00.000-08:00

Also spelled El Lahun, or Illahun, ancient Egyptian site situated just north of the turn of the Bahr Yusuf canal into the Fayum in al-Fayyum muhafazah (governorate); it was the location of a Middle Kingdom (1938–c. 1600? BC) pyramid and of a workmen's village of approximately the same date. The pyramid, built by King Sesostris II (reigned 1844–37 BC), fourth of the eight kings of the 12th dynasty, was unusual in that the entrance to the burial chamber

France, History Of, A republic in crisis

2005-03-30T20:11:00.000-08:00

By the spring of 1793, however, the republic was beleaguered. In the second round of the war, the coalition—now reinforced by Spain, Piedmont, and Britain—routed French forces in the Austrian Netherlands and the Rhineland and breached the Pyrenees. Fighting on five different fronts and bereft of effective leadership, French armies seemed to be losing everywhere. Even General

Regium Donum

2005-03-30T02:30:00.000-08:00

(Latin: “royal gift”), annual grant made from public funds to Presbyterian ministers in Ireland and to Nonconformist ministers (those not part of the Church of England) in Great Britain. It originated in Ireland in 1690, when the English king William III made a grant to Presbyterian ministers in Ulster as a reward for their services during his struggles with former king James

Gulf Series

2005-03-29T10:19:00.000-08:00

Major division of Upper Cretaceous rocks (66.4 to 97.5 million years old) in the Gulf coastal region of the United States. The Gulf Series has been divided into several groups of rocks. The lowermost groups of limestone and clay are overlain by the Eagleford Shale, about 145 m (475 feet) of clayey shales, which in turn is overlain by the Austin Chalk, about 130 m (420 feet) of chalks and marls. The Taylor

Croix De Guerre

2005-03-27T07:44:00.000-08:00

(French: “War Cross”), French military decoration created in 1915 and 1939 to reward feats of bravery, either by individuals or groups, in the course of the two World Wars. This medal may be conferred on any member of the armed forces, on French citizens and foreigners who have been mentioned in army dispatches, and, in special cases, on military units and towns. During World War II there

Arts, Central Asian, The study of Central Asian music

2005-03-27T07:06:00.000-08:00

In the West the study of Central Asian music has until recently been restricted largely to travellers' accounts and analyses of small samples of music. By far the bulk of collection and study of Central Asian music of Turkistan and Siberia lay in the domain of Soviet scholars, who instituted systematic fieldwork as early as the 1920s; this literature remains largely

Palar River

2005-03-26T21:20:00.000-08:00

The flow of the Palar is irregular, with considerable variations from year to year. Although it generally does not flood,

Ho Hsien-ku

2005-03-26T16:40:00.000-08:00

Pinyin He Xiangu, in Chinese mythology, one of the Pa Hsien, the Eight Immortals of Taoism, and the only female (if Lan Ts'ai-ho is considered to be male). As a teenaged girl she dreamed that mother-of-pearl conferred immortality. She thereupon ate some, became ethereal, and found she could float across the hills at will. She returned home each evening carrying herbs collected during the

Israeli, Isaac Ben Solomon

2005-03-26T01:41:00.000-08:00

Israeli

Ancient Rome, The beginning of Germanic hegemony in the West

2005-03-24T14:38:00.000-08:00

During the first half of the 5th century the barbarians gradually installed themselves, in spite of the efforts of the Roman general Aetius at the head of a small army of mercenaries and of Huns. Aetius took back Arles and Narbonne from the Visigoths in 436, either pushed back the Salian and Ripuarian Franks beyond the Rhine or incorporated them as federates, settled the

Israeli, Isaac Ben Solomon

2005-03-24T04:28:00.000-08:00

French national theatre created in 1920 to bring theatre to the general public. Its first director, Firmin Gémier, had been the director of the Théâtre Antoine and had made a number of attempts to create a people's theatre. Initially the TNP offered productions from the other national companies in a large hall with inexpensive tickets. It had no acting company, could not

Restaurant

2005-03-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

The first restaurant proprietor is believed to have been one A. Boulanger, a soup vendor, who opened his

Earth, Field-aligned currents

2005-03-22T14:30:00.000-08:00

Circulation of magnetic field lines in a pattern of closed loops within the magnetosphere is a consequence of the tangential drag of the solar wind. This circulation produces another important magnetic field source, the field-aligned current system. The field-aligned currents flow on two shells completely surrounding the Earth (Figure 11). The higher latitude shell

Gulf Coast

2005-03-21T23:58:00.000-08:00

Geographic area in the extreme southern United States along the Gulf of Mexico. Stretching for more than 1,200 miles (1,900 km) from the coast of Florida, it extends about 100 miles (160 km) inland and runs west along southern Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Land elevations are nowhere more than 500 feet (150 m) in the region. Precipitation is more than 60 inches (1,500 mm) in the southeastern and

Triassic Period, Marine deposits

2005-03-21T03:53:00.000-08:00

Major linear depositional troughs developed around Panthalassa, the ancestor of the Pacific Ocean, during the Early and Middle Triassic. Great quantities of marine sediments collected in these troughs, as indicated by deposits—now mainly sandstones, shales, and graywackes—located in the western Pacific basinal belt (New Zealand and Japan) and the eastern basinal

Alajuela

2005-03-20T21:55:00.000-08:00

City, northwestern Costa Rica. It lies on the central plateau at an altitude of 3,141 feet (957 metres). Known in colonial days as La Lajuela and Villahermosa, the town was active in support of independence from Spain in 1821; five years later it suffered from a plot to restore Spanish control over Costa Rica. For a brief period in the 1830s Alajuela served as the nation's capital. It was the

New England Glass Company

2005-03-20T01:48:00.000-08:00

American glass company that was situated in East Cambridge, Mass., from about 1818 until 1888. In the latter year the company's owner, Edward D. Libbey, met a strike of his workers by moving the factory to Toledo, Ohio, where it is still active as the Libbey-Owens-Ford Company. The New England Glass Company made a large variety of wares ranging from pocket bottles and tumblers to attractive

Fischer, Johann Michael

2005-03-19T15:15:00.000-08:00

Fischer was trained by his father, a mason. As an apprentice in Bohemia and Moravia beginning in 1713, he became familiar with the churches of the Dientzenhofer family and returned to Munich in 1718 to become

Malay Peninsula

2005-03-18T17:33:00.000-08:00

Also called the Kra Peninsula, in Southeast Asia, a long, narrow appendix of the mainland extending south for a distance of about 700 miles (1,127 km) through the Isthmus of Kra to Cape Balai, southernmost point of the Asian continent; its maximum width is 200 miles (322 km). It lies between the Andaman Sea of the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Malacca (west), the Singapore Strait (south), and the Gulf of Thailand and the South

Arnaut De Mareuil

2005-03-18T08:27:00.000-08:00

Little is known of Arnaut's life. His early poems were dedicated to his patroness, Adelaide, the daughter of Raymond V, count of Toulouse, and wife of Roger II, viscount of Béziers.

Indigestion

2005-03-17T23:45:00.000-08:00

Also called dyspepsia any or all of the symptoms—abdominal discomfort, belching, flatulence, aversion to eating, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, heartburn—associated with the malfunctioning of the digestive system. Indigestion may be caused by disease, but it primarily occurs because of stress, improper eating habits, excessive smoking, exorbitant consumption of coffee or

Canary Islands

2005-03-17T01:00:00.000-08:00

Spanish Islas Canarias comunidad autónoma (“autonomous community”) of Spain, consisting of an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, the nearest island being 67 miles (108 km) off the northwest African mainland. The Canaries comprise the Spanish provincias of Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, as well as the insular councils of Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, Tenerife, La Palma, Gomera, and

Saint Martin

2005-03-16T19:04:00.000-08:00

The island was named by Christopher Columbus in honour of the saint on whose feast day he sighted it. Valued for its natural lakes

Atoll

2005-03-16T08:59:00.000-08:00

Most of the reef itself is a submarine feature, rising from the abyssal floors of the ocean to just beneath high-tide level.

Gheorghiu-dej, Gheorghe

2005-03-16T07:20:00.000-08:00

Having become a revolutionary after World War I, Gheorghiu-Dej joined the then-outlawed Romanian Communist Party in 1930 and was sentenced to 12 years' hard labour for his role in the Grivita railwaymen's strike of 1933. Escaping prison in August

Jouvenet, Jean

2005-03-16T01:42:00.000-08:00

Jouvenet was the most celebrated of a family of artists and was son and pupil of Laurent Jouvenet. On arriving in Paris in 1661 he attracted the attention

Talence

2005-03-15T16:56:00.000-08:00

Town, Gironde département, Aquitaine région, southern suburb of Bordeaux, southwestern France. It is a centre for jet-aircraft production and has light industry and wine making. An extension of Bordeaux University (now Bordeaux University I), with housing for 30,000 students, was erected there in the 1960s and has since become a major educational and research centre. Pop. (1990) 36,172.

China, Relations with other peoples

2005-03-14T17:28:00.000-08:00

Simultaneously with the rise of the Ch'in and Han empires, some of the nomadic peoples of Central Asia, known as the Hsiung-nu, succeeded in achieving a measure of unity under a single leader. As a result, while the Chinese were consolidating their government, the lands lying to the north of the empire, and the northern provinces themselves, became subject to incursion

Judaism, Historiated Bibles and legendary histories

2005-03-14T15:26:00.000-08:00

When, in 330 BCE, Alexander the Great completed his conquest of the Middle East, Judaism entered a new phase. The dominant features of the ensuing Hellenistic age were an increasing cosmopolitanism and a fusion of Oriental and Greek cultures. These found expression in Jewish myth and legend in the composition (in Greek) of stories designed to link the Bible with general history,

Seattle

2005-03-13T19:50:00.000-08:00

Chief city of Washington, U.S., on a neck of land between Elliott Bay (Puget Sound) and Lake Washington (a 24-mile [39-kilometre] stretch of freshwater), seat (1853) of King county and the largest metropolis of the Pacific Northwest. A port of entry and gateway to the Orient and Alaska, it is surrounded by areas of great natural beauty; to the west, the Olympic Mountains provide protection

Tsuzumi

2005-03-12T19:45:00.000-08:00

Any of various Japanese two-headed drums with hourglass-shaped (waisted) bodies. Ancient Japanese court orchestra music had three types of these drums, of which only the san no tsuzumi form survives in komagaku style (courtly music of Japanese, Korean, and other non-Chinese, non-Indian ancestry). Better-known tsuzumi are found in the music of No and Kabuki theatres. The

Sangamon River

2005-03-12T18:14:00.000-08:00

River formed by headstreams in northwestern Champaign County, Illinois, U.S. It flows southwesterly, bending around Decatur, where a dam impounds Lake Decatur, and turns west past Springfield, the state capital, and then north and west to join the Illinois River just north of Beardstown, after a course of 250 mi (400 km). The first Illinois home (1830) of Abraham Lincoln was on a bluff

Ashburton, John Dunning, 1st Baron

2005-03-12T05:37:00.000-08:00

English jurist and politician who defended the radical John Wilkes against charges of seditious and obscene libel (1763–64) and who is also important as the author of a resolution in Parliament (April 6, 1780) condemning George III for his support of Lord North's government despite the unpopularity of its policies during

Griffith, D W

2005-03-11T03:04:00.000-08:00

D.W. Griffith, the son of Jacob Griffith, a former Confederate colonel, was born in a tiny hamlet not far from Louisville, Ky. He received his early education in one-room schools, largely under the tutelage of his older sister, and was subject to the strong influence of his father's imaginative stories of the Mexican and Civil wars and family readings of the works of Dickens,

Wazyk, Adam

2005-03-10T19:30:00.000-08:00

Wazyk's earliest volumes of poetry, Semafory (1924; “Semaphores”) and Oczy i usta (1926; “Eyes and Lips”), were written between the ages of 17 and 20 and reflect the instability of life in Poland after World War I and

Argentina, Patagonia

2005-03-10T14:17:00.000-08:00

This region consists of an Andean zone (also called Western Patagonia) and the main Patagonian plateau south of the Pampas, which extends to the tip of South America. The surface of Patagonia descends east of the Andes in a series of broad, flat steps extending to the Atlantic coast. Evidently, the region's gigantic landforms and coastal terraces were created by the

Bhaiband

2005-03-10T04:11:00.000-08:00

(Hindi), Urdu-Persian Beradari (“brotherhood”), important instrument of caste self-government in India; the bhaiband is the council formed by the heads of families that belong to the same lineage in a particular area, thus constituting an exogamous (those who do not intermarry) unit within the endogamous (those who do intermarry) caste group. One of their concerns, in addition to questions arising as a

Aegospotami, Battle Of

2005-03-09T17:10:00.000-08:00

(405 BC), naval victory of Sparta over Athens, final battle of the Peloponnesian War. The fleets of the two Greek rival powers faced each other in the Hellespont for four days without battle, until on the fifth day the Spartans under Lysander surprised the Athenians in their anchorage off Aegospotami. Conon, the Athenian commander, escaped with only 20 of his 180 ships, and the 3,000–4,000 Athenians

Amorphous Solid, Magnetic glasses

2005-03-09T10:54:00.000-08:00

The last entry in the Table is an application of metallic glasses having magnetic properties. These are typically iron-rich amorphous solids with compositions such as Fe0.8B0.2 iron-boron and Fe0.8B0.1Si0.1 iron-boron-silicon. They are readily formed as long metallic glass ribbons by melt spinning or as wide sheets by planar flow casting. Ferromagnetic glasses are mechanically

Aegospotami, Battle Of

2005-03-08T16:38:00.000-08:00

Formerly (1974–92) Confederation of Socialist Parties of the European Community transnational parliamentary group representing the interests of allied socialist and social democratic parties in the European Parliament of the European Union (EU). Although a socialist group fostered cooperation among socialist parties in the Common Assembly of both the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (later

Theatre Music

2005-03-08T05:52:00.000-08:00

Music as an art of the theatre has its roots in primitive ritual and ceremony and its branches in every modern means of theatrical presentation. Its functions are

Acclimatization

2005-03-07T04:51:00.000-08:00

The numerous sudden changes that evoke rapid and short-term responses via the nervous and hormonal systems are not examples of acclimatization. An individual

Cacus And Caca

2005-03-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

In Roman religion, brother and sister, respectively, originally fire deities of the early Roman settlement on the Palatine Hill, where “Cacus' stairs” were later situated. The Roman poet Virgil described Cacus as the son of the flame god Vulcan and as a monstrous fire-breathing brigand who terrorized the countryside. He stole some of the giant Geryon's cattle from the

Nizam Shahi Dynasty

2005-03-06T08:50:00.000-08:00

The Nizam Shahi dynasty was engaged in constant

Arabian Sea, Submarine morphology and geology

2005-03-06T00:58:00.000-08:00

The Arabian Sea was formed within the past 150 million years (i.e., during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras) as the Indian subcontinent migrated north and collided with Asia. Stretching southeastward from Socotra is the submarine Carlsberg Ridge, which coincides with the belt of seismic activity in the Indian Ocean that divides the Arabian Sea into two major basins—the

D-day

2005-03-05T17:31:00.000-08:00

(in World War II), first day of the Allied landing in Normandy, France. See Normandy Invasion.

Argyll, John Campbell, 2nd Duke Of, Duke Of Greenwich, Marquess Of Kintyre And Lorne, Earl Of Campbell And Cowall, Earl Of Greenwich, Viscount Of Loch

2005-03-04T21:29:00.000-08:00

The son of the 1st Duke of Argyll (in the Scottish peerage), he actively furthered the union of England and Scotland and was created a peer of England (1705), with the titles Earl of Greenwich and Baron of Chatham. He served

Badminton

2005-03-04T03:33:00.000-08:00

The temporary retirement of reigning Olympic badminton gold medalist Gong Zhichao opened the door for Denmark's Camilla Martin at the All England championships in Birmingham, Eng., in March 2002. Nevertheless, Martin had to overcome four formidable Chinese opponents on her way to her first All England title, including a semifinal victory over Dai Yun and a final-round

Pig Iron

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

Crude iron obtained directly from the blast furnace and cast in molds. See cast iron.

Tjokroaminoto, Omar Said

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

The Sarekat Dagang Islam (Association of Islamic Traders), established in 1911 to promote the interests of Indonesian traders faced with growing

Ob River

2005-03-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

Although paleo-Asiatic peoples have inhabited the Ob basin for millennia, Russian explorers and adventurers first penetrated the area only toward the end of the 16th century. During the reign of Ivan IV (the Terrible), the Cossack folk hero Yermak led an expedition into the Ob basin (1581–84/85) that claimed vast expanses for the tsar. Settlements and forts were established at Tyumen

Aron, Raymond (-claude-ferdinand)

2005-03-02T13:11:00.000-08:00

The son of a Jewish jurist, Aron obtained his doctorate in 1930 from the École Normale Supérieure with a thesis on the philosophy of history. He was a professor of social philosophy at the University of Toulouse when World War II

Heisenberg, Werner

2005-03-01T08:37:00.000-08:00

In full Werner Karl Heisenberg German physicist and philosopher who discovered a way to formulate quantum mechanics in terms of matrices (1925). For that discovery, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for 1932. In 1927 he published his indeterminacy, or uncertainty, principle, upon which he built his philosophy and for which he is best known. He also made important contributions

Higgs Particle

2005-02-28T19:42:00.000-08:00

The Higgs field is different from other fundamental fields, such

Burgess, Gelett

2005-02-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

Burgess was educated as an engineer and worked briefly for a railroad in that capacity. Between 1891 and 1894 he taught topographical drawing at the University

World Water Crisis: Is There A Way Out?

2005-02-28T09:14:00.000-08:00

On the face of it, the current water crisis as presented by the UN is a classic Malthusian dilemma: a geometrically expanding population will soon meet the limits of a fixed supply of water. Yet Malthusian predictions of famine and other catastrophes have been made since the principle was first enunciated in 1798, and no such prediction has ever come true. Take the UN's claim

Bewcastle Cross

2005-02-28T06:33:00.000-08:00

Runic monument in Cumbria, Eng., dating from the late 7th or early 8th century. Although the top of the cross has been lost, a weather-beaten, 15-foot (4.5-metre) shaft remains, showing on one face a figure of Christ trampling on the heads of beasts, a runic inscription underneath, and, above Christ's figure, a falconer, possibly St. John the Evangelist with his eagle. On another side elaborate

Xanthate

2005-02-27T19:06:00.000-08:00

Any of a class of organic salts formed by treatment of an alcohol with carbon disulfide in the presence of an alkali. The term is derived from the Greek word xanthos, for “yellow,” in reference to the compound potassium ethyl xanthate (C2H5OCS2K), which gives a yellow precipitate when combined with copper sulfate. The most important group of xanthates are the sodium salts

Khanty And Mansi

2005-02-26T08:32:00.000-08:00

Their present-day territory

Cambyses Ii

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

Achaemenid king of Persia (reigned 529–522 BC), who conquered Egypt in 525; he was the eldest son of King Cyrus II the Great by Cassandane, daughter of a fellow Achaemenid. During his father's lifetime Cambyses was in charge of Babylonian affairs. In 538 he performed the ritual duties of a Babylonian king at the important New Year festival, and in 530, before Cyrus set out on his last

Nan-ga

2005-02-25T07:04:00.000-08:00

Also called Bunjin-ga (“Literati Painting”), style of painting practiced by numerous Japanese painters of the 18th and 19th centuries. Some of the most original and creative painters of the middle and late Edo period belonged to the Nan-ga school. The style is based on developments of 17th- and 18th-century individualism in the Ch'ing-dynasty painting of China. Nan-ga artists transformed as they borrowed,

Rabanus Maurus,

2005-02-24T23:19:00.000-08:00

Rabanus was sent to Tours, Fr., in 802 to study under the noted scholar-monk Alcuin. In 803 he assumed the direction of the monastic school of

Tung Chung-shu

2005-02-23T19:23:00.000-08:00

As a chief minister to the emperor Wu (c. 140–87) of the Han dynasty, Tung was chiefly responsible for the

Saxifragaceae

2005-02-23T11:41:00.000-08:00

The saxifrage family of flowering plants, in the order Rosales, comprising 36 genera of mostly perennial dicotyledonous herbs. The members are cosmopolitan in distribution but native primarily to northern cold and temperate regions. Members of the family have leaves that characteristically alternate along the stem and sometimes are deeply lobed or form rosettes.

American Literature, Fiction

2005-02-23T06:57:00.000-08:00

The little magazines that helped the growth of the poetry also contributed to a development of the fiction of the era. They printed daring or unconventional short stories and published attacks upon established writers. The Dial (1880–1929), the Little Review (1914–29), the Seven Arts (1916–17), and others encouraged modernist innovation. More potent were two magazines edited by the ferociously

Audion

2005-02-22T15:03:00.000-08:00

Elementary form of radio tube developed in 1906 (patented 1907) by Lee De Forest of the United States. It was the first vacuum tube in which a control grid as well as a cathode and an anode was incorporated. With the development of multigrid tubes in the 1920s, the generic term audion fell into disuse and was replaced by more descriptive terminology. See also triode; tetrode; pentode

Masada

2005-02-22T14:03:00.000-08:00

Masada occupies the entire top of an isolated mesa near the southwest coast of the Dead Sea. The rhomboid-shaped mountain towers 1,424 feet (434 m) above the level of the Dead Sea. It has a summit area of about 18 acres (7 hectares). Some authorities

Benserade, Isaac De

2005-02-21T23:15:00.000-08:00

Benserade began visiting the salon of the Marquise de Rambouillet, the literary centre of Paris, in 1634 and wrote a succession of romantic verses that won him a reputation culminating in the “sonnets controversy” of 1649, in which his sonnet “Job” was

Thomas The Rhymer

2005-02-21T03:05:00.000-08:00

Also called Thomas Learmont , or Thomas Of Erceldoune Scottish poet and prophet who was likely the author of the metrical romance Sir Tristrem, a version of the widely diffused Tristan legend. The romance was first printed in 1804 by Sir Walter Scott from a manuscript of about 1300. Thomas is now probably best known through the ballad “Thomas the Rhymer,” included by Scott in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802). In popular lore

Gamma Globulin

2005-02-20T17:27:00.000-08:00

Subgroup of the blood proteins called globulins. In humans and many of the other mammals, antibodies, when they are formed, occur in the gamma globulins. Persons who lack gamma globulin or who have an inadequate supply of it—conditions called, respectively, agammaglobulinemia and hypogammaglobulinemia—have frequently recurring infections because of their inability

Hei Tiki

2005-02-20T13:49:00.000-08:00

Small neck pendant in the form of a human fetus, used by the Maori of New Zealand as a fertility symbol. Usually carved of green nephrite or a jadelike stone called pounamu that is found along the western coast of the South Island, hei tikis normally are worn only by women. The object is believed to possess magical powers that increase as it is passed on from generation

Waiheke Island

2005-02-20T01:37:00.000-08:00

The island, whose Maori name means “cascading waters,” was the site of manganese

Loisy, Alfred Firmin

2005-02-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

Loisy trained at the Institut Catholique in Paris, where he was influenced by the historian L.-M.-O. Duchesne,

Novel

2005-02-17T17:55:00.000-08:00

An invented prose narrative of considerable length and a certain complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience, usually through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting. Within its broad framework, the genre of the novel has encompassed an extensive range of types and styles: picaresque, epistolary, Gothic,

Süchow

2005-02-17T11:09:00.000-08:00

Süchow is located in the gap in the Shantung Hills that forms a southwestern extension into the North China Plain. Through this gap flows

Reformed Church Of France

2005-02-17T09:02:00.000-08:00

French Église Reformée De France, church organized in 1938 by merging several Reformed groups that had developed in France during and after the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. During the early part of the Reformation, Protestant movements made slow progress in France. Yet reforming movements within the Roman Catholic Church had appeared early. Before Martin Luther had emerged as a Reformer in

Cinq-mars, Henri Coiffier De Ruzé, Marquis De

2005-02-17T01:45:00.000-08:00

Cinq-Mars was the son of the marshal Antoine Coiffier-Ruzé, marquis d'Effiat, a close friend of Richelieu, who took the boy under his protection on his father's death in 1632. Richelieu

Schattschneider, Elmer Eric

2005-02-16T08:39:00.000-08:00

Schattschneider earned an A.B. at the University of Wisconsin (1915), an M.A. at the University of Pittsburgh (1927), and a Ph.D. at Columbia University (1935). He taught at Columbia (1927–30); Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. (1929–30); and Wesleyan

Lynchburg

2005-02-15T06:46:00.000-08:00

City, administratively independent of, but located in, Campbell and Bedford counties, south-central Virginia, U.S. It is situated on the James River, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The city grew from a ferry landing settled in 1757 by Quakers; it was named for John Lynch, the ferry operator who owned the original town site. During the American Revolution, John's

Arbeau, Thoinot

2005-02-15T06:34:00.000-08:00

Orchésographie is

Bindweed

2005-02-15T00:58:00.000-08:00

Plants of the closely related genera Convolvulus and Calystegia, mostly twining, often weedy, and producing handsome white, pink, or blue, funnel-shaped flowers. Bellbine, or greater bindweed (Calystegia sepium), native in Eurasia and North America, bears arrow-shaped leaves and white to pink, 5-centimetre (2-inch) flowers. This twining perennial grows

Aetolian League

2005-02-14T22:45:00.000-08:00

Federal state or “sympolity” of Aetolia, in ancient Greece. Probably based on a looser tribal community, it was well-enough organized to conduct negotiations with Athens in 367 BC. It became by c. 340 one of the leading military powers in Greece. Having successfully resisted invasions by Macedonia in 322 and 314–311, the league rapidly grew in strength during the ensuing period of Macedonian

Egypt, Ancient, Ramses IV

2005-02-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

Ramses III was succeeded by his son Ramses IV (ruled 1156–50 BC). In an act of piety that also reinforced his legitimacy, Ramses IV saw to the compilation of a long papyrus in which the deceased Ramses III confirmed the temple holdings throughout Egypt; Ramses III had provided the largest benefactions to the Theban temples, in terms of donations of both land and personnel. Most

Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra

2005-02-14T00:30:00.000-08:00

Bankim Chandra was a member of an orthodox Brahman family and was educated at Hooghly College, at Presidency College, Calcutta, and at the University

Nemean Games

2005-02-12T14:25:00.000-08:00

In ancient Greece, athletic and musical competitions held in honour of Zeus, in July, at the great Temple of Zeus at Nemea, in Argolis. They occurred biennially, in the same years as the Isthmian Games, i.e., in the second and fourth years of each Olympiad. Their origin was attributed to such legendary figures as Heracles and Adrastus of Argos. The presidency of the games was

Le Chapelier, Jean

2005-02-12T10:04:00.000-08:00

Beginning

Triceps Muscle

2005-02-12T02:31:00.000-08:00

Any muscle with three heads, or points of origin, particularly the large extensor along the back of the upper arm in humans. It originates just below the socket of the scapula (shoulder blade) and at two distinct areas of the humerus, the bone of the upper arm. It extends downward and inserts on (attaches to) the upper part of the ulna, in the forearm. Its major action is extension

Race, Galton and Spencer

2005-02-11T07:31:00.000-08:00

Hereditarian ideology also flourished in late 19th-century England. Two major writers and proselytizers of the idea of the innate racial superiority of the upper classes were Francis Galton and Herbert Spencer. Galton wrote books with titles such as Hereditary Genius (1869), in which he showed that a disproportionate number of the great men of England—the military leaders,

Paraguarí

2005-02-10T20:04:00.000-08:00

City, southern Paraguay. It lies on the southern slopes of the forested extension of the Brazilian Highlands, including the Cordillera de los Altos, a mountainous chain that reaches westward to Asunción. Originally a Jesuit mission, the city was formally organized in 1775. In 1811, when Paraguay stood aside from the Argentine colonies in their revolt against Spain,

Sore Mouth

2005-02-10T19:39:00.000-08:00

Also called doby mouth, pustular dermatitis , or contagious ecthyma (CE) viral disease of sheep and goats. Blisters, pustules, ulcers, and scabs form on the lips especially but also on the face and ears. In severe cases sores form inside the mouth. Infections occur in the spring and summer and heal in about a month. Humans who work around the sheep sometimes become infected.

Frederick Ii

2005-02-10T19:37:00.000-08:00

Frederick settled his disputes with the Bohemian followers of Jan Hus, church reformer and condemned heretic, in 1432, and relations were cemented in 1464, when

Bradley, A(ndrew) C(ecil)

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

Bradley attended Oxford and held professorships of modern literature at the University of Liverpool (1882–90), of English language and literature at the University of Glasgow (1890–1900), and of poetry at Oxford University (1901–06). His Shakespearean