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Earth

2005-04-04T03:22:00.000-07:00

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

Raymond Vi

2005-04-02T14:00:00.000-08:00

The son of Count Raymond V, Raymond VI was a nephew of King Louis VII of France and brother-in-law of King Richard I of England. Tolerant toward the many

Samarra'

2005-03-31T04:11:00.000-08:00

Town, central Iraq. Located on the Tigris River, it is the site of a prehistoric settlement of the 5th millennium BC. The town was founded between the 3rd and 7th centuries AD. In 836, when the 'Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim was pressured to leave Baghdad, he made Samarra' his new capital. He built a palace and gardens, and under his successors the town grew until it stretched along the Tigris for

Kaministiquia River

2005-03-29T05:24:00.000-08:00

Also spelled Kaministikwia, river, western Ontario, Can. It rises in Dog Lake and, after a crooked course of 60 miles (95 km), empties into Thunder Bay, an arm of Lake Superior. It has many rapids and cataracts, notably the wide Kakabeka Falls (154 feet [47 m] high), site of a major hydroelectric station. The river divides into three channels as it enters Thunder Bay, providing deepwater shipping docks at the city of Thunder

Hippocrateaceae

2005-03-23T04:50:00.000-08:00

Family of woody vines, shrubs, and trees, belonging to the order Celastrales, comprising 21 genera common in the tropics. They have simple leaves and small, greenish flowers. The genus Hippocratea has 80 or more species, including H. ovata, a high-climbing vine—in tropical America and the West Indies—with leathery, oval leaves. Salacia, with 200 species, differs from Hippocratea

Algeria, World War II and the movement for independence

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

World War II brought with it the collapse of France and, in 1942, the Anglo-American occupation of North Africa. The occupation forces were to some extent automatically agents of emancipation; both Allied and Axis radio stations began to broadcast in Arabic, promising a new world for formerly subject peoples. The effect was further heightened by the June 1941 promise of emancipation

Empoli

2005-03-19T00:31:00.000-08:00

Town, Firenze (Florence) provincia, Toscana (Tuscany) regione, north-central Italy, on the lower Arno River. During the medieval Florentine wars, Empoli was the scene of the Ghibelline congress of 1260, where Farinata degli Uberti successfully opposed the destruction of defeated Florence, an episode referred to in Dante's Inferno. The painter Iacopo Chimenti da Empoli and

Pacific Ocean

2005-03-18T18:02:00.000-08:00

The Pacific island arcs are believed to have originated in the lateral thrusting of the Eurasian and Australian plates toward and over the Pacific floor, the shapes of the

Tyrant

2005-03-15T17:08:00.000-08:00

Greek Tyrannos a cruel and oppressive ruler or, in ancient Greece, a ruler who seized power unconstitutionally or inherited such power. In the 10th and 9th centuries BC, monarchy had been the usual form of government in the Greek states; the aristocratic regimes that had replaced monarchy were by the 7th century BC themselves unpopular. Thus the opportunity arose for ambitious men to seize

La Rochefoucauld Family

2005-03-14T23:31:00.000-08:00

One of France's noblest families, traceable in Angoumois to the year 1019. Ducal titles belonging to it are: duke (duc) de La Rochefoucauld (1622); duke de La Roche-Guyon (1679); duke d'Anville (1732); duke d'Estissac; duke de Liancourt (1747); duke de Doudeauville (1780); duke (duca) di Bisaccia (Neapolitan title; 1851); and duke (duque) de Estrées (Spanish title; 1892). Its two best-known members, François VI, Duke de La Rochefoucauld,

Drag Racing

2005-03-11T14:26:00.000-08:00

Contestants line

Margai, Sir Milton (augustus Striery)

2005-03-09T05:34:00.000-08:00

The grandson of a paramount chief and the

Rupelian Stage

2005-03-08T21:09:00.000-08:00

All those rocks deposited worldwide during the Rupelian Age (36.6 to 30 million years ago). The Rupelian is the earlier of two stages in the Oligocene Series and comprises the Lower Oligocene. It was named for exposures studied along the Rupel, a tributary of the Scheldt River in Belgium. This area formerly served as the type district for the stage. The global stratotype section

Chi-tsang

2005-03-06T05:54:00.000-08:00

Chi-tsang was the son of a Parthian father and a Chinese mother, but his education and upbringing were wholly Chinese. In an age characterized by social unrest and military

Interior Design, Greece

2005-03-04T07:03:00.000-08:00

A period of so-called dark ages in Greece followed the destruction of Knossos in c. 1400 BC, but Cretan civilization had already influenced the mainland before then. Small terra-cotta models of furniture and fragments of tables and chairs dating from as early as 1350 BC have been found. Homer's epic Odyssey, dating from the 9th–8th century BC, speaks of a chair inlaid with ivory and silver,

Chachapoyas

2005-03-02T18:18:00.000-08:00

Capital of Amazonas departamento, located in northern Peru. It lies at 7,657 feet (2,334 m) above sea level in the cool Utcubamba River valley. A site of ancient settlement, it is the oldest Spanish city east of the Andes. Founded in 1538 as San Juan de la Frontera de los Chachapoyas (“Saint John of the Frontier of the Chachapoyas”) at a site slightly to the southeast, the town was later moved

Hohokam Culture

2005-02-27T15:53:00.000-08:00

During the Pioneer period the Hohokam lived in villages

Intercalation

2005-02-26T13:30:00.000-08:00

Insertion of days into a calendar to bring it into line with the solar year (year of the seasons). One example is the periodic inclusion of leap-year day (February 29) in the Gregorian calendar now in general use. To keep the months of a lunar calendar (e.g., the Hindu calendar) in their proper seasons, an entire month must be intercalated or extracalated (dropped) periodically,

Atef, Muhammad

2005-02-23T14:24:00.000-08:00

Egyptian-born Islamist militant (b. 1944?, Egypt—d. Nov. 14/15, 2001, near Kabul, Afg.), was believed to have been a close associate of Osama bin Laden (in early 2001 his daughter married Bin Laden's son) and chief military strategist for the Islamic terrorist organization al-Qaeda. He reportedly trained as a police officer before joining the radical Egyptian Islamic Jihad, members of which assassinated

Aerospace Industry, Commercial heavy aircraft

2005-02-21T09:16:00.000-08:00

The need for large-scale air transportation has been central to commercial aircraft manufacturing. As one of the world's most vital industries, airlines are key to many aspects of the world economy, from international business and tourism to routine movement of people and goods ranging from massive machinery to agricultural products and personal items. The United

Lahore

2005-02-20T23:20:00.000-08:00

Little is known of the history of the settlement prior to the Muslim period. Hindu legend attributes the founding of Lahore to Lava, or Loh, son of Rama, for whom it is said to have been named Lohawar. The city

Averescu, Alexandru

2005-02-17T23:20:00.000-08:00

After serving in the Romanian war of independence against Turkey (Russo-Turkish War, 1877–78), Averescu was sent to Italy for military training. As an army

Devon

2005-02-16T11:27:00.000-08:00

Administrative, geographic, and historic county of England, forming part of the Southwest Peninsula of Great Britain and bounded on the west by Cornwall and on the east by Dorset and Somerset. The administrative, geographic, and historic counties cover slightly different areas. The historic county comprises the entire geographic county, as well as a small area

Devon

2005-02-13T02:27:00.000-08:00

French Organisation De L'unité Africaine (OUA) labour organization founded in 1973 at Addis Ababa, Eth., on the initiative of the Organization of African Unity and replacing the former All-African Trade Union Federation (AATUF; founded in 1961) and the African Trade Union Confederation (ATUC; founded in 1962). The ATUC from its founding had encouraged member affiliation with other international union organizations, while the

Ruthenian

2005-02-11T21:30:00.000-08:00

Also called Ruthene any of those Ukrainians who were formerly Polish or Austrian and Austro-Hungarian subjects. The name is a Latinized form of the word Russian, but the Ruthenians are Ukrainians who, by accidents of history in the late Middle Ages, were absorbed into the territory of Lithuania, which in turn was united with Poland. The term Little Russians has also been applied to them.

Computers, Invention of the modern computer

2005-02-09T00:22:00.000-08:00

G. Pascal Zachary, Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century (1997), presents a detailed account of Bush's role in transforming scientific research in the United States through government funding.

Social War

2005-02-07T23:14:00.000-08:00

The allies in central and southern Italy had fought side by side with Rome in several wars and had grown restive under Roman autocratic rule, wanting instead Roman citizenship and the privileges it conferred. In 91 BC the Roman tribune Marcus Livius

Hywel Dda

2005-02-06T22:50:00.000-08:00

Hywel became ruler of Seisyllwg (roughly the area of Dyfed and the Towy Valley) jointly with his brother Clydog after the death of their father, Cadell (c. 910), but after Clydog's death in 920 he ruled alone. Sovereignty

Fuseli, Henry

2005-02-04T10:24:00.000-08:00

Fuseli was reared in an intellectual and artistic milieu and initially studied theology. Obliged to flee Zürich because of political entanglements, he went first to Berlin, and then settled in London in 1764. He was encouraged

Bene Beraq

2005-02-02T02:37:00.000-08:00

Near the presumed location of ancient Bene Beraq, a

Draft Riot Of 1863

2005-01-31T01:44:00.000-08:00

Major four-day eruption of violence in New York City resulting from deep worker discontent with the inequities of conscription during the U.S. Civil War. Although labouring people in general supported the Northern war effort, they had no voice in Republican policy and occasionally deserted from the army or refused reenlistment. Because of their low wages, often

Tallchief, Marjorie

2005-01-28T20:27:00.000-08:00

Born in a town on an Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma, Marjorie and her sister Maria were of Osage and Scotch-Irish descent. Both sisters began dancing as children and later studied with Bronislava Nijinska and David Lichine,

Fiddler Crab

2005-01-26T13:00:00.000-08:00

Also called calling crab any of the approximately 65 species of the genus Uca (order Decapoda of the subphylum Crustacea). They are named “fiddler” because the male holds one claw, always much larger than the other, somewhat like a violin. Both claws in the female are relatively small. If a male loses his large claw, the small one develops into a large claw, and a small one replaces the lost large

Chandernagore

2005-01-25T19:06:00.000-08:00

Also called Chandannagar city, southeastern West Bengal state, northeastern India, just west of the Hooghly River and part of the Calcutta urban agglomeration. It is connected by road and rail with Calcutta and Burdwan. Settled in 1673 by the French and expanded commercially, it was captured by the English in 1757 and again in 1794 but was restored to France in 1815. Following the 1949 plebiscite, it merged with India.

Latin Averroism

2005-01-22T17:57:00.000-08:00

The teachings of a number of Western Christian philosophers who, in the later Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, drew inspiration from the interpretation of Aristotle put forward by Averroës, a Muslim philosopher. The basic tenet of Latin Averroism was the assertion that reason and philosophy are superior to faith and knowledge founded on faith. The Latin

Devanagari,

2005-01-21T20:18:00.000-08:00

Also called Nagari, Indian script used to write the Sanskrit, Prakrit, Hindi, and Marathi languages, developed from the North Indian monumental script known as Gupta and ultimately from the Brahmi alphabet, from which all modern Indian writing systems are derived. In use from the 7th century AD and occurring in its mature form from the 11th century onward, Devanagari is characterized by long, horizontal

Biblical Literature, Purpose and theme

2005-01-18T06:20:00.000-08:00

The Revelation (i.e., Apocalypse) to John is an answer in apocalyptic terms to the needs of the church in time of persecution, as it awaits the end-time expected in the near future. The purpose of the book is to encourage and admonish the church to be steadfast and endure. The form of an apocalypse shows affinities with contemporary Jewish, Oriental, and Hellenistic writings

Pacific, War Of The

2005-01-16T15:48:00.000-08:00

Spanish Guerra Del Pacífico (1879–83), conflict involving Chile, Bolivia, and Peru, which resulted in Chilean annexation of valuable disputed territory on the Pacific coast. It grew out of a dispute between Chile and Bolivia over control of a part of the Atacama Desert that lies between the 23rd and 26th parallels on the Pacific coast of South America. The territory contained valuable mineral resources, particularly

Maccabeus, Jonathan

2005-01-14T23:53:00.000-08:00

Also called Apphus, Maccabeus also spelled Maccabaeus Jewish general, a son of the priest Mattathias, who took over the leadership of the Maccabean revolt after the death of his elder brother Judas. A brilliant diplomat, if not quite so good a soldier as his elder brother, Jonathan refused all compromise with the superior Seleucid forces, taking advantage of their internal troubles to free Judaea again from external

Myers V. United States

2005-01-13T22:21:00.000-08:00

(1926), U.S. Supreme Court case that voided a legislative provision restricting the authority of the president to remove or replace certain postmasters without consent of the Senate. In the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice William H. Taft, the court held that the provision was an unconstitutional restriction on the president's power to exercise control over

Cladophora

2005-01-10T14:23:00.000-08:00

Genus of green algae found growing attached to rocks or timbers submerged in shallow lakes and streams; there are some marine species. Coarse in appearance, with regular-branching filaments that have cross walls separating multinucleate segments, Cladophora grows in the form of a tuft or ball that may range up to 13 cm (5 inches) in length. Asexual reproduction involves

Bekabad

2005-01-08T00:42:00.000-08:00

City, Tashkent oblast (province), eastern Uzbekistan. It lies along both banks of the Syr River at the extreme southern tip of the oblast. The town arose originally in connection with a cement plant and until World War II was known as a cement and cotton centre. During World War II a small steel plant was constructed in Bekabad. It uses scrap and some pig iron brought from

Aragonite

2005-01-06T20:33:00.000-08:00

Widespread mineral, the stable form of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) at high pressures. It may be distinguished from calcite, the commoner form of calcium carbonate, by its greater hardness and specific gravity. Aragonite is always found in deposits formed at low temperatures near the surface of the Earth, as in caves as stalactites, in the oxidized zone of ore minerals

Beast Tale

2005-01-04T03:37:00.000-08:00

A prose or verse narrative similar to the beast fable in that it portrays animal characters acting as humans but unlike the fable in that it usually lacks a moral. Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1880) derived many episodes from beast tales carried to the United States by African slaves. Animal Farm (1945), an anti-utopian satire by George Orwell, is

Chang Hsüeh-liang

2005-01-02T11:09:00.000-08:00

Chang Hsüeh-liang was the oldest son of the warlord Chang Tso-lin, who dominated Manchuria and parts of North China. The younger Chang was

Berle, Milton

2005-01-01T00:50:00.000-08:00

Berle first appeared on the vaudeville stage at age 10. With his mother's encouragement, he continued in vaudeville throughout his youth, and he also acted in more than 50 silent films.

Chadwick, Sir Edwin

2004-12-29T07:55:00.000-08:00

As secretary of the royal commission on reform of the poor laws (1834–46), Chadwick was largely responsible for devising the system under which the country was divided into groups of parishes administered by elected boards of guardians,

Conservation Law

2004-12-28T10:07:00.000-08:00

Also called Law Of Conservation, any of several principles applied in physics that state that certain physical properties (i.e., measurable quantities) do not change in the course of time within an isolated physical system. In classical physics, laws of this type govern mass, energy, momentum, and electric charge. In particle physics, other conservation laws apply to properties of subatomic particles

Holcroft, Thomas

2004-12-26T23:38:00.000-08:00

The son of a peddler, Holcroft worked as a stableboy, cobbler, and teacher before he was able to make his living as a writer. He is remembered for his melodrama The Road to Ruin (performed 1792, often revived); his translation of Beaumarchais's play Le Mariage de Figaro (Paris, 1784) under the title The Follies

Kunlun Mountains

2004-12-23T14:11:00.000-08:00

The northern rim of the Kunlun Mountains, skirting the Tarim Basin, served for centuries as the southerly branch of the Silk Road that, until the 16th century, connected China with Central and West Asia. Wool and salt were the main products brought down from the heights of the Kunluns to the oases on the edge of the Takla Makan Desert. Small regional Buddhist monasteries

Behring, Emil Von

2004-12-22T08:01:00.000-08:00

Behring received his medical degree in 1878 from the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Institut,

Spaceflight

2004-12-19T19:49:00.000-08:00

Flight beyond Earth's atmosphere. This article deals with the basic concepts associated with the launch and return of unmanned and manned spacecraft and their travel, navigation, and rendezvous and docking in space. For the development of space travel and discussions of spacecraft and space programs and their contributions to scientific knowledge

Benserade, Isaac De

2004-12-18T01:50:00.000-08:00

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

Län

2004-12-16T18:46:00.000-08:00

Administrative subdivision (county) of Sweden; see landskap.

East China Sea

2004-12-14T23:50:00.000-08:00

Chinese (Wade-Giles) Tung Hai, or (Pinyin) Dong Hai, arm of the Pacific Ocean and part of the China Sea (q.v.). It covers about 290,000 square miles (752,000 square km) and is bounded by the islands of Cheju (north), Kyushu (northeast), the Ryukyu chain (east), and Taiwan (south) and by China (west). It is connected to the South China Sea by the Taiwan Strait. Its Chinese name means “eastern sea.”

Camden

2004-12-11T06:45:00.000-08:00

Inner borough of London, part of the historic county of Middlesex, to the north of Westminster and the historic City of London. It extends some 5 miles (8 km) from below High Holborn (road) to the northern heights of Hampstead Heath. Camden was created a borough in 1965 by the amalgamation of the former metropolitan boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn, and St. Pancras. Camden includes

Ernest Ii

2004-12-09T18:45:00.000-08:00

He succeeded his father, Duke Ernest I, in 1844. In 1852 he gave Gotha a new constitution, which in part coordinated the administration of his two duchies. In 1861 Ernest concluded

Alembert, Jean Le Rond D'

2004-12-07T01:33:00.000-08:00

Posterity has not confirmed the judgment of those contemporaries who placed d'Alembert's reputation next to Voltaire's. In spite of his original contributions to the mathematical sciences, intellectual timidity prevented his literary and philosophical work from attaining true greatness. Nevertheless, his scientific background enabled him to elaborate

Papyrus Column

2004-12-05T04:21:00.000-08:00

In Egyptian religion, amulet that conveyed freshness, youth, vigour, and the continuance of life to its wearer. The amulet, made of glazed ware or various types of stone, was shaped like a papyrus stem and bud. Its significance was perhaps derived from its ideographic value (Egyptian wadj, “green, fresh, vigorous”); for, just as the plant itself was vigorous and growing, so also

Sun-joffe Manifesto

2004-12-04T20:54:00.000-08:00

In the negotiations that led to the signing of the manifesto, Sun agreed to the formation

Black Country

2004-12-01T01:24:00.000-08:00

Industrial region closely corresponding to the small south Staffordshire coalfield in the Midlands region of England; its name derives from its pollution-coated industrial landscape. The Black Country extends immediately to the west of the city of Birmingham, which itself lies off the coalfield, and makes up the western part of the metropolitan county of West

Liliidae, Phytochemistry

2004-11-30T09:33:00.000-08:00

As might be expected from so large a group, Liliidae are very diverse in their flavonoids. These compounds have systematic importance only at the generic level. The unusual steroid saponins, however, characterize Liliidae to a remarkable degree, although they are absent from several groupings—notably Lilium and its close allies as well as several genera with alkaloids

Amnesty International

2004-11-26T00:16:00.000-08:00

Egon Larsen, A Flame in Barbed Wire (1978); and Jonathan Power, Amnesty International: The Human Rights Story (1981), a well-illustrated work, chronicle the group's history. Marie Staunton and Sally Fenn (compilers and eds.), The Amnesty International Handbook (1991), delineates the group's three goals and describes volunteer action.

Furniture, England

2004-11-24T22:45:00.000-08:00

About 1720, mahogany was imported into England and slowly superseded walnut as the fashionable wood for furniture. The Palladian (after the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio) interiors demanded furniture more striking and larger in scale than the walnut-veneered pieces of the early 18th century. Inspired by the interiors of French and Italian palaces,

Jackson

2004-11-21T20:47:00.000-08:00

City, capital of Mississippi, U.S. It lies along the Pearl River, in the west-central part of the state, about 180 miles (290 km) north of New Orleans, Louisiana. Jackson is also the coseat (with nearby Raymond) of Hinds county. Settled (1792) by Louis LeFleur, a French-Canadian trader, and known as LeFleur's Bluff, it remained a trading post until the Treaty of Doak's Stand (October 18, 1820) opened the territory

Anthropology And Archaeology, Cultural Anthropology.

2004-11-20T10:34:00.000-08:00

Cultural anthropology, the only social science traditionally dedicated to describing and understanding the diversities and commonalities of human culture and society, remained a discipline in creative ferment during 1999. Ethnographers, those who describe culture, continued searching for more effective data-collection methods as they struggled to determine

Baseball

2004-11-17T06:51:00.000-08:00

Although Sosa, with 63 homers, became the first player to hit 60 home runs in two consecutive seasons, McGwire hit 65, including the 500th of his career, and led the NL with 147 runs batted in. Larry Walker of the Colorado Rockies won the NL batting title with an average of .379. Astros pitchers Mike Hampton (22) and Jose Lima (21) led the league in victories, but Randy Johnson of Arizona, who struck out

Wind Instrument, Trumpet-type aerophones

2004-11-16T09:50:00.000-08:00

As regards sound generation, trumpets and horns differ from other aerophones in their use of the so-called “lip reed,” which is formed when the player's partially closed lips vibrate as they press against the rim of a mouthpiece or mouth hole (although the behaviour of the lips, strictly speaking, is not exactly comparable to the operation of a reed). When the lips vibrate,

Gwanda

2004-11-14T10:14:00.000-08:00

Town, southern Zimbabwe. Gwanda was founded in 1900, and its name derives from that of a nearby hill known as Jahunda. It is located on the Bulawayo-Beitbridge road and the railway that runs south to West Nicholson. The town is the chief centre for southwestern Zimbabwe's cattle district and also trades in agricultural produce. There are gold, asbestos, and chrome mines in

Red River

2004-11-11T11:16:00.000-08:00

Also called Red River Of The South, navigable river rising in the high plains of eastern New Mexico, U.S., and flowing southeast across Texas and Louisiana to a point northwest of Baton Rouge, where it enters the Atchafalaya River (q.v.), which flows south to Atchafalaya Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Until the mid-20th century, the Red River contributed flow to both the Atchafalaya and, via the Old River, the Mississippi.

Interlingua

2004-11-09T02:39:00.000-08:00

Also called Latino Sine Flexione, simplified form of Latin intended for use as an international second language. Interlingua was originally developed in 1903 by the Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano, but lack of clarity as to what parts of Latin were to be retained and what were to be discarded led to numerous “dialects” of Interlingua, confusion, and its dying out among enthusiasts. In the late 1940s and

Tung-t'ing Lake

2004-11-08T10:37:00.000-08:00

Wade–Giles romanization Tung-t'ing Hu, Pinyin Dongting Hu, large lake in northern Hunan Province, China. It lies in a basin to the south of the Yangtze River. The lake is connected to the Yangtze by four channels; some 40 percent of the river's waters (more in flood periods) flow into the lake. The lake is also fed from the south by almost the entire drainage of Hunan Province, with the Hsiang River flowing in from the south and the Tzu,

China, The Chou feudal system

2004-11-05T01:53:00.000-08:00

The feudal states were not contiguous but, rather, were scattered at strategic locations surrounded by potentially dangerous and hostile nations. The fortified city of the feudal lord was often the only area that he controlled directly; the state and the city were therefore identical, both being kuo, a combination of city wall and weapons. Satellite cities were

World War I, The Battle of Jutland

2004-11-04T01:40:00.000-08:00

Admiral Reinhard Scheer, who became commander in chief of the High Seas Fleet in January 1916, planned to contrive an encounter on the open sea between his fleet and some

Bellingshausen, Fabian Gottlieb Von

2004-11-02T01:41:00.000-08:00

Commanding

Kohat

2004-10-31T02:08:00.000-08:00

Town, south-central North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan. The town lies just north of the Kohat Toi River at the entrance to the Kohat Pass, through which a military road was opened in 1901. The new town lies at some distance from the original 14th-century town, traditionally said to have been founded by the Buddhist raja Kohat. It is connected by rail with Thal and the main rail

Pacific Ocean, Salinity

2004-10-29T19:46:00.000-07:00

The salinity patterns of the surface waters of the Pacific are influenced largely by wind and by rainfall and evaporation patterns. The waters within the belt of calms and variable winds near the equator have lower salinities than those in the trade-wind belts. In the equatorial belt, relatively large amounts of rain fall and little evaporation occurs both because

Aeterni Patris

2004-10-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

An encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII on Aug. 4, 1879, which strengthened the position of the philosophical system of the medieval Scholastic philosopher-theologian St. Thomas Aquinas and soon made Thomism the dominant philosophical viewpoint in Roman Catholicism.

Hadley Cell

2004-10-25T02:55:00.000-07:00

Simple model of the Earth's atmospheric circulation that was proposed by George Hadley (1735). It consists of a single wind system in each hemisphere, with westward and Equatorward flow near the surface and eastward and poleward flow at higher altitudes. The tropical regions receive more heat from solar radiation than they radiate back into space, and the polar regions

Calderdale

2004-10-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

Westernmost metropolitan borough, metropolitan county of West Yorkshire, England. The metropolitan borough is part of the historic county of Yorkshire, except for a small area west of Todmorden that belongs to the historic county of Lancashire. The bleak gritstone Pennine moorlands, with scattered sheep farms and reservoirs, rise to an elevation of 1,500 feet (457 metres)

Anchor

2004-10-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

Ancient anchors consisted of large stones, basketfuls of stones, sacks filled with sand, or logs of wood loaded with lead; these held the vessel merely by their weight

Moravian Karst

2004-10-19T01:38:00.000-07:00

Czech Moravský Kras karst in Jihomoravský kraj (region), eastern Czech Republic. It is a limestone area containing a labyrinth of swallow holes, underground passages and lakes, caverns, and calcareous formations. One of several small, disconnected karst areas, it is situated north of Brno, along the eastern bank of the Svitava River, and eastward along the latter's underground tributaries,

Armlet

2004-10-17T05:23:00.000-07:00

Several fine examples of armlets are included in the Oxus treasure, a collection of Persian

Tibet, Drainage and soils

2004-10-15T04:20:00.000-07:00

The Plateau of Tibet is a prime source of water for Central Asia. The Indus River, known in Tibet as the Shih-ch'üan Ho (in Tibetan, Sênggê Zangbo: “Out of the Lion's Mouth”), has its source in western Tibet near Mount Kailas, a mountain sacred to Buddhists and Hindus; it then flows westward across Kashmir to Pakistan. Three other rivers also begin in the west. The Hsiang-ch'üan River

Pippin

2004-10-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

Given the title of king of Italy in 781, Pippin took part in campaigns against Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria from 787 and led an army against the Avars in 796. His Venetian campaign (809–810) enabled Charlemagne later to come to favourable terms with the Byzantine Empire. As early as 806, Charlemagne, in planning the division

Devils Lake

2004-10-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

City, seat of Ramsey county, northeast-central North Dakota, U.S. The community was established with the opening of a land office in 1882 as Creelsburg (later Creel City) and was the head of steamboat navigation on Devils Lake, a saline body of water originally about 30 miles [50 km] long. By 1909, when the lake had receded 4 miles (6 km) from the city, navigation ceased. The city developed as a trade

Tobey, Mark

2004-10-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

Tobey studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and worked for a time as a fashion illustrator and portraitist in New York City. He converted

André Le Chapelain,

2004-10-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

Latin Andreas Capellanus French writer on the art of courtly love, best known for his three-volume treatise Liber de arte honeste amandi et reprobatione inhonesti amoris (c. 1185; “Book of the Art of Loving Nobly and the Reprobation of Dishonourable Love”). He is thought to have been a chaplain at the court of Marie, Countess of Champagne, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine. At Marie's request

Mollien, Nicolas-françois, Count (comte)

2004-10-05T14:44:00.000-07:00

Mollien worked in the office that controlled the activities of the farmers general (private contractors who collected oppressive taxes from the peasants, often by harsh measures) from 1781, and in 1786 he drew up a contract whereby these tax collectors' payments to the Royal Treasury

Muhammad Ibn Tughluq

2004-10-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

Second sultan of the Tughluq dynasty (reigned 1325–51), who briefly extended the rule of the Delhi sultanate of northern India over most of the subcontinent. As a result of misguided administrative actions and unexampled severity toward his opponents, he eventually lost his authority in the south; at the end of his reign, the sultanate had begun to

Tool

2004-10-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

An instrument for making material changes on other objects, as by cutting, shearing, striking, rubbing, grinding, squeezing, measuring, or other process. A hand tool is a small manual instrument traditionally operated by the muscular strength of the user; a machine tool is a power-driven mechanism used to cut, shape, or form materials such as wood and metal. Tools are the

Ribbentrop, Joachim Von

2004-09-29T15:23:00.000-07:00

Ribbentrop was the son of an army officer in a middle-class family. After attending schools in Germany, Switzerland, France, and England, he went to Canada (1910), but he returned to Germany at the outbreak of World

Chadwick, Sir Edwin

2004-09-28T18:05:00.000-07:00

Fox, Vicente

2004-09-27T02:10:00.000-07:00

Fox, the second of nine children, was born to parents of Spanish and Irish descent and raised on a 1,100-acre (445-hectare) ranch in the state of Guanajuato. After earning a degree in business administration from the Ibero-American

Rio Grande Do Sul

2004-09-26T16:29:00.000-07:00

The region was originally thinly inhabited by Tupí-Guaraní, Ge, and Guaycurú Indians. It

Cheltenham

2004-09-24T17:39:00.000-07:00

A church is known to have existed at Cheltenham as early as 803. The town is first mentioned in documents in 1223, when the benefit of markets, fairs, and the hundred (feudal

Islam, The Black Muslims

2004-09-23T04:04:00.000-07:00

After World War II an Islamic movement arose among blacks in the United States; members called themselves the Nation of Islam, but they were popularly known as Black Muslims. Although they adopted some Islamic social practices, the group was in large part a black separatist and social protest movement. Their leader, Elijah Muhammad, who claimed to be an inspired prophet,

Somalia, Somali clans and foreign traders

2004-09-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

Thus, by the latter part of the 19th century the coastal and hinterland traditions had merged, and the centre of pressure had swung from the coast to the interior. In the north the ancient ports of Berbera and Seylac, much reduced in prosperity and importance, were now controlled by Somali nomads, and the position with the old ports of Marka, Baraawe, and Mogadishu was very

Strategic Weapons System

2004-09-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

Any weapons system designed to strike an enemy at the source of his military, economic, or political power. In practice, this means destroying a nation's cities, factories, military bases, transportation and communications infrastructure, and seat of government. Strategic weapons systems use atomic or thermonuclear devices, because only these weapons have sufficient

Balanopales

2004-09-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

Order of dicotyledonous flowering plants comprising the family Balanopaceae, with a single genus (Balanops) and 12 species of trees and shrubs that have simple, alternately positioned or somewhat whorled leaves. The plants are further characterized by flowers that lack showy parts (sepals and petals). The male and female flowers occur on separate plants (i.e., the plants