ShutTooth

Estate Agent Fitzrovia

2006-10-25T00:35:00.000-07:00

Robert Irving Burns specialise in London Commercial and Residential property services. They are a specialist in estate agent fitzrovia, amongst other London areas such as Soho and Oxford Circus.

Andamanese

2005-03-30T03:35:00.000-08:00

Aboriginal inhabitants of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. They belong to Negrito stock, which is represented also by the Semang of Malaysia and the Pygmies of the Philippines. Most have been detribalized and absorbed into modern Indian life, but traditional culture survives among such tribes as the Jarawa and Onge of the lesser islands. Speakers

Fable, Parable, And Allegory, Fable

2005-03-30T00:20:00.000-08:00

E. Chambry, Fables (1927), in Greek and French; S.A. Handford, Fables of Aesop (1956); B. Pares, Krylov's Fables (1926); Marianne Moore, Fables of La Fontaine (1954). For commentary on fables, see P. Clarac, La Fontaine, l'homme et l'oeuvre (1947); B.E. Perry, Aesopica (1952).

Tamil Literature

2005-03-29T03:10:00.000-08:00

Body of writings in Tamil, a Dravidian language of India and Sri Lanka. Apart from literature written in classical (Indo-Aryan) Sanskrit, Tamil is the oldest literature in India. Some inscriptions on stone have been dated to the 3rd century BC, but Tamil literature proper begins around the 1st century AD. Much early poetry was religious or epic; an exception was the secular court

Wilhelmina

2005-03-28T22:02:00.000-08:00

The daughter of King William III and his second wife, Emma of Waldeck-Pyrmont, Wilhelmina became queen on her father's death (Nov. 23, 1890) under her mother's regency. She

Vaigai River

2005-03-27T15:51:00.000-08:00

River in Tamil Nadu state, southern India, flowing 150 miles (240 km) generally southeast. Rising in the Varushanad Hills of western Tamil Nadu, it initially flows northeast through the Kambam and Varushanad valleys. In its central reaches the Vaigai flows eastward into the Vaigai reservoir at Narasingapuram. Near Sholavandan it bends to the southeast, passing Madurai town on

Vaigai River

2005-03-26T14:01:00.000-08:00

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

Hellenistic Age, Science and medicine

2005-03-25T10:11:00.000-08:00

The three great areas of Hellenistic scholarship were medicine, astronomy, and mathematics. Alexandria attracted Herophilus (fl. 3rd century BC) from Chalcedon, who refused to stand in awe of the accepted medical dogmas and was distinguished in systematic anatomy, and the notable physiologist Erasistratus (fl. 3rd century BC) from Ceos, who realized that the heart is the

Belinsky, Vissarion Grigoryevich

2005-03-25T03:21:00.000-08:00

The son of a provincial doctor, Belinsky was expelled from the University of Moscow (1832) and earned his living thereafter as a journalist. His first substantial critical articles were part

Compurgation

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

The essence of the procedure lay in oath making. The party responsible for proving a fact had to produce a number of witnesses (usually 12) who would swear that he was

Adams, John, Biographies

2005-03-24T01:21:00.000-08:00

Among the full-length biographies, three stand out: Page Smith, John Adams, 2 vol. (1962–63, reprinted in 1 vol., 1988); Peter Shaw, The Character of John Adams (1976); and John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (1992, reissued 1996). Although a fictional biography, Catherine Drinker Bowen, John Adams and the American Revolution (1950), is unsurpassed in bringing Adams to life during the early stages of his career. For the latter phase of his life, see Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (1993). The Adams presidency is the focus of two books: Stephen G. Kurtz, The Presidency of John Adams: The Collapse of Federalism, 1795–1800 (1957, reissued 1961); and Ralph Adams Brown, The Presidency of John Adams (1975). An old but still valuable rendering of the presidential years is Manning J. Dauer, The Adams Federalists (1953, reprinted 1984).

Southern Africa, Xhosa-Dutch conflict

2005-03-23T14:30:00.000-08:00

Settler expansion to the Cape's eastern frontier was blocked by the 1770s when trekboers came up against numerous Xhosa farmers in the area of the Great Fish River. During the 18th century the Xhosa had been embroiled in two major civil wars over the chiefly succession, of which the more important was the dispute, between the paramount Gcaleka and his ambitious brother

Han-tan

2005-03-22T22:51:00.000-08:00

The area was already settled

Carlsbad

2005-03-22T14:31:00.000-08:00

City, San Diego county, southern California, U.S. It lies along the Pacific Ocean just south of Oceanside, in a winter vegetable- and flower-growing district. Settled in the 1870s, it was first called Frazier's Station but was renamed (1883) when its mineral waters were found to be similar to those of Carlsbad in Bohemia (now Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic). After the arrival (1885) of the Santa

Kathiawar Peninsula

2005-03-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

Peninsula in southwestern Gujarat state, west-central India. It is bounded by the Little Rann (marsh) of Kachchh (Kutch; north), the Gulf of Cambay (east), the Arabian Sea (southwest), and the Gulf of Kachchh (northwest). From the northeast an ancient sandstone formation extends into the peninsula, which has an area of 23,000 square miles (60,000 square km). Most of the sandstone, however, is masked

Vennberg, Karl

2005-03-20T17:02:00.000-08:00

Vennberg was a teacher of Norwegian in a Stockholm folk high school. His influential reviews and critical essays broke the ground for the radical cause of the 40-talslyrik (1947; “Poetry of the 1940s”), an anthology that he edited together with Erik Lindegren. His two volumes

China, Twentieth-century China

2005-03-20T08:46:00.000-08:00

The bibliography on contemporary Chinese history is vast and growing rapidly. Although publications on modern China are uneven in coverage and quality, most subjects of interest have been discussed in the writings of scholars and visitors to China and Taiwan. A comprehensive bibliography of these writings is compiled annually by the Journal of Asian Studies. See also George Ginsburgs and Michael Mathos, Communist China and Tibet: The First Dozen Years (1964); Edgar Snow, Red China Today (1971); John Wilson Lewis, Leadership in Communist China (1963, reprinted 1978), and (ed.), The City in Communist China (1971); Benjamin I. Schwartz, Communism and China: Ideology in Flux (1968); C.K. Yang, The Chinese Communist Society: The Family and the Village (1965); Byung-joon Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution: Dynamics of Policy Processes (1976); Lowell Dittmer, Liu Shao-Ch'i and the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Mass Criticism (1974); Kenneth Lieberthal, Revolution and Tradition in Tientsin, 1949–1952 (1980); Maurice Miesner, Mao's China: History of the People's Republic (1977); William E. Griffith, The Sino-Soviet Rift, Analysed and Documented (1964), and Sino-Soviet Relations, 1964–1965 (1967); Richard Baum, Prelude to Revolution: Mao, the Party, and the Peasant Question, 1962–66 (1975); Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, 2 vol. (1974–83); Frederick C. Teiwes, Politics and Purges in China: Rectifications and the Decline of Party Norms, 1950–1965 (1979); Tang Tsou, The Cultural Revolution and Post-Mao Reforms (1986); Edward E. Rice, Mao's Way (1972); Robert A. Scalapino (ed.), Elites in the People's Republic of China (1972); Stuart Schram (ed.), Mao Tse-tung Unrehearsed: Talks and Letters: 1956–71 (1974, U.S. title, Chairman Mao Talks to the People: Talks and Letters, 1956–1971); Frederic Wakeman, Jr., History and Will: Philosophical Perspectives of Mao Tse-tung's Thought (1973); William W. Whitson and Chen-hsia Huang, The Chinese High Command: A History of Communist Military Politics, 1927–71 (1973); Martin King Whyte, Small Groups and Political Rituals in China (1974); Margery Wolf and Roxane Witke (eds.), Women in Chinese Society (1975); and Margery Wolf, Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China (1985).

World War I, The Far East

2005-03-20T07:57:00.000-08:00

China's entry into the war in 1917 on the side of the Allies was motivated not by any grievance against the Central Powers but by the Peking government's fear lest Japan, a belligerent since 1914, should monopolize the sympathies of the Allies and of the United States when Far Eastern affairs came up for settlement after the war. Accordingly, in March 1917 the Peking government severed

Chapelain, Jean

2005-03-19T23:06:00.000-08:00

Chapelain's approach was a challenge to others of his day who appealed in doctrinaire fashion to classical Greek authorities. His critical views were advanced primarily in short articles and monographs and in his voluminous correspondence.

Susanoo

2005-03-18T06:25:00.000-08:00

Susanoo descended into the land of Izumo in western Japan

Obama, Barack, Jr.

2005-03-17T20:49:00.000-08:00

American politician who became the third African American, and the first African American male Democrat, to be elected to the U.S. Senate after the end of Reconstruction (1877). Obama's father, Barack Obama, Sr., was originally a goatherd in Kenya; he won a scholarship to study in the United States and eventually became a senior economist in the Kenyan

Russia

2005-03-17T10:10:00.000-08:00

Growth revived somewhat in mid-2001, and the government remained bullish,

San Francisco Gotera

2005-03-17T07:17:00.000-08:00

City, eastern El Salvador, on the Río Grande de San Miguel. Formerly called Gotera, its name was modified in 1887 to honour Francisco Morazán, the former Central American president. It is an agricultural and livestock-trading centre. Gold and silver are mined nearby at El Divisadero. Pop. (1985 est.) 15,113.

Spain, Literature

2005-03-16T21:26:00.000-08:00

In the 9th century there flourished such court poets as 'Abbas ibn Nasih, 'Abbas ibn Firnas, Yahya al-Ghazal, and the knight Sa'id ibn Judi. Towering above all these, however, was Muhammad ibn Hani', nicknamed the “Mutanabbi of the West” (Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi was a 10th-century poet of Iraq), who by virtue of his religious ideas was obliged to forsake his native land and enter into the service of the

Biblical Literature, Early versions

2005-03-16T04:21:00.000-08:00

Even with all these witnesses, there remain problems in the Greek text. These include variants about which there is no settled opinion and some few words for which no accurate meaning can be found because they occur only once in the New Testament and not in prior Greek works. Very early translations of the New Testament made as it spread into the non-Greek-speaking

Mun River

2005-03-15T08:29:00.000-08:00

Thai Mae Nam Mun main river system of the Khorat Plateau, in eastern Thailand. The Mun rises in the San Kamphaeng Range northeast of Bangkok and flows east for 418 miles (673 km), receiving the Chi River, its main tributary, and entering the Mekong River at the Laotian border. Nakhon Ratchasima and Ubon Ratchathani are the chief towns on its banks. The river is seasonally navigable below Ubon

Disasters

2005-03-15T06:52:00.000-08:00

May 30, Minsk, Belarus. A stampede occurred in a passageway

Mountain, Landforms associated with hot spot volcanism

2005-03-14T20:46:00.000-08:00

Some volcanic phenomena occur at large distances from plate boundaries (for example, on the Hawaiian Islands or at Yellowstone National Park in the western continental United States). Also, as noted above, volcanism is especially intense at some parts of the mid-ocean ridge system (as in Iceland or the Galápagos Islands in the eastern Pacific). Magmas erupted in these

Argentina, The Northwest

2005-03-13T07:33:00.000-08:00

Vegetation in the Northwest region includes that of the high puna desert, the forested slopes of the Andes, and the subtropical scrub forests of the Pampean Sierras, the latter merging with the deciduous scrub woodlands of the Gran Chaco. Vegetation on the mostly exposed soil of the puna consists of dwarf shrubs and tough grasses, notably bunchgrass; these and other

Distributive Law

2005-03-13T04:40:00.000-08:00

In mathematics, the law relating to number operations stated symbolically, a(b + c + d) = ab + ac + ad; that is, the monomial factor a is distributed, or separately applied, to each term of the polynomial factor b + c + d, resulting in the product ab + ac + ad. Hence, the result of first adding several numbers and then multiplying the sum by some number is the same as first multiplying each separately

Yonezawa

2005-03-12T14:24:00.000-08:00

City, Yamagata Prefecture (ken), Honshu, Japan, on the Ou Line (railway). From the Muromachi period (1338–1573) to the Meiji Restoration (1868) it was a castle town of the Uesugi daimyo family (see Uesugi family). The ruling family initiated agrarian reforms by constructing irrigation systems and allowing samurai (warriors) to cultivate the fields and manufacture silk. Industrialization

France, History Of, The continental system

2005-03-12T14:14:00.000-08:00

Britain, however, was insulated from French military power; only an indirect strategy of economic warfare remained possible. Thus far Britain had driven most French merchant shipping from the high seas, and in desperation French merchants sold most of their ships to neutrals, allowing the United States to surpass France in the size of its merchant fleet. But after

Koch, Martin

2005-03-12T03:37:00.000-08:00

Koch came from a lower middle-class family, which his father deserted when the children were very young. The young Koch worked as a labourer's helper, studied art, and became active in the Good Templars Lodge. His first publication

Nephridium

2005-03-10T19:49:00.000-08:00

Nephridia occur in two

Nefertiti

2005-03-10T10:41:00.000-08:00

Nefertiti is best known for her portrait bust, found at Tell el-Amarna (ancient Akhetaton), the king's new capital.

Arts, Native American, Andean peoples

2005-03-10T05:49:00.000-08:00

Andean tribes, across the mountains from the Jívaro, also favour pentatonic scales, but they evolved a more sophisticated musical style during prehistory and in the period of Spanish colonization. They retain fragments of ancient ceremonial music, such as the invocation to the rain god on the Island of Taquila in Lake Titicaca—a repetitious tune for whistle and

Earth, The ancients

2005-03-09T04:09:00.000-08:00

Credit for the idea that the Earth is spherical is usually given to Pythagoras (flourished 6th century BC) and his school, who reasoned that, because the Moon and the Sun are spherical, the Earth is too. Notable among other Greek philosophers, Hipparchus (2nd century BC) and Aristotle (4th century BC) came to the same conclusion. Aristotle devoted a part of his book De caelo (On the

Regino Von Prüm,

2005-03-08T20:25:00.000-08:00

Born to a noble family, Regino joined the Benedictine monastic order at the flourishing Abbey of Prüm and studied theology and canon law. He was elected

Régence Style

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

Transition in the decorative arts from the massive rectilinear forms of Louis XIV furniture to those prefiguring the Rococo style of Louis XV. The style encompasses about the first 30 years of the 18th century, when Philippe II, duc d'Orléans, was regent of France. The restraint arrived at during this period resulted from a strong reaction against the pomposity of the

Candidiasis

2005-03-07T02:53:00.000-08:00

Also called moniliasis infectious disease produced by the yeastlike fungus Candida albicans and closely related species. A common inhabitant of the mouth, vagina, and intestinal tract, Candida ordinarily causes no ill effects, except among infants and in persons debilitated by illness such as diabetes. There is evidence that prolonged treatment with broad-spectrum antibiotics, such

Mckinley, Mount

2005-03-07T02:07:00.000-08:00

Alcuin

2005-03-05T19:54:00.000-08:00

Anglo-Latin poet, educator, and cleric who, as head of the Palatine school established by Charlemagne at Aachen, introduced the traditions of Anglo-Saxon humanism into western Europe. He was the foremost scholar of the revival of learning known as the Carolingian Renaissance. He also made important reforms in the Roman

Arenosol

2005-03-05T19:02:00.000-08:00

One of the 30 soil groups in the classification system of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Arenosols are sandy-textured soils that lack any significant soil profile development. They exhibit only a partially formed surface horizon (uppermost layer) that is low in humus, and they are bereft of subsurface clay accumulation. Given their excessive permeability

Ocaña

2005-03-05T18:50:00.000-08:00

City, Norte de Santander departamento, northern Colombia, in the Hacarí valley. Founded (c. 1570) as Nueva Madrid by Francisco Fernández, the city was renamed for Ocaña in New Castile, Spain. An independence convention that was held there in 1828 is commemorated by a triumphal arch. Barium mining and onion growing are basic economic activities. Ocaña is the superior court of a judicial

Alushta

2005-03-05T04:07:00.000-08:00

Also spelled Alušta, tourist resort, Crimea, Ukraine, on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula. It is the site of a settlement dating from the 6th century AD; in the 14th century it was a Genoan stronghold. Tourism, based on the fine beach and relatively cool summers, developed in the late 19th century. Pop. (1991 est.) 37,600.

Strålsund Faience

2005-03-04T14:59:00.000-08:00

Tin-glazed earthenware made at Strålsund, Swed. (now Stralsund, Ger.), from around 1755 to 1792. The factory was founded by Johann Ulrich Giese, who leased it to Johann Eberhard Ludwig Ehrenreich. The latter had founded a faience factory at Marieberg in Sweden, and the products of Strålsund differ little from Marieberg ware. All-white vases, decorated with naturalistic flowers

Zittel, Karl Alfred, Ritter (knight) Von

2005-03-03T14:40:00.000-08:00

In 1863 Zittel became an assistant to the royal mineral cabinet of Vienna and professor of mineralogy, geognosy, and paleontology at the Karlsruhe Polytechnic. In 1866 he became professor of geology and paleontology at the University

Buzzati, Dino

2005-03-03T11:46:00.000-08:00

Buzzati began his career on the Milan daily Corriere della Sera in 1928. His two novels of the mountains, written in the style of traditional realism, Barnabò delle montagne (1933; “Barnabus of the Mountains”) and Il segreto del bosco

Durham

2005-03-02T21:23:00.000-08:00

Town (township), Strafford county, southeastern New Hampshire, U.S., on the Oyster River just southwest of Dover. Settled in 1635, it was known as the parish of Oyster River until it was incorporated in 1732 and named for Durham, England. A series of savage Indian attacks began in 1675; in 1694 the town was burned, and more than 100 residents were killed or captured. During the American

World War I, Killed, wounded, and missing

2005-03-02T05:17:00.000-08:00

The casualties suffered by the participants in World War I dwarfed those of previous wars: some 8,500,000 soldiers died as a result of wounds and/or disease. The greatest number of casualties and wounds were inflicted by artillery, followed by small arms, and then by poison gas. The bayonet, which was relied on by the prewar French Army as the decisive weapon, actually produced

Skikda

2005-03-01T18:22:00.000-08:00

Formerly Philippeville, town, Mediterranean port, northeastern Algeria, situated on the Gulf of Stora. Founded by French Marshal Sylvain-Charles Valée in 1838 as the port of Constantine, it has an artificial harbour. Skikda occupies the site of ancient Rusicade, port of 4th-century Cirta, and has the largest Roman theatre in Algeria (used as a quarry, this has been greatly depleted). Roman artifacts

Alkali Metal

2005-03-01T17:10:00.000-08:00

Any of the six chemical elements that make up Group I of the periodic table—namely, lithium (Li), sodium (Na), potassium (K), rubidium (Rb), cesium (Cs), and francium (Fr). (See Figure.) The alkali metals are so called because they form alkalies (i.e., strong bases capable of neutralizing acids) when they combine with other elements. Sodium and potassium are the sixth and seventh most abundant

Faience Parlante

2005-03-01T16:03:00.000-08:00

(French: “talking faience”), in French pottery, popular utilitarian 18th-century earthenware, principally plates, jugs, and bowls, that had inscriptions as part of its decoration. The city of Nevers was the outstanding centre for the production of faience parlante. The range of inscriptions included owners' names, coats of arms, bacchic or facetious references, Masonic

Escrivá De Balaguer, Josemaría, Saint

2005-02-28T14:43:00.000-08:00

In full Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás Spanish prelate of the Roman Catholic church, founder in 1928 of Opus Dei, a Catholic organization of laymen and priests claiming to strive to live Christian lives in their chosen professions. By the time of Escrivá's death in 1975, its members numbered some 60,000 in 80 countries, and its critics charged it with

Scipio Africanus The Younger

2005-02-28T00:05:00.000-08:00

Scipio was the second son of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, hero of the Third Macedonian War and son of the consul (of the same name) who fell at the Battle of Cannae in 216. Paullus himself, twice consul, was an outstanding Roman leader who combined traditional Roman virtues with a keen interest in Greek culture. Soon after Scipio's birth, Paullus divorced his wife

Biblical Literature, Pesharim

2005-02-27T07:41:00.000-08:00

An important source of knowledge about the history of the Dead Sea sect is the pesharim (“commentaries”; singular pesher). The sectarian authors commented on the books of Old Testament prophets and the book of Psalms and in the commentaries explained the biblical text as speaking about the history of the sect and of events that happened in the time of its existence.

Vietnam

2005-02-26T21:15:00.000-08:00

Officially Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Vietnamese Cong Hoa Xa Hoi Chu Nghia Viet Nam, country occupying the eastern part of the Indochinese Peninsula. It has an area of 127,800 square miles (331,000 square kilometres). From north to south it extends about 1,025 miles (1,650 kilometres) and at its narrowest part is about 30 miles wide. Vietnam is bordered by China to the north, the South China Sea to the east and south, the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest, and Cambodia and Laos to the

Syria, From the 9th to the 12th century

2005-02-26T21:09:00.000-08:00

As the 'Abbasid caliphate disintegrated in its turn, Syria drifted out of the sphere of influence of Baghdad. In 877 it was annexed by the Tulunid dynasty of Egypt, and this began a political connection that was to last with intervals for more than six centuries. In northern Syria the Tulunids were succeeded by a local Arab dynasty, the Hamdanids of Aleppo, founded by Sayf ad-Dawlah

Biblical Literature, New Testament history

2005-02-26T14:37:00.000-08:00

(Jewish culture and history): Standard works are R.H. Pfeiffer (op. cit.); and George F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, 3 vol. (1927–30). (Qumran, Dead Sea Scrolls): Frank Moore Cross. Jr. (op. cit.); on Qumran and New Testament problems, see Krister Stendahl (ed.), The Scrolls and the New Testament (1958). (Greco-Roman culture and history): William W. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation, 3rd ed. rev. (1952). For a broad cultural comparison, see Eric R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (1965). (Pauline chronology): The debate can be best assessed by comparing John Knox, Chapters in a Life of Paul (1950), with Dieter Georgi, Die Geschichte der Kollekte des Paulus für Jerusalem (1965).

Olaf V

2005-02-24T22:28:00.000-08:00

Olaf was educated at the Norwegian military academy and at the University of Oxford in England. As crown prince he was a celebrated athlete and sportsman, excelling at ski jumping and yachting. He won a gold medal in yachting at the 1928 Olympic Games

Ahmed Yesevi

2005-02-23T23:51:00.000-08:00

Very little is known about his life, but legends indicate that his father died when the boy was young and his family moved to Yasi, where

Insurance, Business liability insurance

2005-02-23T15:19:00.000-08:00

Business liability contracts commonly written include the following: liability of a building owner, landlord, or tenant; liability of an employer for acts of negligence involving employees; liability of contractors or manufacturers; liability to members of the public resulting from faulty products or services; liability as a result of contractual agreements

Auburn

2005-02-23T15:05:00.000-08:00

City, seat (1805) of Cayuga county, west-central New York, U.S. It lies at the north end of Owasco Lake, in the Finger Lakes region, 22 miles (35 km) southwest of Syracuse. Founded in 1793 by John Hardenbergh, an officer in the American Revolution, on the site of a Cayuga Indian village called Wasco, it was first known as Hardenbergh's Corners. It developed around Auburn State Prison (established

Beira

2005-02-23T05:48:00.000-08:00

Port city, central Mozambique. Beira is situated on the Mozambique Channel (Indian Ocean) at the mouths of the Púngoè and Búzi rivers. It was founded in 1891 as the headquarters of the Companhia de Moçambique (“Mozambique Company”) on the site of an old Muslim settlement. The city's administration passed from the trading company to the Portuguese government in 1942 and then to independent

Brugge-zeebrugge Canal

2005-02-22T05:29:00.000-08:00

Waterway built between 1896 and 1907 to connect Brugge (Bruges) in Belgium with the North Sea, thus restoring Brugge's ancient status as an ocean port. At 7.5 miles (12 km) long, the canal has a depth of 24 feet (7 m), a minimum width of 65.7 feet (20 m), a maximum width of 350 feet (110 m), and one lock.

Allied Powers

2005-02-22T02:53:00.000-08:00

The major Allied Powers in World War I were the British Empire, France, and the Russian Empire, formally linked by the Treaty of London of Sept. 5, 1914; other nations that had been, or came to be, allied by treaty

Earth, Temperature distribution

2005-02-21T23:26:00.000-08:00

The temperature distribution through the Earth is mainly constrained by the seismological observations of which regions are solid and which are liquid—i.e., which regions transmit shear waves and which do not (Figures 15 and 17 ). Thus, the average temperature in the solid crust and mantle must be lower than the melting point of rocks that make up these regions. Similarly,

Ventilating

2005-02-21T01:55:00.000-08:00

The hazards of poor ventilation were not clearly understood until the early

Motion Picture, History Of The, Germany

2005-02-20T13:47:00.000-08:00

Because of its ownership of the Tobis-Klangfilm patents, the German film industry found itself in a position of relative strength in the early years of sound, and it produced several important films during that period, including Josef von Sternberg's Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel, 1930), G.W. Pabst's two antiwar films, Westfront 1918 (1930) and Kameradschaft (1931), and his adaptation of Bertolt

Asch, Sholem

2005-02-20T11:13:00.000-08:00

One of the 10 surviving children of a poor family, Asch was educated at Kutno's Hebrew school. In 1899 he went to Warsaw, and in 1900 he published his highly praised first story—written, as was a cycle

Cinna, Lucius Cornelius

2005-02-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

After serving in the Social War (90–88), Cinna became consul in 87. When Sulla left Rome to fight Mithradates VI, king of Pontus, in the East, Cinna repealed Sulla's laws and threatened him with prosecution. Cinna's proposed revival of a bill of Publius Sulpicius Rufus (for the equal distribution of the newly enfranchised

Shih-ho-tzu

2005-02-18T10:25:00.000-08:00

Pinyin Shihezi, new city in the Uighur Autonomous Region of Sinkiang, China. The city is situated north of the Tien Shan range in the south-central Dzungarian Basin near the Ma-na-ssu River. Prior to 1949 the area was sparsely inhabited by Uighur, Kazak, and other Turkic pastoralists. The new Chinese government sent a colony of soldiers (later provided with wives), organized as a military construction

Ecuador, Domination of Velasco Ibarra (post-World War II)

2005-02-18T04:11:00.000-08:00

Politics and government after World War II presented contradictions. Ecuador enjoyed a long period of constitutional government and relatively free elections following the presidency of the Radical Liberal leader Galo Plaza (1948–52). There were also two long interludes of military government (1963–66; 1972–79), but the period was dominated by one of Latin America's great caudillos,

Surabaya

2005-02-17T20:27:00.000-08:00

Surabaya has been the chief trading centre of eastern Java since the 14th century.

England, Theatre

2005-02-17T05:54:00.000-08:00

Theatre is probably the performing art for which England is best known. Theatrical performance as such emerged during the Middle Ages in the form of mumming plays, which borrowed elements from wandering entertainers, traditional and ancient folk agricultural rituals, and dances such as the Morris dance (with its set character parts). Under the influence of Christianity,

Haldeman, H.r.

2005-02-17T02:49:00.000-08:00

Haldeman graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles in business

Wickerwork

2005-02-16T19:11:00.000-08:00

Furniture made of real or simulated osier (rods or twigs) plaited into appropriate shapes. The Egyptians made furniture of this kind in the 3rd millennium BC, and it has always flourished in those regions in which there is a plentiful supply of riverside vegetation. A well-known example of Roman wickerwork is the chair on a 3rd-century-AD relief in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum

Lutheranism

2005-02-15T17:03:00.000-08:00

The Lutheran churches, originally in Germany but quickly spreading to

Polemoniaceae

2005-02-15T06:53:00.000-08:00

The tubular, five-lobed, funnel-shaped or flaring

Aetheling

2005-02-13T21:09:00.000-08:00

Also spelled Atheling, or Etheling, in Anglo-Saxon England, generally any person of noble birth. Use of the term was usually restricted to members of a royal family, and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it is used almost exclusively for members of the royal house of Wessex. It was occasionally used after the Norman Conquest to designate members of the royal family—e.g., William the Aetheling, son and heir of King

Gateleg Table

2005-02-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

Type of table first used in England in the 16th century. The top had a fixed section and one or two hinged sections, which, when not in use, folded back onto the fixed section or were allowed to hang vertically. The hinged section, or flap, was supported on pivoted legs joined at the top and bottom by stretchers and so constituting a gate. Large flaps had two supports,

Baseball

2005-02-13T08:17:00.000-08:00

Both Alfred H. Spink's The National Game (1910) and A.G. Spalding's America's National Game (1911), generally regarded as the first attempts at writing a standard history of baseball, cite Casey at the Bat as the best baseball poem ever written. Spalding goes so far as to proclaim that “Love has its sonnets galore; War its epics in heroic verse; Tragedy its sombre story in measured line;

Kunlun Mountains, Drainage and glaciation

2005-02-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

The Kunluns form a part of that region in Central Asia in which there is only internal drainage, associated mainly with the Tarim and Tsaidam basins to the north and the basins of the Plateau of Tibet to the south. Only the most easterly spurs of the mountain system, where the source of the Huang Ho (Yellow River) is located, have drainage systems that empty into the

Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church

2005-02-12T03:11:00.000-08:00

Church organized by Norwegian and Swedish immigrants in 1860 in Jefferson Prairie, Wis., as the Scandinavian Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Tufve Nilsson Hasselquist, an ordained minister in the Church of Sweden, was the first president. It took its name from Confessio Augustana, the Latin name for the Augsburg Confession, written in 1530 by German Lutheran Reformers.

Yurt

2005-02-12T01:49:00.001-08:00

Also spelled yurta , Mongol ger tentlike Central Asian nomad's dwelling, erected on wooden poles and covered with skin, felt, or handwoven textiles in bright colours. The interior is simply furnished with brightly coloured rugs (red often predominating) decorated with geometric or stylized animal patterns. The knotted pile rug, first known from a nomad burial at the foot of the Altai Mountains

Allen, Elizabeth Anne Chase Akers

2005-02-12T01:49:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth Chase grew up in Farmington, Maine, where she attended Farmington Academy (later Maine State Teachers College). She is said to have had a poem published in the Boston Olive

Sa'adia Ben Joseph

2005-02-11T14:07:00.000-08:00

Nechemiah Aloni, Ha-Egron (1969), an edition (in Hebrew) with extensive annotations; Israel Davidson (ed.), Saadiah's Polemic Against Hiwi al-Balkhi (1915), and The Book of the Wars of the Lord (1934), polemics against Sa'adia by Solomon ben Yeruhim (Hebrew edition with English translation)—the introductions to both editions require revision in light of later Genizah fragments; Joseph Derenbourg, Oeuvres complètes de R. Saadia Ben Iosef al-Fayyoûmî, vol. 3, Version arabe d'Isaïe (1896), and vol. 6, Version arabe des Proverbes (1894), Sa'adia's Arabic version of Isaiah and his version of the Proverbs—the Isaiah translation is accompanied by fragments of Sa'adia's lost commentary; Z. Diesendruck, “Saadya's Formulation of the Argument for Creation,” in Jewish Studies in Memory of George A. Kohut, 1874–1933 (1953), a profound article; Jakob Guttmann, Die Religionsphilosophie des Saadia (1882), traces the Greek and Arabic sources of Sa'adia's philosophy (the Arabic sources are not fully exhausted); Henry Malter, Saadia Gaon: His Life and Works (1921, reprinted 1969), the most comprehensive study on Sa'adia, although many aspects need to be revised in light of later studies; Harry A. Wolfson, “Saadia on the Trinity and Incarnation,” Studies and Essays in Honor of Abraham A. Neuman (1962), a very exhaustive study; Sa'adia anniversary volume, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research (1943); Erwin I.J. Rosenthal (ed.), Saadya Studies (1943); Moses Zucker, Rav Saadya Gaon's Translation of the Torah (in Hebrew, with English summary; 1959), and A Critique Against the Writings of R. Saadya Gaon by R. Mubashshir (1955), an edition important for restoration of Sa'adianic material as well as for the study of the relationship of some of Sa'adia's contemporaries to his literary work.

Cultural Evolution

2005-02-10T09:27:00.000-08:00

The development of a culture from simpler to more complex forms, by a continuous process. The subject may be viewed unilinearly, tracing the evolution of humankind as a whole; or it may be viewed multilinearly, treating the evolution of each culture or society (or of given parts of a culture or society) individually. Cultural evolution was an important concept in the

Babuyan Islands

2005-02-09T08:37:00.000-08:00

Island group of the Philippines that is a northerly extension of the Philippine archipelago. The Babuyan Islands lie in the Luzon Strait, south of the Batan Islands and Balintang Channel. They lie 20 miles (32 km) north of Luzon across the Babuyan Channel. With a total area of 230 square miles (600 square km), they comprise 24 volcanic-coralline islands, the chief of which are Babuyan,

Locke, John, Empiricism

2005-02-09T03:22:00.000-08:00

As for “the original,” the answer was plain. Knowledge of the world began in sense perception, and self-knowledge in introspection, or “reflection” in Locke's language. It did not begin in innate knowledge of maxims or general principles, and it did not proceed by syllogistic reasoning from such principles. In the 17th century there had been much vague talk about innate knowledge,

Racism

2005-02-08T11:46:00.000-08:00

Also called racialism any action, practice, or belief that reflects the racial worldview—the ideology that humans are divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called "races," that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural behavioral features, and that some races are innately superior to

Tsuzure

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

Japanese tapestry, the full name of which is tsuzure-nishiki (“polychrome tapestry”). They were usually woven of silk on cotton warp covered with silk, gold, or silver threads. Tsuzure techniques reached Japan from China in the late 15th or early 16th century during the Muromachi (Ashikaga) period (1338–1573). Production was at its height in the Tokugawa period (1603–1867), particularly early in the

Elizabeth Stuart

2005-02-08T00:25:00.000-08:00

The daughter of James VI of Scotland (later James I of Great Britain) and Anne of Denmark, Elizabeth in 1606 came to the British royal court, where her beauty and charm attracted much attention and where she soon became a favourite subject of the poets. Gustavus

Kara-bogaz-gol Gulf

2005-02-07T16:09:00.000-08:00

Russian Zaliv Kara-Bogaz-Gol , Turkmen Garabogazköl Aylagy inlet of the eastern Caspian Sea in northwestern Turkmenistan. With an area of 4,600–5,000 square miles (12,000–13,000 square km), it averages only 33 feet (10 m) in depth and has a very high evaporation rate. The water is thus extremely saline, and 7,000–11,000 cubic feet (200–300 cubic m) of water a second are drawn in from the Caspian through the narrow strait between the two sandy spits separating the gulf from the sea. The

Devils Lake

2005-02-07T11:09:00.000-08:00

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

Kweichow, Education

2005-02-06T15:02:00.000-08:00

Kweichow has one of the highest rates of illiteracy in China, especially among its many minority peoples. Nonetheless, there are a number of institutions of higher learning in the province, including Kweichow University, Kuei-yang Medical College, Kweichow Agricultural Institute (founded in 1939), the Kuei-yang Nationalities Institute (for training members of ethnic

Andean Peoples

2005-02-06T07:52:00.000-08:00

Although the Andes Mountains extend from Venezuela to the southern tip of the continent, it is conventional to call “Andean” only the people who were once part of Tawantinsuyu, the Inca Empire in the Central Andes, or those influenced by it. Even so, the Andean region is very wide. It encompasses

Neon

2005-02-05T03:58:00.000-08:00

(Ne), chemical element, inert gas of Group 0 (noble gases) of the periodic table, used in electric signs and fluorescent lamps. Colourless, odourless, tasteless, and lighter than air, neon gas occurs in minute quantities in the Earth's atmosphere and trapped within the rocks of the Earth's crust. Though neon is about 3 1/2 times as plentiful as helium in the atmosphere, dry air contains

Argentina, Presidency of Rivadavia

2005-02-04T19:04:00.000-08:00

In the meantime an attempt was made to establish a national government through a constituent assembly that met in December 1824. Overstepping its legal authority, the constituent assembly in February 1826 created the office of president of the republic and installed the porteño (native of Buenos Aires) Bernardino Rivadavia as its first occupant. Civil war flared up in

Gray, Simon

2005-02-04T11:53:00.000-08:00

Gray alternately lived in Canada and England, attending Westminster School in London; Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (B.A., 1957); and Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A.,