RoundSpoon

organic bed linen

2006-10-29T17:30:00.000-08:00

Livs range of soft luxurious bed linenis sourced ethically from India and using a fair trade policy. Liv also provide duvet cover set and bath towel set.

Minamata

2005-04-04T04:57:00.000-07:00

City, Kumamoto ken (prefecture), southeastern Kyushu, Japan, on Yatsushiro Bay. A company town of the Nippon Chisso Hiryo Company, its main products are chemical fertilizer, carbide, and vinyl chloride. Minamata was traditionally a fishing port and has regular sea-route connections to Amakusa-shimo Island, the main island of the Amakusa Archipelago. Hot springs are

Baranagar

2005-04-03T15:56:00.000-07:00

Also spelled Barahanagar town, southeastern West Bengal state, northeastern India, just east of the Hooghly River, part of the Calcutta urban agglomeration. Originally a Portuguese settlement, it became the seat of a Dutch trading station and an important river anchorage for Dutch shipping; in 1795 it was ceded to the British. Constituted as the municipality of North Suburban in 1869, the town was renamed

Brühl, Heinrich, Graf Von (count Of)

2005-04-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

Rising rapidly under Augustus II the Strong,

Foyer

2005-04-02T22:11:00.000-08:00

Intermediate area between the exterior and interior of a building, especially a theatre. Originally the term was applied only to that area in French theatres, comparable to the greenroom in English theatres, where actors relaxed when they were offstage. Because actors were accustomed to visits by friends during and after performances, such areas came to be large

France, History Of, The July monarchy

2005-04-01T13:35:00.000-08:00

The renovated regime (often called the July monarchy or the bourgeois monarchy) rested on an altered political theory and a broadened social base. Divine right gave way to popular sovereignty; the social centre of gravity shifted from the landowning aristocracy to the wealthy bourgeoisie. The Charter of 1814 was retained but no longer as a royal gift to the nation; it

Robert Ii

2005-04-01T00:30:00.000-08:00

The eldest son of William I the Conqueror, Robert was recognized in boyhood as his father's successor in Normandy. Nevertheless he twice rebelled against his father (1077/78 and c. 1082–83) and

Meson

2005-03-31T23:20:00.000-08:00

Any member of a family of subatomic particles composed of an even number of quarks and antiquarks. Mesons are sensitive to the strong force (the force that binds the components of the nucleus) because their constituent quarks are strongly interacting. Mesons consist of an even number of quarks with half-integral spin, and so they have integral spin. They vary widely

Dubnow, Simon Markovich

2005-03-30T13:57:00.000-08:00

Dubnow early ceased to practice Jewish rituals. He later came to believe that his vocation as a historian of Judaism was as true to the faith of his ancestors as were the Talmudic

Scandinavian Literature, Danish literature

2005-03-30T01:20:00.000-08:00

Denmark's first literature appeared in the runic inscriptions scratched on stone or carved in metal, mainly epitaphs of warriors, kings, and priests that occasionally had short, unrhymed alliterative verses in the Viking spirit. Runic inscriptions were used in Denmark from about 250, but most of those preserved date from 800 to 1100. With the introduction of Christianity, Latin

Middle Way

2005-03-29T21:45:00.000-08:00

Sanskrit Madhyama-pratipada , Pali Majjhima-patipada in Buddhism, complement of general and specific ethical practices and philosophical views that are said to facilitate enlightenment by avoiding the extremes of self-gratification on one hand and self-mortification on the other. See Eightfold Path.

Levita, Elijah Bokher

2005-03-29T20:53:00.000-08:00

Levita went to Italy early in life and in 1504 settled at Padua. There he wrote a manual of Hebrew (1508) that was appropriated by his transcriber,

Andrade, Mário De

2005-03-28T04:50:00.000-08:00

Educated at the conservatory in São Paulo, Andrade helped organize what proved to be a key event in the

Medicine, Geriatrics

2005-03-27T05:44:00.000-08:00

Since the mid-20th century a change has occurred in the population structure in developed countries. The proportion of elderly people has been increasing. Since 1983, however, in most European countries the population growth of that group has leveled off, although it is expected to continue to grow more rapidly than the rest of the population in most countries through

Bradley, James

2005-03-27T05:42:00.000-08:00

Bradley was educated

Basel, Council Of

2005-03-26T10:49:00.000-08:00

A general council of the Roman Catholic church held in Basel, Switz. It was called by Pope Martin V a few weeks before his death in 1431 and then confirmed by Pope Eugenius IV. Meeting at a time when the prestige of the papacy had been weakened by the Great Schism (1378–1417), it was concerned with two major problems: the question of papal supremacy and the Hussite heresy. (The Hussites were

Aichinger, Ilse

2005-03-24T21:15:00.000-08:00

Aichinger's education was interrupted by World War II when, because she was half Jewish, she was refused entrance to medical school. Although she eventually did begin

Biblical Literature, Determination of the canon in the 4th century

2005-03-24T10:37:00.000-08:00

Athanasius, a 4th-century bishop of Alexandria and a significant theologian, delimited the canon and settled the strife between East and West. On a principle of inclusiveness, both Revelation and Hebrews (as part of the Pauline corpus) were accepted. The 27 books of the New Testament—and they only—were declared canonical. In the Greek churches there was still controversy

France, History Of, Commitment to modernization

2005-03-24T06:09:00.000-08:00

The great peculiarity of the ancien régime, however, was that traditionalism, though deeply felt, was only one-half of a complicated institutional diptych. When first conceived by Cardinal Richelieu between 1624 and 1642 and developed after him by Mazarin, Colbert, Louvois, and the Sun King, the ancien régime was also committed to a program of modernization. Guided by a modern

Slavic Languages

2005-03-23T17:20:00.000-08:00

Also called Slavonic languages group of Indo-European languages spoken in most of eastern Europe, much of the Balkans, parts of central Europe, and the northern part of Asia. The Slavic languages are most closely related to the languages of the Baltic group (Lithuanian, Latvian, and the now-extinct Old Prussian), but they share certain linguistic innovations with the other eastern Indo-European language

Lateran Council

2005-03-22T08:07:00.000-08:00

The first Lateran Council, the ninth ecumenical council (1123), was held during the reign of Pope Calixtus II; no acts or contemporary accounts survive. The council promulgated a number of canons (probably 22), many of which merely reiterated decrees of earlier councils. Much

Pauropod

2005-03-22T00:54:00.000-08:00

Pauropods range in length from 0.5 to 2 mm (0.02 to 0.08 inch). The pauropod

Requena

2005-03-21T23:38:00.000-08:00

City, Valencia provincia and comunidad autónoma (“autonomous community”), eastern Spain. Overlooking the left bank of the Magro River, the city, 2,270 feet (692 metres) above sea level, commands the Utiel plain. Settlement of Requena's site dates from antiquity; there are remains of Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and Muslim occupation. During the 12th and 13th centuries the city was a battleground

Cyprus, Church Of

2005-03-21T20:08:00.000-08:00

Also called Orthodox Church Of Cyprus, one of the oldest autocephalous, or ecclesiastically independent, churches of the Eastern Orthodox communion. Its independence, first recognized by the third ecumenical Council of Ephesus (431), was reaffirmed by the Council in Trullo (692) and was never lost, not even during the occupation of the island by the crusaders. Under the feudal French dynasty of the Lusignans (1191–1489) and

Macarthur, Douglas

2005-03-20T07:28:00.000-08:00

U.S. general who commanded the Southwest Pacific Theatre in World War II, administered postwar Japan during the Allied occupation that followed, and led United Nations forces during the first nine months of the Korean War.

Abaiang Atoll

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

Also spelled Apaiang, also called Apia, formerly Charlotte Island, coral atoll of the Gilbert Islands, part of Kiribati, in the west-central Pacific Ocean. Comprising six islets in the northern Gilberts with a total land area of 6 square miles (16 square km), the atoll has a lagoon (16 by 5 miles [26 by 8 km]) that provides sheltered anchorage. Captain Thomas Gilbert, its European discoverer (1788), named it Matthew's Island, after the owner of his ship, the Charlotte.

Szechwan Basin

2005-03-18T07:53:00.000-08:00

Wade–Giles romanization Ssu-ch'uan P'en-ti, Pinyin Sichuan Pendii, also called Red Basin, basin comprising the greater part of eastern Szechwan Province (sheng), southwest China. It is surrounded by high mountains, including the Tsinghai–Tibet Plateau on the south, the Yunnan–Kweichow Plateau on the south, Wu Shan (mountains) on the east, and the Ta-pa Shan on the north, which protect the interior from temperature extremes. The basin covers 88,600 sq mi (229,500 sq km) of red-brick

Nigeria

2005-03-18T01:18:00.000-08:00

Officially Federal Republic of Nigeria country located on the coast of western Africa. It has an area of 356,669 square miles (923,768 square km). It is bordered to the north by Niger, the east by Chad and Cameroon, the south by the Gulf of Guinea, and to the west by Benin. Nigeria is not only large in size—it is larger than the U.S. state of Texas—it is also Africa's most populous country. Nigeria has a diverse geography, with climates ranging

Kaunda, Kenneth

2005-03-18T00:33:00.000-08:00

Kaunda's father, who was from Nyasaland (now Malawi), was a schoolteacher; his mother, also a teacher, was the first African woman to teach in colonial Zambia. Both taught among the Bemba tribe in northern Zambia, where young Kaunda

Waikiki

2005-03-17T22:16:00.000-08:00

Resort area, Honolulu county, on the southern coast of Oahu Island, Hawaii, U.S. Waikiki (Hawaiian: “Spurting Water”), the southeastern section of Honolulu, is on Mamala Bay between the Ala Wai Canal (north and west) and Diamond Head crater (southeast). Its beach, a tourist's mecca, is one of the best known in the world. Lined with luxury hotels, it is the focus of water-sports facilities

Andersson, Bibi

2005-03-16T14:20:00.000-08:00

Andersson studied acting at Stockholm's highly regarded Royal Dramatic Theatre, the school that had earlier produced Greta Garbo. She had made a few small film appearances and was acting on stage when discovered by Bergman, who asked her to appear in Sommarnattens

Rocket And Missile System

2005-03-16T13:36:00.000-08:00

Strategic missiles represent a logical step in the attempt to attack enemy forces at a distance. As such, they can be seen as extensions of either artillery (in the case of ballistic missiles) or manned aircraft (in the case of cruise missiles). Ballistic missiles are rocket-propelled weapons that travel by momentum in a high, arcing trajectory after they have been launched

Set Theory

2005-03-16T07:27:00.000-08:00

Branch of mathematics that deals with the properties of well-defined collections of objects, which may be of a mathematical nature, such as numbers or functions, or not. The theory is less valuable in direct application to ordinary experience than as a basis for precise and adaptable terminology for the definition of complex and sophisticated mathematical

Lower Saxony

2005-03-15T15:09:00.000-08:00

German Niedersachsen, constituent Land (state) of Germany. The second largest Land in size, it occupies an important band of territory across the northwestern part of the nation. Lower Saxony stretches from The Netherlands border in the west to the border of Mecklenburg–West Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt Länder in the east. The neck of land occupied by Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, and, farther

Technetium

2005-03-14T16:41:00.000-08:00

(Tc), chemical element, synthetic radioactive metal of Group VIIb of the periodic table, the first element to be artificially produced. The isotope technetium-97 (2,600,000-year half-life) was discovered (1937) by the Italian mineralogist Carlo Perrier and the Italian-born American physicist Emilio Segrè in a sample of molybdenum that had been bombarded by deuterons in the Berkeley (California)

Bahrain

2005-03-14T15:57:00.000-08:00

Officially State of Bahrain, Arabic Dawlat Al-Bahrayn small Arab state in the Persian Gulf. It is an archipelago consisting of Bahrain Island—extending about 30 miles (50 km) from north to south and 10 miles (16 km) from east to west—and some 30 smaller islands. Its Arabic name means “two seas.” Bahrain is situated in a bay on the southwestern coast of the Persian Gulf; Saudi Arabia lies to the west across the Gulf of Bahrain, while the Qatar peninsula

Dacier, Anne

2005-03-14T11:14:00.000-08:00

Anne Dacier was the

Ibarra

2005-03-13T11:51:00.000-08:00

In full San Antonio De Ibarra, city, north-central Ecuador, situated in an Andean valley at an elevation of 7,300 feet (2,200 m), within the Ecuadorian Lake District. It was founded in 1606 by the soldier Cristóbal Torre, a representative of Miguel de Ibarra, the president of the royal audiencia of Quito (a judicial–legislative body), and was named for him. Though largely destroyed by an earthquake in 1868, it has retained much

Gobi

2005-03-13T11:24:00.000-08:00

Also called Gobi Desert, great desert and semidesert region of Central Asia. The Gobi (from Mongolian gobi, meaning “waterless place”) stretches across huge portions of both Mongolia and China. Contrary to the perhaps romantic image long associated with what—at least to the European mind—was a remote and unexplored region, much of the Gobi is not sandy desert but bare rock. It is possible to drive

Minahasan

2005-03-12T22:16:00.000-08:00

People inhabiting the northernmost extension of the island of Celebes, Indonesia, in and around the port town of Manado. Of Proto-Malay stock, the Minahasan, formerly headed by chiefs, are now organized patrilineally under headmen, and land is owned communally by each village. Extended families are bound to undivided estates that are apportioned according to the

Bruce Series

2005-03-12T05:06:00.000-08:00

Division of Precambrian rocks in North America that is well-developed northeast of the Lake Huron region (the Precambrian began about 3.8 billion years ago and ended 540 million years ago). The Bruce Series is the lowermost of the three major divisions of the Huronian System; it overlies pre-Huronian schists, underlies rocks of the Cobalt Series, and consists of about 1,500 m (about

Turgenev, Nikolay Ivanovich

2005-03-11T02:46:00.000-08:00

Born into the middle class, Turgenev was one of a number of Russian youths infected by the liberal spirit that emerged in Europe after the French

Media And Publishing

2005-03-10T13:53:00.000-08:00

The magazine industry faced a bad year that got worse after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S. “The 11th” hastened the decline of an industry already suffering lowered revenues and resulted in the closure of some well-known magazines. During the first nine months of 2001, total ad pages declined about 10%, and revenue slipped slightly more than 1%. The good news for 2001 was that 2000 was

Kerch

2005-03-10T10:01:00.000-08:00

Also spelled Kerc , ancient (Greek) Panticapaion , or (Latin) Panticapaeum city and seaport, Crimea republic, southern Ukraine, on the western shore of the Strait of Kerch at the head of a small bay. Founded in the 6th century BC by Miletan Greeks, it flourished as a trading centre, and in the 5th century it became the capital of the kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus. Abundant archaeological evidence of its wealth occurs in catacombs and burial mounds,

Maa-alused

2005-03-10T04:33:00.000-08:00

These terms refer to beings living under the earth with an existence quite parallel to that of people living on earth. The main differences are in the opposite

Bulbul

2005-03-09T17:37:00.000-08:00

Any of about 119 species of birds of the family Pycnonotidae (order Passeriformes) of Africa and Asia, including some called greenbuls and brownbuls. Members range in size from 14 to 28 cm (5.5 to 11 inches) long. They are active, noisy, plain-coloured birds that sometimes damage orchards. Representative of the 47 species of the genus Pycnonotus is the African bulbul (P. barbatus, including

Florence Of Worcester

2005-03-08T21:24:00.000-08:00

English monk, usually accepted as the author of Chronicon ex chronicis, which is valuable for late Anglo-Saxon and early post-Conquest history. Its basis is the universal history (from the creation to 1082) compiled by Marianus Scotus, an Irish recluse at Mainz. The author of the Chronicon, like Marianus, was a careful annalist with a marked interest in chronology. He supplements

Roman Religion, Religious art

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

A vast gallery of architecture, sculpture, numismatics, painting, and mosaics illustrates Roman religion and helps to fill the gaps left by the fragmentary, though extensive, literary and epigraphic record. Starting with primitive statuettes and terra-cotta temple decorations, this array eventually included masterpieces such as the Apollo of Veii. Other works

Tarbela Dam

2005-03-08T02:06:00.000-08:00

Giant rock-fill dam on the Indus River, Pakistan. Built between 1968 and 1976, it has a volume of 138,600,000 cubic yards (106,000,000 cubic m). With a reservoir capacity of 11,098,000 acre-feet (13,690,000,000 cubic m), the dam is 469 feet (143 m) high and 8,997 feet (2,743 m) wide at its crest. Tarbela Dam is one of two main structures (the other is Mangla Dam on the Jhelum River) in the Indus Basin project, which resulted from the Indus Waters Agreement between India

Hupeh, Relief

2005-03-07T18:50:00.000-08:00

Almost all of Hupeh Province lies immediately north of the Yangtze River. Hupeh is bounded on the north by the eastern extension of the axis of the Tsinling, T'ung-pai, and Ta-pieh mountains. In the southeast the Mu-fu Mountains divide the province from Kiangsi. Along its central southern border there is no clear physical divide apart from the Yangtze itself: a lake-studded

Bukit Fraser

2005-03-07T14:31:00.000-08:00

Formerly Frasers Hill, mountain resort in the Main Range, West Malaysia (Malaya). It lies 40 miles (65 km) north of Kuala Lumpur, at an elevation of 4,280 feet (1,305 m). The site was named for Louis James Fraser, a trader and mule-train operator who disappeared in the area in 1916. The hill station, built on seven hills, was surveyed in 1919 and later developed by the Federated Malay States. The resort is reached via Kuala Kubu Baharu

Yoccoz, Jean-christophe

2005-03-07T07:42:00.000-08:00

Yoccoz was awarded the Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Zürich,

Haber, Fritz

2005-03-07T01:18:00.000-08:00

In 1911, at the age of 42, he was appointed director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin, a new research establishment that was to become even more famous than the school he had built up in Karlsruhe. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he immediately placed himself and his laboratory at the service of the government, his first concern being to organize

Christian-jaque

2005-03-05T03:45:00.000-08:00

Christian-Jaque was educated at the School of Fine Arts and the School of Decorative Arts, both in Paris. He started his career as a journalist and film critic and in 1926 entered the film industry

Agribusiness

2005-03-04T20:56:00.000-08:00

In highly industrialized countries, many activities essential to agriculture are carried on separately from the farm. These include the development and production of

Chechaouene

2005-03-04T09:40:00.000-08:00

Also spelled Chechaouen or Chefchaouen , French Chaouen , Spanish Xauen , Arabic Shafshawan Muslim holy city, northern Morocco, situated in the Rif mountain range. Founded in 1471 by the warrior Abu Youma and later moved by Sidi Ali ibn Rachid to its present site at the base of Mount El-Chaouene, the city became a refuge for Moors expelled from Spain. A holy city long closed to non-Muslims, it was occupied in 1920 by the Spanish, who restored it to the Moroccan kingdom in 1956. Chechaouene

Skaldic Poetry

2005-03-04T06:03:00.000-08:00

Skalds were identified by name; their poems

Kwashiorkor

2005-03-03T22:12:00.000-08:00

The condition in children

Polar Wandering

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

The migration over the surface of the Earth of the magnetic poles of the Earth through geological time. It was long recognized that the directions of magnetization of many rocks do not correspond to the present direction of the geomagnetic field at their sites; but not until the 1950s was there sufficient paleomagnetic data to suggest that the poles had moved in a systematic

Cremona

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

City, capital of Cremona provincia, Lombardia (Lombardy) regione, northern Italy, on the north bank of the Po River southeast of Milan. It was founded by the Romans in 218 BC on the site of an earlier Gallic village of the Cenomani. Virgil, the Roman poet, went to school there. With the decline of the Roman Empire, Cremona was repeatedly sacked by the Goths and the Huns before being

Earth, Characteristics of the Earth's magnetic field

2005-03-03T01:44:00.000-08:00

To a first approximation the magnetic field observed at the surface of the Earth is like that of a magnet aligned with the planet's rotation axis. Figure 6 shows such a field for a bar magnet located at the centre of a sphere. If the sphere is taken to be the Earth with the north geographic pole at the top of the diagram, the magnet must be oriented with its north magnetic pole

Tabasco

2005-03-01T05:44:00.000-08:00

State, southeastern Mexico, bounded on the northwest by the Bay of Campeche of the Gulf of Mexico, east by Campeche, southeast by Guatemala, south by Chiapas, and west by Veracruz. Tabasco's 9,756-sq-mi (25,267-sq-km) territory is generally low and flat, largely covered with lagoons and swamps but with a higher area in the south and southeast. It is drained by the Grijalva (also known as the

Kirovohrad

2005-03-01T05:19:00.000-08:00

Russian Kirovograd, formerly Yelizavetgrad, or Elizavetgrad, city and administrative centre of Kirovohrad oblast (province), Ukraine. It lies along the upper Inhul River where the latter is crossed by the Kremenchuk-Odessa railway. Founded as a fortress in 1754, it was made a city, Yelizavetgrad, in 1765 and developed as the centre of a rich agricultural area. Yelizavetgrad was renamed Zinovyevsk in 1924, Kirovo in 1936, and Kirovograd in 1939. It retains

Anorthosite

2005-02-28T13:05:00.000-08:00

Anorthosite is considerably less abundant than either basalt or granite, but the complexes in which it occurs are, nevertheless, often

Mesopotamia, History Of, Political fragmentation

2005-02-28T10:04:00.000-08:00

It is probable that the definitive separation from Ur III came about through changing components of the population, from “Sumerians and Akkadians” to “Akkadians and Amorites.” An Old Babylonian liver omen states that “he of the steppes will enter, and chase out the one in the city.” This is indeed an abbreviated formula for an event that took place more than once: the usurpation

O'brien, Tim

2005-02-27T20:30:00.000-08:00

After studying political science at Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota (B.A., 1968), O'Brien fought in Vietnam. When he returned to the United States, he studied intermittently at Harvard University and worked for the Washington Post (1971–74) as an intern and reporter. He collected

Amicus Curiae

2005-02-27T16:46:00.000-08:00

An amicus curiae normally may not participate except by

Razor

2005-02-26T04:49:00.000-08:00

Keen-edged cutting implement for shaving or cutting hair. Prehistoric cave drawings show that clam shells, shark's teeth, and sharpened flints were used as shaving implements, and flints are still in use by certain primitive tribes. Solid gold and copper razors have been found in Egyptian tombs of the 4th millennium BC. According to the Roman historian Livy, the razor

Kabir

2005-02-26T03:21:00.000-08:00

The birth of Kabir (Arabic: “Great”) remains to this day shrouded in mystery and legend. Authorities disagree

Peregrine Falcon

2005-02-25T23:17:00.000-08:00

Bluish gray above with underparts white to yellowish with black barring, peregrines range from about 33 to 48 centimetres (13 to 19 inches) long. They are strong and fast. They fly high and dive at tremendous speeds, striking

West Bromwich

2005-02-25T10:13:00.000-08:00

Locality in the metropolitan borough of Sandwell, metropolitan county of West Midlands, historic county of Staffordshire, England. It lies about 5 miles (8 km) northwest of the city of Birmingham. Though the town is of ancient origin, its appearance is modern and industrial. Coal was long mined in and around the locality until the end of the 20th century, and West Bromwich

Newington

2005-02-24T23:21:00.000-08:00

Area in the borough of Southwark, London. It lies southeast of Waterloo Station and west of Bermondsey. In the 19th century the area was developed as a residential suburb, and several roads and railways were built, converting Newington into a transportation hub for London south of the River Thames. Central to the area is the Elephant and Castle, a large traffic roundabout

Aghlabid Dynasty

2005-02-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

Also called Banu al-Aghlab Arab Muslim dynasty that ruled Ifriqiyah (Tunisia and eastern Algeria) from AD 800 to 909. The Aghlabids were nominally subject to the 'Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad but were in fact independent. Their capital city was Kairouan (al-Qayrawan), in Tunisia. The most interesting of the 11 Aghlabid emirs were the energetic and cultured Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab (reigned 800–812), founder of al-Abbasiyya (2 miles

Ritual, The history of religions approach

2005-02-23T20:12:00.000-08:00

A third approach to the study of ritual is centred on the studies of historians of religion. The distinction between this approach and the first two is that though many historians of religions agree with functionalists that the origin-evolutionary theories are useless as hypotheses, they also reject functionalism as an adequate explanation of ritual. Most historians

Reform Bill

2005-02-23T18:25:00.000-08:00

Any of the British parliamentary bills that became acts in 1832, 1867, and 1884–85 and that expanded the electorate for the House of Commons and rationalized the representation of that body. The first Reform Bill primarily served to transfer voting privileges from the small boroughs controlled by the nobility and gentry to the heavily populated industrial towns. The two subsequent

Episcopal Church In Scotland

2005-02-23T01:07:00.000-08:00

The development of Protestantism in Scotland went through confusing periods, with control alternating between the Presbyterian Party (those who believed in the presbyterian form of church government) and the Episcopal Party (those who

Algeria, Resources

2005-02-22T18:40:00.000-08:00

Deposits of natural gas were first discovered at Hassi R'Mel in 1956, and since

Acrobatics

2005-02-21T10:21:00.000-08:00

In 1859 the invention of the flying trapeze by J. Léotard, as well as Charles Blondin's crossing of Niagara Falls on a tightrope, rekindled

Kermadec Islands

2005-02-21T05:34:00.000-08:00

Volcanic island group in the South Pacific Ocean, 600 mi (1,000 km) northeast of Auckland, New Zealand; they are a dependency of New Zealand. They include Raoul (Sunday), Macauley, and Curtis islands and l'Esperance Rock and have a total land area of 13 sq mi (34 sq km). Raoul, the largest (11.3 sq mi), has rugged coastal cliffs that rise to Mt. Mumukai (1,723 ft [525 m]). It is heavily wooded and fertile, but its indigenous

Andalusia

2005-02-20T18:26:00.000-08:00

Andalusia possesses the most varied terrain and vegetation in all Spain. Striking contrasts exist between alpine mountains and pine forests at high elevations, arid and barren deserts, and fertile irrigated plains that support plantations of subtropical fruits. The topography of Andalusia is divided by mountain ranges into several distinct zones, each running

Cramer, Johann Baptist

2005-02-20T15:15:00.000-08:00

Cramer was taken to England in 1772 by his father. His piano teachers included the noted pianist and composer Muzio Clementi, under whom he developed the

Nadig, Marie-thérèse

2005-02-19T16:42:00.000-08:00

At 17, Nadig had never won a World Cup race and was not considered a threat to the favoured Pröll. When Nadig finished the downhill course with a time of 1 min 36.68 sec,

Cram, Donald J.

2005-02-19T07:50:00.000-08:00

Cram was educated at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and at the University of Nebraska,

Goatfish

2005-02-19T00:05:00.000-08:00

Goatfishes are characterized by two well-separated dorsal fins and by a pair of long, sensory chin barbels. The barbels are used to find the small, bottom-living invertebrates on which the fishes feed; when not in use, the barbels are flattened into a groove on the throat. Inhabitants

West Covina

2005-02-18T02:39:00.000-08:00

City, Los Angeles county, California, U.S. It lies at the eastern end of the San Gabriel Valley and is about 20 miles (32 km) east of the city centre of Los Angeles. Settled in 1905, it began as an agricultural community surrounded by citrus and walnut groves. After World War II it experienced rapid growth with the urbanization of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. West Covina consists

Mid Bedfordshire

2005-02-17T18:06:00.000-08:00

District, administrative county of Bedfordshire, south-central England. The district lies almost entirely within the historic county of Bedfordshire, but a small area north of Sandy belongs to the historic county of Cambridgeshire. Predominantly rural, Mid Bedfordshire extends across a broad valley within the River Ouse catchment basin and is crossed by a low

Alignment

2005-02-17T15:36:00.000-08:00

Monument consisting of multiple rows of large upright stones, primarily located in Brittany and built during Neolithic and Early Bronze times. See megalith.

Mon

2005-02-17T07:15:00.000-08:00

Town, northern Nagaland state, northeastern India. The town was occupied by the British in 1889 and designated a subdivisional headquarters; it was the scene of guerrilla activity until the formation of Nagaland state in 1963. The town has many traditional cottage industries and is noted for its weaving. It also trades in bay leaf. A cottage industries training and production

Kerala Plains

2005-02-16T04:16:00.000-08:00

Narrow strip of coastland, southwestern India, fronting the Arabian Sea to the west and constituting almost all of Kerala state and most of the Malabar Coast (q.v.). With an area of approximately 11,000 square miles (28,000 square km), the plains are indented by numerous shallow lagoons, known locally as kayes, that are formed by sand dunes and which are known locally as teris. The sandy

Caribbean Current

2005-02-15T17:44:00.000-08:00

Powerful surface oceanic current passing west through the Caribbean Sea, then north through the Yucatán Channel, and finally east out the Straits of Florida to form the Florida Current. The warm Caribbean Current, derived from the junction of the North Equatorial Current and the Guiana Current, flows at an average rate in the range of 38 to 43 cm (15 to 17 inches) per second and

Greasewood

2005-02-15T00:11:00.000-08:00

The name greasewood

Janet, Pierre(-marie-félix)

2005-02-14T16:57:00.000-08:00

Psychologist and neurologist influential in bringing about in France and the United States a connection between academic psychology and the clinical treatment of mental illnesses. He stressed psychological factors in hypnosis and contributed to the modern concept of mental and emotional disorders involving anxiety, phobias, and other

Tibet, Resources

2005-02-14T15:14:00.000-08:00

Although Tibet is rich in mineral resources, its economy has remained underdeveloped. Surveys of the Kailas and Ma-fa-mu-ts'o districts in western Tibet conducted in the 1930s and '40s discovered extensive goldfields and large deposits of borax, as well as reserves of radium, iron, titanium, lead, and arsenic. Subsequent investigative teams dispatched in the 1950s by the Academia

Mihrab

2005-02-13T16:07:00.000-08:00

Arabic mihrab prayer niche in the qiblah wall (that facing Mecca) of a mosque; mihrabs vary in size but are usually ornately decorated. The mihrab originated in the reign of the Umayyad prince al-Walid I (705–715), during which time the famous mosques at Medina, Jerusalem, and Damascus were built. The structure was adapted from the prayer niches common to the oratories of Coptic Christian monks.

Nephroblastoma

2005-02-13T09:44:00.000-08:00

Also called embryoma , or Wilms' tumour malignant renal (kidney) tumour of early childhood. In 75 percent of the cases, the tumour grows before the age of five; about two-thirds of the instances are apparent by two years of age. The tumour grows rapidly and can approach the weight of the rest of the body. It rarely appears in adults. In its early stages the nephroblastoma causes no symptoms. Later, symptoms may indicate

Zamora

2005-02-13T04:55:00.000-08:00

Town, southeastern Ecuador. It lies in the forested jungles east of the main Andean ranges and is situated at the southeastern foot of the Andean Cordillera (mountains) de Zamora, just south of the Zamora River. The Roman Catholic Church has established a Vicar Apostolic in Zamora, which is considered to be a missionary settlement; the population is almost entirely

Abney, Sir William De Wiveleslie

2005-02-12T04:59:00.000-08:00

Commissioned in the Royal Engineers (1861), he taught chemistry and photography at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham. He succeeded to various

Madison, James

2005-02-11T11:55:00.000-08:00

During eight years as Jefferson's secretary of state (1801–09), Madison used the words “The President has decided” so regularly that his own role can be discovered only in foreign archives. British diplomats dealing with Madison encountered “asperity of temper and fluency of expression.” Senators John Adair and Nicholas Gilman agreed in 1806 that he “governed the President,” an opinion held also by French minister Louis-Marie Turreau.

Zambezi River

2005-02-11T01:34:00.000-08:00

The Lozi (Barotse), who dominate much of the upper Zambezi, have taken advantage of the seasonal flooding of the Barotse Plain for centuries and have an agricultural economy that is supplemented by animal husbandry, fishing, and trade. The main groups of the middle Zambezi include the Tonga, Shona, Chewa, and Nsenga peoples, all of whom largely practice subsistence agriculture.

Wyndham, Sir William, 3rd Baronet

2005-02-10T14:15:00.000-08:00

A member of Parliament (1710–40), Wyndham was appointed secretary of war in 1712, chancellor of the Exchequer in 1713, and head of the Treasury in 1714, all at Bolingbroke's behest. He was privy to Bolingbroke's intrigues with James Edward, the Old Pretender,