FullCloud

Devey, George

2005-10-16T01:10:00.000-07:00

Devey was educated in London and studied painting before he trained as an architect. His considerable, and exclusively domestic, practice included designs for lodges, cottages, and country mansions containing design

Anderson, Marian

2005-07-28T22:40:00.000-07:00

U.S. singer (b. Feb. 27, 1897, Philadelphia, Pa.--d. April 8, 1993, Portland, Ore.), maintained a quiet dignity while transcending the racial and cultural barriers imposed on her artistry and used her rich contralto voice brilliantly to interpret the works of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, Verdi, and Richard Strauss as well as spirituals. Though Anderson's birth certificate stated that

Aeg Ag

2005-07-27T04:35:00.000-07:00

The company was founded in Berlin in 1883 when the industrialist

Carlsberg Ridge

2005-07-24T17:20:00.000-07:00

Submarine ridge of the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. The ridge is a portion of the Mid-Indian Ridge and extends from near Rodrigues Island to the Gulf of Aden, trending basically northwest to southeast. The ridge separates the Arabian Sea to the northeast from the Somali Basin to the southwest. The mean depth of the Carlsberg Ridge is about 9,600 feet (3,300 m) below sea level,

Lord Howe Island

2005-06-15T17:50:00.000-07:00

Island dependency of New South Wales, Australia, situated in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, 436 miles (702 km) northeast of Sydney. Volcanic in origin, it has an area of 7 square miles (17 square km). The island is well wooded but has little arable land. National parks cover 70 percent of the island, which harbours rare vegetation and bird life. It was discovered in 1788 and named after Admiral

Dessalines, Jean-jacques

2005-06-03T02:25:00.000-07:00

Dessalines was brought to the French West Indian colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) as a slave. He worked as a field hand for a black master until 1791, when he joined the slave rebellion that broke out in the colony amid the turmoil caused by the French Revolution. In the decade that

Heidelberg Romantics

2005-05-31T21:05:00.000-07:00

Poets of the second phase of Romanticism in Germany, who were centred in Heidelberg about 1806. Their leaders were Clemens Brentano, Achim von Arnim, and Joseph von Görres; their brief-lived organ was the Zeitung für Einsiedler (1808). The most characteristic production of this school was the collection of folk songs entitled Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1805–08; “The Boy's Magic Horn”). Compared

Binding Energy

2005-05-17T00:05:00.000-07:00

Nuclear binding energy is the energy required to separate an atomic nucleus

Aranda

2005-05-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

Also spelled Arunta, Aboriginal tribe that originally occupied a region of 25,000 square miles (65,000 square km) in central Australia, along the upper Finke River and its tributaries. The Aranda were divided into five subtribes, which were marked by differences in dialect. In common with other Aborigines, the Aranda were greatly reduced in number during the first 70 years of contact with whites, but

Rosewood

2005-05-13T13:21:00.000-07:00

Any of several ornamental timbers, products of various tropical trees native to Brazil, Honduras, Jamaica, Africa, and India. The most important commercially are the Honduras rosewood, Dalbergia stevensoni, and the Brazilian rosewood, principally D. nigra, a leguminous tree up to 125 feet (38 metres) called cabiúna, and jacaranda in Brazil. Jacaranda (q.v.) also refers to several

Toadflax

2005-03-15T01:10:00.000-08:00

Also called �Spurred Snapdragon, � any member of a genus (Linaria) of nearly 100 herbaceous plants native to the North Temperate Zone, particularly the Mediterranean region. The common name refers to their flaxlike leaves; the flowers are two-lipped and spurred like snapdragons. Among the prominent members are common toadflax, or butter-and-eggs (L. vulgaris), with yellow and orange flower

Caucasian Languages, Phonology

2005-03-14T14:29:00.000-08:00

The sound systems of the Nakho-Dagestanian languages are diverse. There are up to five vowels (a, e, i, o, u); in some languages o is only now becoming an independent distinctive unit. Along with these cardinal vowels, in a number of languages there are also long and nasalized vowels (the Andi languages), pharyngealized vowels (in Udi), and labialized vowels (in Dido). In the Nakh

Flores Sea

2005-03-11T15:17:00.000-08:00

Bahasa Indonesia �Laut Flores� portion of the western South Pacific Ocean, bounded on the north by the island of Celebes (Sulawesi) and on the south by the Lesser Sunda Islands of Flores and Sumbawa. Occupying a total surface area of 93,000 sq mi (240,000 sq km), it opens northwest through Makassar Strait to the Celebes Sea, west to the Java Sea, and east to the Banda Sea. Teluk (gulf of) Bone cuts deeply into the Celebes coast.

Commodity Trade

2005-03-07T23:54:00.000-08:00

Of the multinational organizations aimed at affecting the price of a commodity, one of the most significant is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). It was founded in 1960 by Middle Eastern countries and Venezuela, although its membership has come to include developing nations in other parts of the world. Some major oil-exporting nations have remained

Venice

2005-03-06T03:52:00.000-08:00

Resort city, Sarasota county, west-central Florida, U.S. It lies along the Gulf of Mexico, about 20 miles (30 km) south of Sarasota. Originally a fishing village settled in the 1870s, it was later planned (c. 1925) as a retirement city for members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers; the project was abandoned after the stock market crash of 1929, but Venice survived as a small resort noted

Forcados River

2005-03-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

River, a major navigable channel of the Niger Delta, southern Nigeria. It leaves the main course of the Niger River about 20 miles (32 km) downstream from Aboh and flows through zones of freshwater swamps, mangrove swamps, and coastal sand ridges before completing its 123-mile (198-kilometre) westerly course to the Bight of Benin. Since about 1900 it has been the chief link for small ship

Hyesan

2005-03-04T18:01:00.000-08:00

City, northern North Korea. As a frontier city lying on the upper stream of the Yalu River (Amnok-kang), it was a fortress during the Yi dynasty (1392 - 1910), under the name of Hyesanjin. In winter it is one of the coldest places in Korea; a temperature of -44� F (-42� C) was recorded in 1915. It is the starting point of water transportation on the Yalu. Logs from the nearby Paektu Mountain area, which contains

Maazel, Lorin

2005-03-03T10:34:00.000-08:00

Maazel grew up in Los Angeles and began his first musical instruction at age five. Although he began conducting as early as age nine, he made his adult debut in 1953 in Italy,

Dinosaur, Pachycephalosauria

2005-03-02T18:46:00.000-08:00

In important respects the pachycephalosaurs conformed to the basic ornithopod body plan, and there is some evidence that pachycephalosaurs actually evolved from (and are therefore members of) ornithopods, perhaps similar to hypsilophodontids. All of them appear to have been bipedal. They bore the typical ornithopod ossified tendons along the back, and they

Pentameter

2005-03-02T13:50:00.000-08:00

Geoffrey Chaucer employed iambic pentameter in The Canterbury Tales as early as the 14th century, although

Rodent, Pachycephalosauria

2005-03-01T14:54:00.000-08:00

Rodents have lived on the planet for at least 56 million years and modern humans for less than one million, but the consequences of their interactions during that short overlap of evolutionary time have been profound. For rodents, early humans were just another predator to avoid, but with Homo sapiens' transition from nomadic hunting and gathering to sedentary agricultural

Soga

2005-03-01T10:18:00.000-08:00

An Interlacustrine Bantu-speaking people inhabiting the area east of the Nile River between Lakes Victoria and Kyoga. They are the fourth largest ethnic group in Uganda. Culturally, they are very similar to the Ganda, who inhabit the region immediately to the west. Prosperous by national standards, the Soga are primarily agriculturists, growing bananas and millet

Antananarivo

2005-02-28T10:57:00.000-08:00

Formerly �Tananarive, � town and national capital of Madagascar, central Madagascar island. It was founded in the 17th century and was the capital of the Hova chiefs. It stands on a high hill. Avenues and flights of steps lead up to a rocky ridge (4,694 feet [1,431 m]) on which stands the Royal Estate, with towered palaces built by the Imerina kings who captured the town in 1794 and ruled until the end of the 19th century.

Afghanistan, Urban settlement

2005-02-28T02:51:00.000-08:00

Most urban settlements have grown along the road that runs from Kabul southwestward to Kandahar, then northwest to Herat, northeast to Mazar-e Sharif, and southeast back to Kabul. The rural population of farmers and nomads is distributed unevenly over the rest of the country, mainly concentrated along the rivers. The most heavily populated part of the country is between

Nature, Philosophy Of, The range of topics

2005-02-27T07:26:00.000-08:00

An investigation of recent writings in biophilosophy reveals a continued preoccupation with unanswered - some say unanswerable - questions about evolutionary theory and a growing concern for a critical reappraisal of the question of whether biology is an autonomous discipline unamenable to reduction to mere physical and chemical underpinnings. Until the

Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, Urban settlement

2005-02-27T03:31:00.000-08:00

Gandhi took his studies seriously and tried to brush up on his English and Latin by taking the London University matriculation examination. But, during the three years he spent in England, his main preoccupation was with personal and moral issues rather than with academic ambitions. The transition from the half-rural atmosphere of Rajkot to the cosmopolitan life

Vrjji

2005-02-26T18:03:00.000-08:00

Pali �Vajji� confederacy of the Licchavis and neighbouring peoples in Bihar, India, that existed from the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD. Its capital was at Vaisali (in modern Besarh). It was governed as an aristocratic republic. Gautama Buddha is said to have modeled the organizational structure of the Buddhist monastic order, sangha, on the government of the Vrjji. In the 4th century BC the

Gastronomy, The Italian influence on France

2005-02-26T16:36:00.000-08:00

Italy has been called the mother of the Western cuisines, and perhaps its greatest contribution was its influence on France. The crucial event was the arrival of Catherine de M�dicis in France in the 16th century. The great-granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Catherine married the young man who later was to become Henry II of France. She brought with her a retinue

Gastronomy, Triumph of French grande cuisine

2005-02-25T17:02:00.000-08:00

During the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI, culinary methods were refined and a new order and logic were introduced into the French cuisine. Brillat-Savarin noted that in the reign of Louis XVthere was generally established more orderliness of meals, more cleanliness and elegance, and those refinements of service, which having increased steadily to our own time

Gonorrhea

2005-02-25T05:55:00.000-08:00

Venereal disease characterized by inflammation of the mucous membranes of the genital tract and urethra. It is caused by the gonococcus, Neisseria gonorrhoeae - a bacterium with a predilection for the type of mucous membranes found in the genito-urinary tract and adjacent areas. All gonococcal infections except eye infections in newborn infants (ophthalmia

Robert-houdin, Jean-eug�ne

2005-02-24T17:12:00.000-08:00

Original name �Jean-Eug�ne Robert� French magician who is considered to be the father of modern conjuring. He was the first magician to use electricity; he improved the signalling method for the �thought transference� trick; and he exposed �fakes� and magicians who relied on supernatural explanations for their feats. Although he did not do away with apparatus, he

Gastronomy, Japanese

2005-02-24T00:44:00.000-08:00

Traditionally the Japanese bride received as many as 50 different kinds of dishes as wedding gifts, and she might use a dozen at one meal. She would

Rescue Mission

2005-02-23T13:56:00.000-08:00

Also called �Inner Mission, � Christian religious organization established to provide spiritual, physical, and social assistance to the poor and needy. It originated in the city mission movement among evangelical laymen and ministers early in the 19th century. The work of rescue missions resembles that of settlement houses, institutional churches, and charitable societies, but rescue missions

Gastronomy, Scandinavian

2005-02-23T04:16:00.000-08:00

Sweden's great contribution to international eating is the smorgasbord, literally a �bread-and-butter

Arabian Sea, Scandinavian

2005-02-22T15:11:00.000-08:00

Most of the Arabian Sea has depths that exceed 9,800 feet, and there are no islands in the middle. Deep water reaches close to the bordering lands except in the northeast, off Pakistan and India. To the southeast the Lakshadweep atolls form part of the submarine Maldive Ridge, which extends farther south into the Indian Ocean where it rises above the surface to form the atolls

Clisson, Olivier De

2005-02-22T09:02:00.000-08:00

Brought up in England, Clisson fought on the English side for the Breton duke John IV (or V; John of Montfort) against the French-supported Charles of Blois

Arabian Sea, Submarine morphology and geology

2005-02-21T08:35:00.000-08:00

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

Izumi Kyoka

2005-02-20T02:03:00.000-08:00

Kyoka was born into a family of provincial artists and artisans, from whom he inherited artistic skill and a deep faith that shaded into an actual belief in mysterious forces. He

Arabian Sea, Climate and hydrology

2005-02-20T00:23:00.000-08:00

The Arabian Sea has a monsoon climate. Minimum air temperatures of about 75� to 77� F (24� to 25� C) at the sea's surface occur in the central Arabian Sea in January and February, while temperatures higher than 82� F (28� C) occur in both June and November. During the rainy season, which occurs when the southwest monsoon winds blow (April to November), salinities of less than 35 parts per thousand have

Vihari

2005-02-19T19:58:00.000-08:00

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

Arabian Sea, Resources

2005-02-19T08:14:00.000-08:00

High levels of inorganic nutrients, such as phosphate concentrate, which produce a rich fish life, have been observed in the western Arabian Sea and off the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Occurring in the euphotic zone (zone of light, which is found in the upper 450 feet of the sea), this fertilizing effect undoubtedly is attributable in part to coastal upwelling,

Interior Design, France

2005-02-18T14:49:00.000-08:00

From the middle of the 15th century, ideas from Italy began to change the face of French buildings; this change came gradually, first in the applied decorative detail superimposed on basically Gothic designs, then extending to a symmetry and regularity of the whole. Indeed, one of the basic differences between the Renaissance in France and in Italy is that in the latter

Arabian Sea, Transportation

2005-02-18T04:26:00.000-08:00

The Arabian Sea, with its strategic location vis-�-vis the Red Sea (including the Suez Canal) and the Persian Gulf, contains some of the world's busiest shipping lanes; and the chief routes originate in those two extensions. Persian Gulf shipping largely consists of tankers, some of immense capacity, that transit the Arabian Sea en route to destinations in East Asia, Europe,

Arabian Sea, Transportation

2005-02-17T17:33:00.000-08:00

To medieval Arabs the Arabian Sea was known as the Sea of India or as part of the �Great Sea,� from which smaller gulfs such as the Sea of Faris (Persian Gulf) or Sea of Kolzum (Red Sea) were distinguished. From about the 8th or 9th century onward, Arab and Persian seafarers learned to use the surface currents propelled by the summer and winter monsoon winds. Detailed navigational

Gadolinium

2005-02-17T02:42:00.000-08:00

(Gd), chemical element, rareearth metal of transition Group IIIb of the periodic table. Silvery white and moderately ductile, the metal reacts slowly with oxygen and water. Below 17� C it is ferromagnetic and at very low temperatures, superconducting. Credit for the discovery of gadolinium is shared by J.-C.-G. de Marignac and P.-�. Lecoq de Boisbaudran. Marignac separated (1880) a new

Arabian Sea, Transportation

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

Geology and hydrology of the Arabian Sea are dealt with in N.K. Panikkar and R. Jayaraman, �Biological and Oceanographic Differences Between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal as Observed from the Indian Region,� Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences, 64:231 - 240 (1966); Henry Stommel and Warren S. Wooster, �Reconnaissance of the Somali Current During the Southwest Monsoon,� Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 54(1):8 - 13 (July 1965). Economic resources are outlined in J.H. Ryther et al., �Primary Organic Production in Relation to the Chemistry and Hydrography of the Western Indian Ocean,� Limnology and Oceanography, 11:371 - 380 (1966). A series of short reports in Science, 209(4456):588 - 603 (Aug. 1, 1980), summarizes the results of the Indian Ocean Experiment in 1979 surveying the Somali Current and the western equatorial Indian Ocean.

Satavahana Dynasty

2005-02-16T10:17:00.000-08:00

On the strength of Puranic evidence

Persian Gulf, Transportation

2005-02-15T15:12:00.000-08:00

For centuries a considerable sea trade has been carried on by local craft between the Persian Gulf and Africa and India; this has become completely dominated by an incessant traffic of large tankers that carry oil from the large marine terminals at Khark Island (Iran), Kuwait, Dhahran (Az-Zahran, in Saudi Arabia), Bahrain, Das Island (United Arab Emirates), and other locations

Moll Cutpurse

2005-02-15T01:56:00.000-08:00

London-born, she began her career as a pickpocket, or cutpurse, but after being caught four times, she assumed male attire and turned to highway robbery, until she was apprehended and jailed briefly at Newgate. She then achieved a

Indian Ocean, Ocean basins

2005-02-14T08:44:00.000-08:00

Ocean basins are characterized by smooth, flat plains of thick sediment with abyssal hills (i.e., less than 3,300 feet high) at the bottom flanks of the oceanic ridges. The Indian Ocean's complex ridge topography led to the formation of many basins that range in width from 200 to 5,600 miles. From roughly north to south they include the Arabian, Somali, Mascarene, Madagascar, Mozambique,

Indian Ocean, Trenches

2005-02-13T10:28:00.000-08:00

The Indian Ocean has the fewest trenches of any of the world's oceans. The narrow (50 miles), volcanic, and seismically active Java Trench is the world's second longest, stretching more than 1,600 miles from southwest of Java and continuing northward as the Sunda Trench past Sumatra, with an extension along the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Sexton, Anne

2005-02-13T05:42:00.000-08:00

Anne Harvey attended Garland Junior College for a year before her marriage in 1948 to Alfred M. Sexton II. She studied with the poet Robert Lowell at Boston University and also worked as a model and a librarian. Although she had written some

Psa Peugeot Citro�n Sa

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

Peugeot was founded in 1890 by Armand Peugeot (1849 - 1915), one of a large family of industrialists

Indian Ocean, Surface currents

2005-02-12T02:05:00.000-08:00

Ocean surface circulation is wind-driven. In the monsoon zone, surface circulation reverses every half year and features two opposing gyres (i.e., semi-closed current systems exhibiting spiral motion) that are separated by the Indian subcontinent. During the northeast monsoon, a weak counterclockwise gyre develops in the Arabian Sea, and a strong clockwise gyre

Earth Sciences, Surface water discharge

2005-02-11T19:44:00.000-08:00

A complicated empirical formula for the discharge of streams resulted from the studies of Andrew Atkinson Humphreys and Henry Larcom Abbot in the course of the Mississippi Delta Survey of 1851 - 60. Their formula contained no term for roughness of channel and on this and other grounds was later found to be inapplicable to the rapidly flowing streams of mountainous regions.

Indian Ocean, Upwelling

2005-02-11T10:28:00.000-08:00

Upwelling is a seasonal phenomenon in the Indian Ocean because of the monsoon regime. During the southwest monsoon, upwelling occurs off the Somali and Arabian coasts and south of Java. It is most intense between 5� and 11� N, with replacement of warmer surface water by water of about 57� F (14� C). During the northeast monsoon, strong upwelling occurs along the western coast of India.

Kernicterus

2005-02-10T20:26:00.000-08:00

Severe brain damage caused by an abnormal concentration of the bile pigment bilirubin in brain tissues at or shortly after birth. Kernicterus may occur because of Rh blood-group incompatibility between mother and child, as in erythroblastosis fetalis, where the mother's immune system destroys fetal blood cells, resulting in severe anemia and jaundice in the

Indonesia, The French and British in Java, 1806

2005-02-10T15:00:00.000-08:00

The fall of the Netherlands to France during the Revolutionary Wars and the dissolution of the company led in due course to significant changes in the administration of the Indies. Under Napoleon's �Kingdom of Holland,� one of his marshals, Herman Willem Daendels, was appointed as governor-general. Daendels strengthened Javanese defenses, raised new forces, built

China, State and society

2005-02-09T17:48:00.000-08:00

The ritual schedule records 29 royal ancestors over a span of 17 generations who, from at least Wu-ting to Ti-hsin, were each known as wang (king). Presiding over a stable politico-religious hierarchy of ritual specialists, officers, artisans, retainers, and servile peasants, they ruled with varying degrees of intensity over the North China Plain and parts of Shantung, Shansi,

Indonesia, Volcanoes

2005-02-09T15:23:00.000-08:00

Volcanoes play a major role in soil development and enrichment,

Indonesia, Animal life

2005-02-08T17:57:00.000-08:00

Indonesia is located in the transitional zone between two of the world's major faunal regions: the Oriental of Asia in the west and the Australasian of Australia and New Guinea in the east. The boundary of these realms, called Wallace's Line, runs between Borneo and Celebes in the north and Bali and Lombok in the south. To the west the Asian animal community includes such

Integral

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

In mathematics, either a numerical value equal to the area under the graph of a function for some interval (definite integral) or a new function the derivative of which is the original function (indefinite integral). These two meanings are related by the fact that a definite integral of any function that can be integrated can be found using the indefinite integral

Dependent States, Animal life

2005-02-07T15:48:00.000-08:00

French Polynesia Pres. Gaston Flosse continued to pursue constitutional changes that would increase French Polynesia's autonomy while retaining its connection to France. In October agreement was reached on France's financial assistance to the territory, with the provision of

Karate

2005-02-07T02:48:00.000-08:00

Unarmed martial-arts discipline employing kicking, striking, and defensive blocking with arms and legs. Emphasis is on concentrating as much of the body's power as possible at the point and instant of impact. Striking surfaces include the hands (particularly the knuckles and the outer edge), ball of the foot, heel, forearm, knee, and elbow. All are toughened by practice

Rural Electrification

2005-02-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

Project implemented in the United States in the second quarter of the 20th century by the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), a federal agency established in 1935, under the New Deal, in an effort to raise the standard of rural living and to slow the extensive migration of rural Americans to urban centres; more than 98 percent of the United States' farms were equipped

Indonesia, Government

2005-02-06T03:39:00.000-08:00

The Republic of Indonesia was proclaimed in 1945. Its jurisdiction included the present area from Sabang in Sumatra to Merauke in Papua, or the entire area of the former Dutch (or Netherlands) East Indies. The Netherlands retained possession of a large part of this region, however, and a provisional capital was established in Yogyakarta, which was the stronghold of the

Molde

2005-02-05T08:09:00.000-08:00

Town and seat of M�re og Romsdal fylke (county), western Norway. It lies along Molde Fjord, an inlet of the Norwegian Sea. A port since the 15th century, Molde was partially destroyed by fire in 1916, damaged during World War II, then rebuilt completely. During April 1940 it was the temporary home of the Norwegian government. Local industry includes fish export, textile mills, and furniture

Quadruple Alliance

2005-02-04T18:35:00.000-08:00

Alliance first formed in 1813, during the final phase of the Napoleonic Wars, by Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, for the purpose of defeating Napoleon, but conventionally dated from Nov. 20, 1815, when it was officially renewed to prevent recurrence of French aggression and to provide machinery to enforce the peace settlement concluded at the Congress of Vienna. The members

Indonesia, Justice

2005-02-04T02:13:00.000-08:00

There are four judicial spheres (for general, religious, military, and administrative

Law, Crime, And Law Enforcement, Terrorism.

2005-02-03T15:29:00.000-08:00

Throughout the year a relentless international hunt continued to bring to justice those responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S. In September Pakistani authorities arrested a key al-Qaeda operative, 30-year-old Yemen native Ramzi Binalshibh, in Karachi. Binalshibh was believed to have been designated as the 20th hijacker on September 11, but he had failed

Indian Association

2005-02-03T11:00:00.000-08:00

Nationalist political group in India that favoured local self-government and served as a preparatory agent for the more truly national Indian National Congress. The association was founded in Bengal in 1876 by Surendranath Banerjea and Ananda Mohan Bose; it soon displaced the Indian League, which had been founded the year before, and rivaled the long-standing British

Powell, Lewis Franklin, Jr.

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

American lawyer and judge (b. Sept. 19, 1907, Suffolk, Va.--d. Aug. 25, 1998, Richmond, Va.), served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for 15 years, during which he often provided a centrist viewpoint in an otherwise polarized tribunal. He cast the deciding vote on a number of landmark cases, most notably Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), which opposed strict racial quotas

Literature, United States.

2005-02-02T08:34:00.000-08:00

Most serious readers of American fiction would have to say that 2002 was an unusual year because the novel that dominated the best-seller list from late spring on was a first novel - California writer Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones - and the National Book Award (NBA) nominees in fiction, some of them first books, were

Mathematics And Physical Sciences, Space Probes.

2005-02-01T18:49:00.000-08:00

An important deep-space mission, NASA's Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR), was lost as it was being boosted from Earth orbit on August 15. CONTOUR had been placed in a parking orbit on July 3 to await the proper moment to begin the planned trajectory that would take it within 100 km (60 mi) of comet nuclei in 2003 and 2006. After its upper stage fired, ground controllers were unable to regain contact,

Hyde Park

2005-02-01T09:26:00.000-08:00

Town (township) and unincorporated village, Dutchess county, eastern New York, U.S. It lies on the east side of the Hudson River, 8 miles (13 km) north of Poughkeepsie and about 75 miles (121 km) north of New York City. Both the village (settled as Stoutenburgh in 1741) and town (formed in 1821) bear the name of a local estate honouring Edward Hyde, Viscount Cornbury, who was governor of New York (1702 - 08). Primarily

Performing Arts, Europe.

2005-01-31T11:31:00.000-08:00

In the London ballet world, the Royal Ballet's

Adams, Abigail

2005-01-31T01:09:00.000-08:00

Until the 20th century few first ladies shared Abigail Adams's interest in politics or in the treatment of government leaders by the press. She vigorously objected to what she considered inaccurate reporting on her husband and son. But she was not altogether surprised by the �lies [and] Falshoods,� writing in 1797 to her sister that she �expected to be vilified and abused, with my whole family.� Although her approach to the office of first lady was in many ways advanced, her fame rests primarily on her thousands of letters, which form an eloquent and evocative description of her life and times.

Mammal, Distinguishing taxonomic features

2005-01-30T23:46:00.000-08:00

The higher classification of the Mammalia is based on consideration of a broad array of characters. Traditionally, evidence from comparative anatomy was of predominant importance, but more recently information from such disciplines as physiology, serology, and genetics has proved useful in considering relationships. Comparative study of living organisms

Performing Arts, North America.

2005-01-30T08:17:00.000-08:00

Despite the vicissitudes of living in an awakened world following the 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S., most plans in place for dance went forward in 2002. Though American Ballet Theatre (ABT) was forced for budgetary reasons to cancel plans for an all-Stravinsky program - featuring Firebird, a work created by James Kudelka for his National Ballet of Canada (NBC) - ABT managed to

Argentina, Climate

2005-01-29T17:54:00.000-08:00

Argentina lies almost entirely within the temperate zone of the Southern Hemisphere, unlike the rest of the continent to the north, which lies within the tropics. Tropical air masses only occasionally invade the provinces of Formosa and Misiones in the extreme north. The southern extremes of Argentina, which extend to 55� S, also have predominantly temperate conditions,

Performing Arts, World Dance

2005-01-29T06:10:00.000-08:00

Popular folk dance troupes from the former Soviet Union toured the United States and Europe in 2002 and showed that they had lost none of their verve or attraction. Remarkably, the companies were headed by legendary figures active into their 90s. The Moiseyev Dance Company was created in 1937 by choreographer Igor Moiseyev, and in 2002, aged 95, he was still involved with the company.

Alarm Signal

2005-01-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

In zoology, a ritualized means of communicating a danger or threat among the members of an animal group. In many cases the signal is visual or vocal, but some animals - ants, bees, and certain fishes, for example - secrete chemical substances. Alarm communications frequently cross species boundaries. The hawking alarm calls of many small birds are similar and will cause

Performing Arts, United States.

2005-01-28T10:54:00.000-08:00

As the year 2002 ended, Peter Jackson's virtuoso adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Chris Columbus's interpretation of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets promised to surpass their predecessors, the worldwide box-office winners of Christmas 2001, to take their place among

Performing Arts, Britain.

2005-01-27T17:02:00.000-08:00

Some of the best films of the year

Baptiste

2005-01-27T07:30:00.000-08:00

After two provincial engagements, Baptiste went to Paris in 1791. In 1793 he joined the Th��tre de la R�publique and in 1799 the Com�die-Fran�aise, from which he retired in 1828. He was not successful in tragedy. Parisians of the Napoleonic era primarily associated

Performing Arts, Canada.

2005-01-26T05:31:00.000-08:00

Unusually, one of the most highly profiled North American films of the year was a documentary, Michael Moore's devastating study of American gun culture, Bowling for Columbine. With Ararat, Atom Egoyan investigated the Turkish genocide of the Armenians in 1915 through the eyes of a filmmaker (played by Charles Aznavour) researching a film. In Spider, David Cronenberg abandoned

Acosta, Jos� De

2005-01-26T03:01:00.000-08:00

Jesuit theologian and missionary to the New World, chiefly known for his Historia natural y moral de las Indias, the earliest survey of the New World and its relation to the Old. His works, missionary and literary, mark the end of the period of the religious and scientific incorporation of the newly discovered lands into Western

Berceuse

2005-01-25T16:09:00.000-08:00

(French: �lullaby�), musical composition, typically of the 19th century, having the character of a lullaby. While the word appears to imply no particular formal pattern, rocking rhythms in 6/8 time are common not only in the vocal prototype but also in its stylized instrumental counterparts, usually for piano. A well-known example of the latter is Fr�d�ric Chopin's Berceuse,

Performing Arts, Australia.

2005-01-25T11:22:00.000-08:00

Several directors looked critically at the recent history of Aboriginal Australians. Philip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence recalled the true story of three young girls who fled from incarceration under the official policy of the first three-quarters of the 20th century of seizing quarter- and half-caste children from their Aboriginal families so they could be �civilized

Biblical Literature, Apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings

2005-01-24T07:53:00.000-08:00

The importance of the discovery is very great; the scrolls of books of the Old Testament caused a new evaluation of the history of the text of the Hebrew Bible; fragments of the Apocrypha (Sirach and Tobit) and of already known and unknown Pseudepigrapha enlarge knowledge about Jewish literature of the intertestamental period, and the properly sectarian scrolls

Performing Arts, European Union.

2005-01-24T07:05:00.000-08:00

With the funding facilities of the European Union's MEDIA program, possibilities for co-production, and the formation of a European Film Promotion organization, a clear grouping of national film industries developed, linking the member countries of the European Union along with �candidate countries� and Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland - countries that, though

Amram Bar Sheshna

2005-01-23T11:25:00.000-08:00

Head of the Talmudic academy at Sura, Babylonia, traditionally regarded as the first Jewish authority to write a complete domestic and synagogal liturgy for the year, the Siddur Rav Amram (�Order of Prayers of Rabbi Amram�). Amram's work, forerunner in this field of those of Sa'adia ben Joseph and Maimonides, laid the foundations for the liturgies of both the Sephardim

Skeet Shooting

2005-01-22T23:07:00.000-08:00

Sport in which marksmen use shotguns to shoot at clay targets thrown into the air by spring devices called traps. It differs from trapshooting (q.v.), from which it derived, in that in skeet, traps are set at two points on the field and targets may be thrown diagonally across the shooter's field of vision as well as directly away from him (see illustration). The sport was developed

Performing Arts, Italy.

2005-01-22T02:56:00.000-08:00

The most costly Italian production to date, Roberto Benigni's adaptation of the children's classic Pinocchio failed disastrously to win the international popularity of his Oscar-winning 1997 Life Is Beautiful. Among the most notable productions of the year were Marco Bellocchio's L'ora di religione (Il sorriso di mia madre) (The Religion Hour [My Mother's Smile]), a fierce

Performing Arts, Germany.

2005-01-21T23:34:00.000-08:00

Two notable films in a generally undistinguished year were Winfried Bonengel's F�hrer Ex, a dramatic investigation of contemporary neo-Nazism, seen as a legacy of communist oppression in the former East Germany, and Eoin Moore's Pigs Will Fly, a battered-wife story that observed the unhappy relationship through the psychology of the husband, himself a painfully

Calder, Alexander (stirling)

2005-01-21T06:26:00.000-08:00

U.S. sculptor best known as the originator of the mobile, a type of kinetic sculpture, the delicately balanced or suspended components of which move in response to motor power or air currents; by contrast, Calder's stationary sculptures are called stabiles. He also produced numerous wire figures, notably for a vast miniature

Performing Arts, Iberia.

2005-01-20T22:55:00.000-08:00

Spain's major international success was Pedro Almod�var's Hable con ella (Talk to Her), an idiosyncratic reflection on solitude and communication. Spanish directors showed a new concern for social subjects, exemplified in Chus Guti�rrez's Poniente, about the exploitation of immigrant agricultural workers, and Fernando Le�n de Aranoa's Los lunes al sol (Mondays

Wanganui River

2005-01-20T06:52:00.000-08:00

River in central North Island, New Zealand. It rises on the western slopes of Mount Ngauruhoe and flows northwest to Taumarunui and then south to empty into the Tasman Sea at South Taranaki Bight. Draining a basin of 2,850 square miles (7,380 square km), the Wanganui, 180 miles (290 km) long, is fed by the Ongarue, Tangarakau, and Ohura rivers. A sandbar at its mouth, near Wanganui city, blocks the

Sothern, Ann

2005-01-19T22:12:00.000-08:00

American actress (b. Jan. 22, 1909, Valley City, N.D. - d. March 15, 2001, Ketchum, Idaho), achieved fame with her roles in films that included Maisie (1939) and Lady Be Good (1941) and as the star of the 1950s television series Private Secretary. Sothern began her film career after performing in Broadway musicals. Her success in the title role of Maisie led to a series of films that included Maisie Was a Lady (1941) and Undercover

Performing Arts, Nordic Countries.

2005-01-19T05:47:00.000-08:00

Finland's Aki Kaurismaki looked, with characteristic wry humour, at the deprived of modern society through the eyes of a man suffering amnesia after a ferocious mugging in Mies vailla menneisyytt� (The Man Without a Past). From Sweden, Lukas Moodysson's Lilja 4-ever was a harrowing portrayal of a young girl, as much abused by the �benefactor� who takes her away to Sweden