Monday, January 31, 2005

Tradescant, John

Tradescant added to his father's collection of natural history objects, ultimately forming a significant collection acquired principally from Algiers and Virginia. After the younger

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Earth, Convective electrojets

The auroral electrojets are two broad sheets of electric current that flow from noon toward midnight in the northern and southern auroral ovals. The dawn side current flows westward, creating a decrease in the magnetic field on the surface. The dusk side current flows eastward and produces an increase in the magnetic field. Both currents flow at an altitude of approximately

Saturday, January 29, 2005

Waqidi, Al-

As a youth al-Waqidi is said to have been such an authority on the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina that he was guide to the 'Abbasid caliph Harun ar-Rashid during the latter's pilgrimage. Al-Waqidi became a grain dealer

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Wolfdietrich

Germanic hero who appears in the Middle High German poems of Ortnit and Wolfdietrich in Das Heldenbuch (see Heldenbuch, Das) as the son of Hugdietrich, emperor of Constantinople. Repudiated by his father, who mistakenly believes him illegitimate, he is brought up by the emperor's faithful retainer Berchtung von Meran. Berchtung and his 16 sons support Wolfdietrich,

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Atlanta

The city owes its existence to the railroads, the routes of which were

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Devequt

Also spelled �Devekut� (Hebrew: �attachment�), in Jewish religious thought, an adherence to or communion with God that stops short of mystical union. The notion of devequt apparently derived from the biblical reference to �loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him� (Deuteronomy 11:22). As a fundamental concept of the Jewish mystical system called the Kabbala, devequt was

Monday, January 24, 2005

Wandjina Style

Also spelled �Wondjina, � type of depiction in Australian cave paintings of figures that represent mythological beings associated with the creation of the world. Called wandjina figures, the images are believed by modern Aborigines to have been painted by the Wondjinas, prehistoric inhabitants of the Kimberley region in northwest Australia, the only area where cave paintings in the

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Ascham, Roger

As a boy of 14, Ascham entered the University of Cambridge, where he later took his M.A. and was elected a fellow of St. John's and appointed reader in Greek. The new Renaissance enthusiasm for the classics, especially

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Lahbabi, Mohammed Aziz

Moroccan writer and philosopher (b. Dec. 25, 1922, F�s, Morocco--d. Aug. 23, 1993, Rabat, Morocco), had influence in the Arab world through his many writings, some of which were translated into as many as 30 languages. Lahbabi was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris and received a doctorate of philosophy. He taught philosophy at Muhammad V University, Rabat, and the University of Algiers and held other

Friday, January 21, 2005

Philanthropinum

Late 18th-century school (1774 - 93) founded in Dessau, Germany, by the educator Johann Bernhard Basedow to implement the educational ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Aiming to foster in its students a humanitarian worldview and awareness of the community of interest among all people, it taught rich and poor boys together regardless of religious or class distinctions. The school

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Pacific Ocean, Study and exploration

Andrew Sharp, The Discovery of the Pacific Islands (1960, reprinted 1985), summarizes the work of 121 explorers of the area and their contributions to charting the Pacific. J.C. Beaglehole, The Exploration of the Pacific, 3rd ed. (1966), and The Life of Captain James Cook (1974), are classics on the subject. Ernest S. Dodge, Beyond the Capes: Pacific Exploration from Captain Cook to the Challenger, 1776 - 1877 (1971), provides a thorough coverage of this important period.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

California Aqueduct

Principal water-conveyance structure of the California State Water Project, U.S., running from the Sacramento River Delta east of San Francisco, south through the San Joaquin Valley, and over the summit of the Tehachapi Mountains, a distance of 273 mi (440 km). At this point it divides into east and west branches, the former terminating some 444 mi from the delta. Sizes of channels

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Earth, Intraplate activity

Although most tectonic activity takes place along plate boundaries, some occurs within plates. Much of this intraplate activity occurs along aulacogens and plume traces. An aulacogen can be defined as a failed third arm of a spreading ridge. Aulacogens commonly intersect a divergent plate margin at an angle of about 120�, and they form just as two continents begin to

Monday, January 17, 2005

Art And Architecture, Egyptian, Cult temples

It is generally thought that the Egyptian temple of the Dynastic Period owed most to the cult of the sun god Re at Heliopolis. The temple of Re, however, was probably open in plan and lacked a shrine. Sun temples were unique among cult temples; worship was centred on a cult object, the benben, which was a squat obelisk placed in full sunlight. Among the few temples surviving

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Absalon

Scion of a powerful Zealand family, Absalon helped his childhood friend gain the Danish throne as Valdemar I (1156 - 57) and was named bishop of Roskilde in 1158. As the king's closest adviser, he initially supported Valdemar's alliance with Frederick I Barbarossa, Holy

Friday, January 14, 2005

Norway, Union with Sweden

Norwegian independence got no support from the Great Powers, and Sweden attacked Norway in late July 1814. After a brief war of 14 days, Christian resigned. Jean Bernadotte (later known as Charles XIV John; called Karl Johan in Sweden and Norway), the Swedish crown prince, accepted the Norwegian constitution and thus could no longer argue on the basis of the Treaty of Kiel. This

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Sabae

City, Fukui ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan, in the northern end of the Takefu basin. The city first formed around the Buddhist Josho temple and became a post town after 1720. An administrative centre in the late 19th century, it gained importance as a centre for the production of silk and synthetic fibres. Specialized industries, such as the manufacture of optical frames and roof

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Feminine Ending

In prosody, a line of verse having an unstressed and usually extrametrical syllable at its end. In the opening lines from Robert Frost's poem �Directive,� the fourth line has a feminine ending while the rest are masculine: Back out of all this now too much for us,Back in a time made simple by the lossOf detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off Like graveyard marble sculpture

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Saale Glacial Stage

Division of Pleistocene deposits and time in northern Europe (the Pleistocene Epoch began about 1,600,000 years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago). The Saale Glacial Stage followed the Holstein Interglacial Stage and preceded the Eemian Interglacial Stage, both relatively mild climatic periods. The extensive and complex Saale deposits are correlated with the Gipping Glacial

Monday, January 10, 2005

Agostino Di Giovanni

Agostino is first heard of in Siena in 1310 and again lived there in 1340 - 43. After 1320 he was active with Agnolo at Volterra, where they executed a number of scenes from the lives of SS. Regulus and Octavian. The work of the two sculptors cannot be clearly differentiated. Between

Sunday, January 09, 2005

Tighina

Also spelled �Tigina�, formerly called �Bendery�, Moldavian �Bender� city, Moldova. Tighina lies along the right bank of the Dniester River below its confluence with the B�c (Byk). A settlement has existed on the site since the 2nd century BC. It came successively under the rule of Kiev, Moldavia, Genoa, Turkey, and, in 1818, after frequent attacks, Russia. Between World Wars I and II it was in Romania. Today Tighina manufactures textiles, foodstuffs, cables,

Saturday, January 08, 2005

B�hmer, Johann Friedrich

After studying at the universities of G�ttingen and Heidelberg, B�hmer journeyed to Italy, where he became interested in art history. Upon his return to Frankfurt (1822), he became an assistant librarian

Friday, January 07, 2005

Gaultier De Varennes Et De La V�rendrye, Pierre

(French-Canadian explorer): see La V�rendrye, Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

Macdiarmid, Alan G.

MacDiarmid earned Ph.D.'s in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (1953) and the

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Racine, Jean

The classic biography is Raymond Picard, La Carri�re de Jean Racine, new ed. rev. and augmented (1961). Geoffrey Brereton, Jean Racine: A Critical Biography (1951, reprinted 1973), is also worth consulting. A popularized treatment is Alain Viala, Racine: la strat�gie du cam�l�on (1990). Racine's central place in the history of French tragedy is discussed in Jacques Truchet, La Trag�die classique en France (1975). Critical studies accessible to the general reader include John C. Lapp, Aspects of Racinian Tragedy (1955, reissued 1978); Odette de Mourgues, Racine; or, The Triumph of Relevance (1967); Claude Abraham, Jean Racine (1977); David Maskell, Racine: A Theatrical Reading (1991); Edward Forman (ed.), Racine: Appraisal and Reappraisal (1991); Richard Parish, Racine: The Limits of Tragedy (1993); Henry Phillips, Racine: Language and Theatre (1994); and Derval Conroy and Edric Caldicott, Racine: The Power and the Pleasure (2001). The most controversial interpretations of Racine (anthropological by Roland Barthes, Marxist by Lucien Goldmann, and psychoanalytical by Charles Mauron) are reviewed with many others by Jean Rohou, Jean Racine: bilan critique, ed. by Alain Pag�s (1994). Roy C. Knight, Racine et la Gr�ce, 2nd ed. (1974); and Ronald W. Tobin, Racine and Seneca (1971), elucidate Racine's vast knowledge of Greco-Roman antiquity. The rhetoric of the plays has been studied by Michael Hawcrowft, Word as Action: Racine, Rhetoric, and Theatrical Language (1992).

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Likasi

Formerly (until 1966) �Jadotville, � city, southeastern Congo (Kinshasa). It lies along the Likasi River, 86 miles (138 km) northwest of Lubumbashi, to which it is connected by road and rail. In 1892 Belgians discovered copper deposits at Likasi and at Kambove, 15 miles (24 km) northwest. Likasi was founded in 1917 and was designated an urban district in 1943. It is now one of the nation's most important mineral-processing centres, with plants

Monday, January 03, 2005

Pox Disease

Any of a complex of viral diseases in human beings and domestic animals, marked chiefly by eruptions of the skin and mucous membranes. Sheep pox and rabbit pox are spread by airborne infectious particles that are inhaled. Horse pox, fowl pox, and mouse pox usually are spread by skin contact. Cowpox (vaccinia) and pseudo-cowpox (paravaccinia), localized on the udder and

Sunday, January 02, 2005

Rose, Hugh Henry, Baron Strathnairn Of Strathnairn And Of Jhansi

Son of the diplomat Sir George Rose, he was educated and received his military training in Berlin and entered the British army in 1820. From 1841 to 1848 he was consul general in Syria. As British liaison officer at French headquarters during the Crimean War,