Selden, John

Called to the bar in 1612, Selden practiced as a conveyancer, rarely appearing in court. His first major book, Titles of Honour (1614), has remained a useful reference. Analecton

álvarez, Juan

A landowner of mestizo ancestry, Álvarez in 1811 joined José María Morelos in an unsuccessful campaign for independence from Spain. He was prominent in Antonio López de Santa Anna's revolt of 1822–23, which overthrew

Scylax Of Caryanda

It is known from Herodotus that Scylax was sent by the Persian king Darius I (in about 515 BC) to explore the course of the Indus River and that he returned by sea after two and a half years to the Isthmus of Heroonpolis (Suez). References in ancient authorities

Benchley, Robert (charles)

A graduate of Harvard University (1912), Benchley joined the staff of the old Life magazine in 1920 as drama critic. His monologue “The Treasurer's Report,” delivered as a skit in an amateur revue in 1922, was the basis for one of the first all-talking short subjects. He subsequently wrote and acted in motion-picture

Water Strider

With their short front legs they capture insects that fall onto the water surface. In crowded conditions water striders

Oral

Russian  Uralsk , also spelled  Ural'sk  city, western Kazakhstan, along the Ural (Zhayyq) River. Founded in 1613 or 1622 by Cossacks fleeing a tsarist punitive campaign, it was known as Yaitsky Gorodok until 1775, when its name was changed following the Pugachov Rebellion. The town was a centre of both the Stenka Razin (1667) and Yemelyan Pugachov (1773) uprisings and was the headquarters of the Ural Cossacks. It had a lively trade with

Biogenic Landform

Any topographic feature that can be attributed to the activity of organisms. Such features are diverse in both kind and scale. Organisms contribute to the genesis of most topography involving rock weathering; they play an auxiliary role, as demonstrated by bacterial and lichen activity, the effects of root wedging, and solutional erosion made possible by humic

Spadefish

(family Ephippidae), any of about 17 species of marine fishes (order Perciformes), predominantly tropical though also found in temperate regions. In appearance the spadefishes are deep-bodied and laterally compressed, with five or six vertical black bands on a silvery body. The vertical bars may disappear with age, the adults being solid white, black, or, more commonly,

Middle Way

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.

Ireland, Theatre

Dublin is the centre of Ireland's

Shamanism

Although the classic model and most complete expression of shamanism is found in the Arctic and Central Asian regions, the phenomenon must not be considered as limited to those countries. It is encountered, for example, in Southeast Asia, Oceania, and among many North American aboriginal tribes (shamanism does not play a role of the first order in Africa). A distinction

Haley, Alex

Although his parents were teachers, Haley was an indifferent student. He began writing to avoid boredom during voyages while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard (1939–59). His first major work, The Autobiography

Syrian Chant

Generic term for the vocal music of the various Syrian Christian churches, including Eastern Orthodox churches such as the Jacobites and Nestorians, and the Eastern churches in union with Rome—e.g., the Maronites (mostly in Lebanon) and the Chaldeans, who are dissidents from the Nestorians. To these should be added some branches of nearly all of these groupings in the

Saratov

Most of the right(west)-bank area is occupied by the Volga Upland, which is greatly dissected by river valleys and erosion gullies; the left (east) bank is a low, rolling plain

Alekseyev, Vasily Ivanovich

Alekseyev was the son of a lumberjack; at age 12 he was felling trees alongside the men and at age 14 was wrestling them on even terms. He enrolled in a forestry institute in 1961 and graduated from Novocherkassk Polytechnical Institute

Hashimiyah

Also called  Rawandiyah,   Islamic religiopolitical sect of the 8th–9th century AD, instrumental in the 'Abbasid overthrow of the Umayyad caliphate. The movement appeared in the Iraqi city of Kufah in the early 700s among supporters (called Shi'ites) of the fourth caliph 'Ali, who believed that succession to 'Ali's position of imam, or leader, of the Muslim community had devolved on Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyah (d. c. 700), one

Futurology

In the social sciences, the study of current trends in order to forecast future developments. While the speculative and descriptive aspects of futurology are traceable to the traditions of utopian literature and science fiction, the methodology of the field originated in the “technological forecasting” developed near the end of World War II, of which Toward New

Braddock, James J.

Braddock's professional name was changed by his manager to James J. early in his career, patterning the name

Switzerland, Leisure

Living in close proximity to the mountains, which are well linked by road and rail to the urban areas, the Swiss have become extremely sport-conscious and have encouraged the growth of skiing and mountaineering as tourist attractions. Other sports include Swiss-style wrestling, gymnastics, regular Sunday-morning shooting, Hornussen (a kind of Alpine baseball), tennis,

Shilluk

The Shilluk are sedentary agriculturists with strong pastoral interests (cattle, sheep, and goats). Men hunt, herd, and milk the livestock; both sexes do agricultural work. The community

Cylinder

In geometry, surface of revolution that is traced by a straight line (the generatrix) that always moves parallel to itself or some fixed line or direction (the axis). The path, to be definite, is directed along a curve (the directrix), along which the line always glides. In a right circular cylinder, the directrix is a circle. The axis of this cylinder is a line through the centre

Steel, Argon-oxygen decarburization

In the production of stainless steel and other high-alloy grades that contain highly oxidizable elements such as chromium, lowering the levels of carbon by regular oxygen injection has the undesirable consequence of oxidizing the alloying elements as well. The argon-oxygen decarburization (AOD) process alleviates this problem by diluting the injected oxygen

Wu Ch'eng-en

Wu received a traditional Confucian education and became known for his clever composition of poetry and prose in the classical style. Throughout his life he displayed

Nitrogen Group Element

Any of the chemical elements that constitute Group Va of the periodic table (see Figure). The group consists of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), and bismuth (Bi). The elements share certain general similarities in chemical behaviour, though they are clearly differentiated from one another chemically, and these similarities reflect common features

Arabia

Arabic  Jazirat Al-'Arab (“Island of the Arabs”),   peninsular region, together with offshore islands, located in the extreme southwestern corner of Asia. The Arabian Peninsula is bounded by the Red Sea on the west and southwest, the Gulf of Aden on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south and southeast, and the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf (also called the Arabian Gulf) on the northeast. Geographically the peninsula

Restionales

Nearly all plants in the group exhibit reduced (simplified) flowers with a one- to three-chambered ovary containing only one pendulous ovule per chamber. There are one to three stamens (male

North Germanic Languages, The emergence of Old Scandinavian, 600–1500

Inscriptions from the latter part of the Ancient period show North Germanic as a distinct dialect. Information about the earliest stages of the Old Scandinavian period is also derived from runic inscriptions, which became more abundant after the creation of the short runic futhark about AD 800. The expansion of Nordic peoples in the Viking Age (c. 750–1050) led to the establishment

Lamarck, Jean-baptiste De Monet, Chevalier (knight) De

In full  Jean-Baptiste-Pierre-Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck  pioneer French biologist who is best known for his idea that acquired traits are inheritable, an idea known as Lamarckism, which is controverted by Darwinian theory.

Baladhuri, Al-

Al-Baladhuri lived most of his life in Baghdad and studied there and in Syria. He was for some time a favoured visitor at the Baghdad court of the 'Abbasid caliphs. His chief extant work, a condensation of a longer history, Futuh al-buldan (The Origins of the Islamic State, 1916, 1924), tells of the wars and

Viewfinder

Modern viewfinders are variations on two types: reflex and direct optical. In the single-lens reflex camera, the camera lens