Thursday, July 29, 2004

Alewife

Also called  Sawbelly, Grayback, Gaspereau, or Branch Herring  (Pomolobus, or Alosa, pseudoharengus), important North American food fish of the herring family, Clupeidae. Deeper-bodied than the true herring, the alewife has a pronounced saw-edge on the underside; it grows to about 30 cm (1 foot). Except for members of a few lake populations, it spends several years along the Atlantic coast of North America before

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Homburg

City, Saarland, southwestern Germany, on the Erbach River, northeast of Saarbrücken. Chartered in 1330 and 1558, it belonged to the counts of Homburg, most of whose territory was divided in 1499 between the houses of Nassau-Saarbrücken and Pfalz-Zweibrücken. It became part of the Bavarian Palatinate in 1815 and was included in the Saar in 1920. The market square is surrounded by fine 17th-century

Monday, July 26, 2004

Mahavira

All that is known about Mahavira's life is that he was a Jain (he perhaps took his name to honour the great Jainism reformer Mahavira [c. 599–527 BCE]) and that he wrote Ganitasarasangraha (“Compendium of the Essence of Mathematics”) during the reign of Amoghavarsha (c. 814–878) of the Rashtrakuta

Saturday, July 24, 2004

Wellhausen, Julius

Wellhausen studied at the University of Göttingen and taught there briefly before becoming professor of the Old Testament at Greifswald in 1872, a position he resigned 10 years later because of conflicts with his academic

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Ha-mi

Pinyin  Hami , Uighur  Qomul  city and oasis in eastern Uighur autonomous ch'ü (region) of Sinkiang, China. An important stage on the roads from Kansu province into Central Asia and to the west, Ha-mi was known to the Chinese in early times as I-wu, the name Ha-mi being the Chinese rendering of the Mongolian version (Khamil) of the Uighur name for the city. The Chinese occupied the oasis in early times, when

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

United Kingdom, The break with Rome

With Wolsey and his papal authority gone, Henry turned to the authority of the state to obtain his annulment, and the so-called Reformation Parliament that first met in November 1529 was unprecedented—it lasted seven years, enacted 137 statutes (32 of which were of vital importance), and legislated in areas that no feudal Parliament had ever dreamed of entering. “King in

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Macapagal, Diosdado

After receiving his law degree, Macapagal was admitted to the bar in 1936. During World War II he practiced law in Manila and aided the anti-Japanese resistance. After the war he worked in a law firm and in 1948 served as second secretary to the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C. The following

Saturday, July 17, 2004

Mahasanghika

Its emergence about a century after the death of the Buddha (483 BC) represented the first major schism in the Buddhist community. Although traditional accounts of the second council, at Vaisali (now in Bihar state), attribute

Friday, July 16, 2004

Guldberg, Cato Maximilian

Guldberg was educated at the University of Christiania and taught at the royal military schools before becoming professor of mathematics at the University

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Alençon

Town, Orne département, Basse-Normandie région, northwestern France. Alençon lies at the juncture of the Sarthe and Briante rivers, in the centre of a plain ringed by wooded hills. It is known for its tulle and lace (especially point d'Alençon), introduced from Venice in the mid-17th century. Incorporated in the duchy of Normandy in 911, it was capital of the county and duchy of

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Orapa

Mining town, east-central Botswana. It is located about 240 miles (385 km) north of Gaborone, the national capital. Situated on the eastern edge of the Kalahari (desert), the town was built to accommodate mine workers after the discovery in 1967 of a large diamond field, or pipe (a roughly cylindrical diamond-bearing geological formation), with a surface area of 277 acres (112 hectares); it is one

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Low, Sir Hugh

Before going to the Malay Peninsula, Low had spent an uneventful 30 years as a colonial civil servant on the small island of Labuan, a crown colony off the northwest coast of Borneo.

Monday, July 12, 2004

Eastern Africa, Irrigation

The irrigation of arid areas is limited by the amount of water that can be brought in from outside the region, but not much of even this limited potential is utilized. For example, 70 percent of Kenya is cultivable only by irrigation, but only 3 percent receives more than 50 inches of rain, the minimal amount from which any considerable runoff can be expected. Only the Tana and

Christiansted

Also called  Bassin  chief town and port of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, on the northeastern coast of the island. Exports are mainly watches and rum. It was formerly capital of the Danish West Indies and was a boyhood residence (1765) of the American statesman Alexander Hamilton. Pop. (1980) 2,914.

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Everson, William

Raised by Christian Scientist parents, Everson became an agnostic in his teens; while attending Fresno (California) State College, he read the verse of Robinson Jeffers and resolved to become a poet. His

Friday, July 09, 2004

Mohammed, Warith Deen

The seventh son of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, Mohammed was marked for leadership of the society even before his birth. The founder

Thursday, July 08, 2004

Dysprosium

(Dy), chemical element, rare-earth metal of transition Group IIIb of the periodic table. A relatively hard and very reactive metal, it is oxidized by air and by water. Its high melting point and ability to absorb neutrons make it useful in control rods for nuclear reactors. Its compounds have been used for making laser materials, as components in some electronic equipment,

Benserade, Isaac De

Benserade began visiting the salon of the Marquise de Rambouillet, the literary centre of Paris, in 1634 and wrote a succession of romantic verses that won him a reputation culminating in the “sonnets controversy” of 1649, in which his sonnet “Job” was

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Mahabalipuram

Also called  Mamallapuram , or  Seven Pagodas  historic town, northeast Tamil Nadu state, southeastern India. The town lies along the Bay of Bengal 37 miles (60 km) south of Madras. The town's religious centre was founded by a 7th-century-AD Hindu Pallava king, Narasimhavarman, also known as Mamalla, for whom the town was named. Ancient Chinese, Persian, and Roman coins found at Mahabalipuram point to its earlier existence as a seaport.

Monday, July 05, 2004

Indigo

The naturally occurring precursor

Schnitger, Arp

Schnitger was born into a family of woodworkers; his father was a carver, and Arp was apprenticed to a cousin at age 18. Three years after his cousin's

Saturday, July 03, 2004

Windsor

Town, Windsor and Maidenhead unitary authority, historic county of Berkshire, England. Windsor is situated on the south bank of the River Thames and lies to the west of London. The modern town is dominated by Windsor Castle, standing on the outcrop of chalk on which William I the Conqueror (reigned 1066–87) built the original fortress. The castle is in regular occupation as a

Friday, July 02, 2004

Gisulph Ii

In 1052 Gisulph's father, Gaimar V, was assassinated in a revolt. Gisulph, held captive by the assassins, was rescued with the aid of Norman knights, who were rewarded by recognition of their territorial

Bhanavara

At first, different

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Turing Machine

Hypothetical computing device introduced in 1936 by the English mathematician and logician Alan M. Turing. Turing originally conceived the machine as a mathematical tool that could infallibly recognize undecidable propositions—i.e., those mathematical statements that, within a given formal axiom system, cannot be shown to be either true or false. (The mathematician