Africa

Africa's total land area is approximately 11,724,000 square

Wiggin, Kate Douglas

Kate Douglas Smith attended a district school in Philadelphia and for short periods the Gorham Female Seminary in Maine, the Morison Academy in Maryland, and the Abbott Academy in Massachusetts. In 1873 she moved with her family to Santa

Ma'arri, Al-

Al-Ma'arri was a descendant of the Tanukh tribe. A childhood disease left him virtually blind. He studied at the Syrian cities of Aleppo, Antioch, and Tripoli and soon began his literary career, supported by a small

Fischart, Johann

Fischart received a good education and before 1570 traveled widely, visiting the Netherlands and probably England and studying in Paris, Strasbourg, and Siena, Italy. In 1574 he received a doctor juris degree in Basel, but from 1570 to 1580 he lived

Russell, Lillian

Helen Leonard attended convent and private schools in Chicago. About 1877 or 1878 she was taken by her mother to New York City, where her early training in voice

Russell, Pee Wee

Reluctantly trained in violin as a child, Russell also tried piano and drums before settling on the clarinet, on which he became a distinctive stylist. Russell developed a quirky, chance-taking style that employed a generally plaintive tone punctuated by growls, squeaks, and breathy mutterings.

North Germanic Languages

There are many-volumed native dictionaries for each language. Only some bilingual dictionaries are listed here: Jens Axelsen (ed.), The Standard Danish-English, English-Danish Dictionary (1986); Vincent Petti et al., Norstedts Comprehensive Swedish-English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1993), and Norstedts Comprehensive English-Swedish Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1994); Willy A. Kirkeby, English-Norwegian Dictionary (1995), and Norsk-engelsk ordbok, 2nd ed. (1986); Einar Haugen (ed.), Norwegian English Dictionary, 4th ed. (1995), with entries in both the Norwegian languages; Arngr�mur Sigurdhsson, Icelandic-English Dictionary, 4th ed. (1983); G.T. Zo�ga, English-Icelandic Dictionary, 3rd ed. (1945, reprinted 1954); and Annfinnur � Sk�la, Jonhard Mikkelsen, and Zakarias Wang, Ensk-f�roysk ordhab�k (1992).

American Literature, Poetry

The post-World War II years produced an abundance of strong poetry but no individual poet as dominant and accomplished as T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, or William Carlos Williams, whose long careers were coming to an end. The major poetry from 1945 to 1960 was modernist in its ironic texture yet formal in its insistence on regular rhyme and metre. Beginning

Antarctica, Other resources

A rich imagination can see many possible uses of Antarctica and its materials. The continental ice sheet contains nearly 90 percent of the world's glacial ice - a huge potential supply of fresh water - but any economic value is precluded by delivery costs. Antarctica has been proposed as a long-term deep-freeze storage site for grain and other foods, but calculations show

Aryan

(from Sanskrit arya, �noble�), a people who, in prehistoric times, settled in Iran and northern India. From their language, also called Aryan, the Indo-European languages of South Asia are descended. In the 19th century the term was used as a synonym for �Indo-European� and also, more restrictively, to refer to the Indo-Iranian languages (q.v.). It is now used in linguistics only in the

Seafloor Spreading Hypothesis

The seafloor spreading hypothesis was proposed

Tureen

Covered container, sometimes made to rest on a stand or dish, from which liquids, generally soup or sauce, are served at table. The earliest silver and pottery examples, dating from the early 18th century, were called terrines or terrenes (from Latin terra, �earth�), which suggests a pottery origin for the form. Most tureens are crafted in a bowl-like shape that has been influenced

Bourbon, Pierre Ii, 7e Duc De (7th Duke Of)

Louis XI of France espoused his eldest daughter, Anne of France (q.v.), to Pierre de Beaujeu in 1474 and, on his deathbed, entrusted to Pierre the charge of his 13-year-old son, Charles VIII. Thus, from 1483 to the end of 1491, Beaujeu and Anne were to exercise a virtual regency in France. Faced with the reaction of all who had suffered

Athaliah

Also spelled �Athalia, � in the Old Testament, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel and wife of Jeham, king of Judah. After the death of Ahaziah, her son, Athaliah usurped the throne and reigned for seven years. She massacred all the members of the royal house of Judah (II Kings 11:1 - 3), except Joash. A successful revolution was organized in favour of Joash, and she was killed. The story of Athaliah forms the subject

Japanese Orthodox Church

Since the beginning

World War I, The Far East

China's entry into the war in 1917 on the side of the Allies was motivated not by any grievance against the Central Powers but by the Peking government's fear lest Japan, a belligerent since 1914, should monopolize the sympathies of the Allies and of the United States when Far Eastern affairs came up for settlement after the war. Accordingly, in March 1917 the Peking government severed

Akure

Town, capital of Ondo state, southwestern Nigeria. It lies in the southern part of the forested Yoruba Hills and at the intersection of roads from Ondo, Ilesha, Ado-Ekiti, and Owo. Akure is an agricultural trade centre for the yams, cassava, corn (maize), bananas, rice, palm oil and kernels, okra, and pumpkins grown by the Ondo branch of the Yoruba people. Although cocoa is by far

Baal

God worshiped in many ancient Middle Eastern communities, especially among the Canaanites, who apparently considered him a fertility deity and one of the most important gods in the pantheon. As a Semitic common noun baal (Hebrew ba'al) meant �owner� or �lord,� although it could be used more generally; for example, a baal of wings was a winged creature, and, in the plural, baalim

Kinship, Double unilineal descent

Double unilineal, or duolineal, descent is very rare. Arguably, a form of double descent exists among groups of Australian Aboriginals, but the most definitive examples are found in Africa. The Yako of Nigeria and the Herero of Namibia and Botswana are best known. The principle of double descent is that two kinds of descent group, patrilineal and matrilineal, exist

Chancery, Court Of

In England, the court of equity under the lord high chancellor that began to develop in the 15th century to provide remedies not obtainable in the courts of common law. Today, the court comprises the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice. Courts of chancery or equity are still maintained as separate jurisdictions in certain areas of the commonwealth and in

Human Embryology, Amnion

A cleft separates the outermost cells of the inner cell mass of the blastocyst from the remainder, which then becomes the embryonic disk (Figure 1G). The split-off, thin upper layer is the amnion, which remains attached to the periphery of the embryonic disk. As the disk folds into a cylindrical embryo, the amniotic margin follows the underfolding,

Mountain, The North American Cordillera

Subduction of oceanic lithosphere presently occurs only beneath two segments of the coast of western North America. The subduction

Tephrochronology

Method of age determination that makes use of layers of ash (tephra). Tephra layers are excellent time-stratigraphic markers, but, to establish a chronology, it is necessary to identify and correlate as many tephra units as possible over the widest possible area. Because of the large number of violent volcanic explosions in Iceland, Sigurdur Thorarinsson, an Icelander

Tephrochronology

Method of age determination that makes use of layers of ash (tephra). Tephra layers are excellent time-stratigraphic markers, but, to establish a chronology, it is necessary to identify and correlate as many tephra units as possible over the widest possible area. Because of the large number of violent volcanic explosions in Iceland, Sigurdur Thorarinsson, an Icelander

San Francisco

City, northeastern C�rdoba provincia, north-central Argentina, on the border of Santa F� provincia at the northern edge of the Pampa. Founded in 1886 and given city status in 1915, it has been a railroad centre since the 19th century and is a commercial and manufacturing centre for an agricultural (grain and flax) and pastoral area. Light manufacturing is important, as are dairy

Azerbaijan, Russian suzerainty

After a series of wars between the Russian Empire and Iran, the treaties of Gulistan (1813) and Turkmenchai (1828) established a new border between the empires. Russia acquired Baku, Shirvan, Ganja, Nakhichevan (Nax�ivan), and Yerevan. Henceforth the Azerbaijani Turks of Caucasia were separated from the majority of their linguistic and religious compatriots, who remained in Iran.

Pas D'�l�vation

(French: �high steps�), all jumping and leaping movements in classical ballet. The steps are admired for the height at which they are performed and for the dancer's ability to ascend without apparent effort and to land smoothly. Dancers famed for aerial maneuvers of this kind include Jean Balon, a French dancer of the late 17th century, and Vaslav Nijinsky, reportedly an early

Lat�co�re, Pierre

The Compagnie Lat�co�re began commercial air flights between Toulouse, Fr., and Barcelona on Dec. 25, 1918, and extended its route to Morocco in 1919 and to Dakar, Senegal, in 1925. In 1927 the line was renamed Compagnie G�n�rale A�ropostale, and, at the end of the decade,

Azerbaijan, Flag Of

Prior to the Russian Revolution, when Azerbaijan was part of the tsar's domain, the leading Azerbaijani nationalist, 'Ali bay Huseynzada, exhorted his followers to �Turkify, Islamicize, Europeanize� in order to emphasize ethnic pride, religious devotion, and modernization. The colours associated with those principles were light blue (a traditional Turkish flag colour),

Pyramid Texts

Collection of Egyptian mortuary prayers, hymns, and spells intended to protect a dead king or queen and ensure life and sustenance in the hereafter. The texts, inscribed on the walls of the inner chambers of the pyramids, are found at Saqqarah in several 5th- and 6th-dynasty pyramids, of which that of Unas, last king of the 5th dynasty, is the earliest known. The texts constitute