Rzhev

Also spelled �Rzev� city, Tver oblast (province), northwestern Russia. It lies along the upper Volga River at the crossing of the Moscow-Riga and St. Petersburg - Bryansk trunk railways. First mentioned in 1216 as an independent princedom, Rzhev has always been a route centre on the western approaches to Moscow. The city has had a stormy history. It was held at various times by the princes of Tver

Dzungarian Basin

The basin is located between the Mongolian Altai Mountains, on the Sino-Mongolian border, to the north, and the P'o-lo-k'o-nu and O-ha-pu-t'e mountains to the south; the latter run east and west immediately to the north of the Tien Shan (�Celestial Mountains�). To the east and southeast, respectively, the basin is

Haas, Ernst

Haas's youthful interests were divided between medicine and painting, but after World War II he abandoned both in favour of photography. His early photographs were experimentations in abstract light and form. When

Southeast Asia, History Of, Reappearance of regional interests

After the end of the 17th century, the long-developed polities of Southeast Asia were pulled into a Western-dominated world economy, weakening regional trade networks and strengthening ties with distant colonial powers. In the early years of independence these ties often remained strong enough to be called neocolonial by critics, but after the mid-1960s these partnerships

La Rioja

City, capital of La Rioja provincia, northwestern Argentina, on La Rioja River at the foot of the Velasco Mountains. Founded in 1591 by explorers for gold and silver, it long remained a small commercial and administrative centre close to intermittently worked deposits of copper, silver, and lead ores in the high Andes to the west. Its destruction by earthquake in 1894 led to its

Parks, Rosa

Parks attended Alabama State College (now Alabama State University) and made her living as a seamstress. In 1943 she became

Wu-ch'ang

Pinyin �Wuchang� industrial city and capital of Hupeh sheng (province), central China. Located on the south bank of the Yangtze River, it is the oldest city of the Wu-han conurbation (Han-kou, Han-yang, Wu-ch'ang). It is the oldest of the Wu-han cities and served as a capital under the Wu dynasty in the Three Kingdoms period (AD 220 - 280) and is the administrative and cultural centre of the Wu-han cities. Northeast

Alcmaeon

Also spelled �Alcmeon � Greek philosopher and physiologist of the academy at Croton (now Crotona, southern Italy), the first person recorded to have practiced dissection of human bodies for research purposes. He may also have been the first to attempt vivisection. Alcmaeon inferred that the brain was the centre of intelligence and that the soul was the source of life. Applying

Abadan

Arabic �'Abbadan� city, extreme southwestern Iran. The city is situated in Khuzestan, part of the oil-producing region of Iran. Abadan lies on an island of the same name along the eastern bank of the Shatt Al-'Arab (river), 33 miles (53 km) from the Persian Gulf. The city thus lies along Iran's border with Iraq. Abadan Island is bounded on the west by the Shatt Al-'Arab and on the east by the Bahmanshir, which is an outlet

Perelman, S.j.

Perelman attended but did not graduate from Brown University, where he edited the school humour magazine. He began writing for the early, frenetic Marx Brothers films and helped turn out the screenplays for such classics as Monkey Business (1931) and Horse

Cabell, James Branch

Born into an old and distinguished Virginia family, Cabell began writing fiction shortly after the turn of the century, but acclaim arrived only after a controversy developed over the morality of Jurgen. For a decade or more Cabell was extravagantly praised, especially for the

Shensi, Transportation

The Wei Valley since prehistoric times has formed part of the main east - west route running from the North China Plain in the east to the Kansu Corridor and the steppelands in the west. Sian is a natural centre, where the great route east to west meets the routes that cross the Tsinling Mountains to the south and southeast, an alternative route to the northwest via the

Culture System

According to the system, a villager should provide land rent to the government by setting aside one-fifth

Nagano Osami

In 1913, as a language officer in the United States, Nagano studied law at Harvard University. Returning to Japan, he became known as an expert on the United States. As naval attach� in Washington, D.C.,

Aniakchak National Monument And Preserve

Large wilderness area in southwestern Alaska, U.S., on the southern shore of the Alaska Peninsula, about 450 miles (720 km) south of Anchorage. Proclaimed a national monument in 1978, the area underwent boundary changes in 1980 when the national preserve was established. The monument covers an area of 214 square miles (554 square km), while the preserve covers an additional 725 square miles (1,878 square

Kuba

Kuba cultivate corn (maize), cassava, millet, peanuts (groundnuts), and beans as staples. They grow raffia and oil palms, raise corn as a cash crop, and hunt and fish. They have kept aloof from modern life, and few have emigrated or engage

Scaevola, Gaius Mucius

Legendary Roman hero who is said to have saved Rome (c. 509 BC) from conquest by the Etruscan king Lars Porsena. According to the legend, Mucius volunteered to assassinate Porsena, who was besieging Rome, but killed his victim's attendant by mistake. Brought before the Etruscan royal tribunal, he declared that he was one of 300 noble youths who had sworn to take the king's life. He demonstrated

Monatomic Gas

Gas composed of particles (molecules) that consist of single atoms, such as helium or sodium vapour, and in this way different from diatomic, triatomic, or, in general, polyatomic gases. The thermodynamic behaviour of a monatomic gas in the ordinary temperature range is extremely simple because it is free from the rotational and vibrational energy components characteristic

Abbott, Jacob

Abbott attended Hallowell Academy and Bowdoin College and studied at Andover Newton Theological School. After teaching at Amherst College, he moved in 1829 to Boston, where he founded and was the first principal of the Mount Vernon School, a secondary

Fawcett, Dame Millicent Garrett

Leader for 50 years of the movement for woman suffrage in England. From the beginning of her career she had to struggle against almost unanimous male opposition to political rights for women; from 1905 she also had to overcome public hostility to the militant suffragists led by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel,

Anthraquinone

Alizarin and many other vegetable pigments have chemical structures similar to anthraquinone.

Sea Swallow

Any of certain coastal tern species. See tern.

Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty Of

(Feb. 2, 1848), treaty between the United States and Mexico that ended the Mexican War. It was signed at Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo, which is a northern neighbourhood of Mexico City. The treaty drew the boundary between the United States and Mexico at the Rio Grande and the Gila River; for a payment of $15,000,000 the United States received more than 525,000 square miles (1,360,000 square km) of land (now Arizona,

Vacarescu Family

Ienachita (1740 - 99), after traveling and studying in St. Petersburg and Vienna, wrote poems inspired by Russian folk songs. He wrote the first Romanian grammar book (Gramatica rom�neasca, 1787). His chief poems, Amar�ta turturea (�Sad Turtledove�) and Testamentul, reveal a high artistic

Kofu

Capital, Yamanashi ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan. Kofu lies in the fertile Kofu Basin, west of Tokyo. Long a centre of sericulture, the city adjusted to the decline in silk demand by producing other textiles, increasing viticulture, and developing nearby hot springs. Locally mined rock crystal became the basis of a jewelry industry, but most rock crystal is now imported.

Ernest Ii

He succeeded his father, Duke Ernest I, in 1844. In 1852 he gave Gotha a new constitution, which in part coordinated the administration of his two duchies. In 1861 Ernest concluded

Arminianism

The movement was named for Jacobus Arminius (q.v.), a Dutch Reformed theologian of the University of Leiden (1603 - 09), who became involved in a highly publicized

Uchimura Kanzo

Uchimura came from a samurai (warrior) family and studied (1878 - 81) at the Sapporo Agricultural School (now Hokkaido University), where he was converted to Christianity. After several years' service in the government as

Dada

Several explanations have been given by various members of the movement as to how it received its name. According to the most widely accepted account, the name was adopted at Hugo Ball's Cabaret Voltaire

Asthma

A chronic disorder of the lungs in which inflamed airways are prone to constrict, causing episodes of breathlessness, wheezing, coughing, and chest tightness that range in severity from mild to life-threatening. Inflamed airways become hypersensitive to a variety of stimuli, including dust mites, animal dander, pollen, air pollution, cigarette smoke, medications,