Greek Literature, Historical works

Conscious as they were of their classical and biblical past, the Byzantines wrote much history. Until the early 7th century a series of historians recounted the events of their own time in classicizing style, with fictitious speeches and set descriptive pieces, in a genre that owed much to the classical Greek historians Thucydides and Polybius. Procopius, Agathias,

Rabin, Yitzhak

Robert Slater, Rabin of Israel: Warrior for Peace (1996), is a biography.

Haldane, Elizabeth Sanderson

The younger sister of the statesman Richard Burdon Haldane and the physiologist John Scott Haldane, she was educated privately. For much of her adult life she served on various advisory and regulatory boards for nursing. Influenced by the English housing reformer Octavia Hill,

Gabrieli, Andrea

Madrigals for three to six voices in various collections; masses in six parts, Primus liber missarum (1572); Magnificat for three choirs; motets; various ricercari and canzoni.

Arda River

Greek ��rdhas, � river in Bulgaria, rising in the central Rhodope Mountains near the town of Smolyan and following a 180-mile (290-kilometre) course eastward past Kurdzhali and Ivaylovgrad to enter the Maritsa just west of Edirne, Tur., after a 23-mile (37-kilometre) course in Greece. The Bulgarian section has three hydroelectric and irrigation dams, among the largest in Bulgaria. In the upper valley

Indian Philosophy, Principal texts and relation to Sabara

Kumarila commented on Jaimini's sutraas well as on Sabara's bhasya. The Varttika (critical gloss) that he wrote was commented upon by Sucarita Misra in his Kasika (�The Shining�), by Somesvara Bhatta in his Nyayasudha (�The Nectar of Logic�), and Parthasarathi Misra in Nyayaratnakara (�The Abode of Jewels of Logic�). Parthasarathi's Sastradipika (�Light on the Scripture�) is a famous independent Mimamsa treatise

Kazankina, Tatyana

A seemingly fragile individual standing 1.61 metres (5 feet 3 inches) tall and weighing just 48 kg (106 pounds), Kazankina made an international impression with her fortitude and speed during a string of victories

Gu�tary, Georges (lambros Worloou)

Egyptian-born French singer whose career of over 50 years on the musical theatre stage, in cabarets, on recordings, on television, and in films included a notable role as the man who lost Leslie Caron to Gene Kelly in An American in Paris (b. Feb. 8, 1915--d. Sept. 13, 1997).

Earth, Growth phase

An isolated substorm begins when the IMF turns southward and dayside reconnection begins. For about an hour afterward, bands of quiet auroral arcs drift equatorward near midnight in the northern and southern auroral ovals. The eastward and westward electrojets, flowing from noon toward midnight along the ovals, gradually increase in strength and move equatorward

Theophrastus

Theophrastus was one of the few Peripatetics who fully

Technology, History Of, Atomic power

Until 1945, electricity and the internal-combustion engine were the dominant sources of power for industry and transport in the 20th century, although in some parts of the industrialized world steam power and even older prime movers remained important. Early research in nuclear physics was more scientific than technological, stirring little general interest. In fact,

Cumae

Ancient city about 12 miles (19 km) west of Naples, probably the oldest Greek mainland colony in the west and home of a sibyl (Greek prophetess) whose cavern still exists. Founded about 750 BC by Greeks from Chalcis, Cumae came to control the most fertile portions of the Campanian plain. Although the Etruscans were their special enemy during the last half of the 6th century and first

Insurance, Classes of benefits

Four classes of benefits are provided by compulsory insurance, and, except for certain diseases, a right to them is acquired without any qualifying period of previous employment. First is a medical benefit, which includes all necessary treatment and the supply of artificial limbs. If its duration is limited, the maximum is likely to be one year. Second is a temporary

Moscow

Russian �Moskva� oblast (province), western Russia. The oblast surrounds and includes the city of Moscow, the capital of Russia. Moscow oblast was formed in 1929. The main feature of its relief is the Klin-Dmitrov Ridge, which stretches roughly east-west across the oblast, north of Moscow city. The ridge, a line of terminal moraines, reaches a height of 1,000 feet (300 metres) with a steep northern slope to

Steelhead

Saltwater form of rainbow trout (q.v.).

Macdonald, Sir John (alexander)

Macdonald emigrated from Scotland to Kingston, in what is now Ontario, in 1820. He was called to the bar in 1836. After the British Parliament united Upper and Lower

Chelyabinsk

Chelyabinsk was founded as a fortress in 1736 on the site of a Bashkir village; it became a town in 1787. First a local centre of an agricultural region, it began to grow with the coming of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1894 - 96. Thereafter

Ahmad Musa

Painter active at the court of the Il Khans at Tabriz. He is said to have learned painting from his father and to have �drawn the veil from the face of painting and invented the art of the Persian miniature.� He was active under Abu Sa'id (ruled 1316 - 35), the last of the Mongol sultans in fact as well as name. He illustrated a Kalila wa Dimna (book of animal fables)

Gherardesca Family

One of the foremost families of the Tuscan nobility, whose lands included the counties of Gherardesca, Donoratico, and Montescudaio, near Pisa. At the beginning of the 13th century, they led the pro-imperial Ghibelline party of the Pisan republic against the pro-papal Guelf party led by the Visconti family of Milan. The Gherardesca family produced several churchmen

Land Reform

The concept of land reform has varied over time according to the range of functions which land

Laos, Drainage

The general slope of the land in Laos is downhill from east to west, and all the major rivers - the Tha, Beng, Ou, Ngum, Kading, Bangfai, Banghiang, and Kong - are tributaries of the Mekong (Lao: M�nam Khong). The Mekong flows generally southeast and south along and through western Laos and forms its boundary with Myanmar and most of the border with Thailand. The course of the river

Seshachalam Hills

Hill ranges of the eastern Ghats, southern Andhra Pradesh state, southeastern India. Formed during Precambrian time (about 3.8 billion to 540 million years ago), the ranges contain sandstone and shale interbedded with limestone, are highly dissected, and have many longitudinal valleys. They are bounded by the Rayalaseema uplands in the west and northwest and the Nandyal

Saint Andrews

City, royal burgh (1160), university town, golfing mecca, and former fishing port in Fife council area and historic county, Scotland. Located on St. Andrews Bay of the North Sea 13 miles (20 km) southeast of Dundee, it occupies a plateau of sandstone rock about 50 feet (15 metres) in elevation, which breaks off to the north in precipitous cliffs. The Eden River enters St. Andrews Bay northwest

Hexameter

A line of verse containing six feet, usually dactyls (� {breve} {breve}). Dactylic hexameter is the oldest known form of Greek poetry and is the preeminent metre of narrative and didactic poetry in Greek and Latin, in which its position is comparable to that of iambic pentameter in English versification. The epics of Homer and of Virgil are composed in dactylic hexameter.

Qui Nhon

City and provincial seat of Nghia Binh tinh (province), central Vietnam. It is on the coast of the South China Sea at the entrance to the shallow 17-mi- (27-km-) long Qui Nhon Bay, which trends north - south. The port was opened to French trade in 1874, the harbour serving as an open roadstead for larger ships until after World War II. In 1965 the port was upgraded with U.S. assistance to support military

European Plain

One of the greatest uninterrupted expanses of plain on the Earth's surface. It sweeps from the Pyrenees Mountains on the French-Spanish border across northern Europe to the Ural Mountains in Russia. In western Europe the plain is comparatively narrow, rarely exceeding 200 miles (320 kilometres) in width, but as it stretches eastward it broadens steadily until it reaches

Danielsson, Anders

Danielsson was elected to the peasant chamber of the Riksdag (Parliament) in 1809. At the height of his career he came to represent 27 districts in that body, a unique achievement in Swedish parliamentary history. The peasant program for which he fought included such points as reduced military

Antarctica, Discovery of the Antarctic poles

National and personal prestige in attaining the Earth's poles, as well as territorial acquisition and scientific inquiry, provided strong motivation for polar exploration in the early 1900s. The south magnetic pole, the point of vertical orientation of a magnetic dip needle, which was predicted by the German physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss to lie at 66� S, 146� E, inspired the

Armour

Types of armour generally fall into one of three main categories: (1) armour made of leather, fabric, or mixed layers of both, sometimes reinforced by quilting or felt, (2) mail, made of interwoven rings of iron or steel,