France, History Of, Economy, society, and culture in the 14th and 15th centuries
The long war, fought almost entirely in France, benefited few but the captains and peculators; it injured almost everyone. Even the best disciplined companies lived off the land, so that French peasants and defeated townsfolk in effect paid the expenses of both sides; and undisciplined mercenary bands were a wearisome scourge in times of truce after the middle of
Arve River
River in eastern France and Switzerland, rising in the Savoy Alps and flowing north into the Rh�ne River below Geneva. Over its 62-mi (100-km) course, the river passes by some of the finest and most varied Alpine scenery. Its upper section collects the drainage of the northwest face of the Massif du Mont Blanc and is a source of hydroelectric power. Below Bonneville, in the Faucigny
Arabia
Arabia may be described as a vast plateau, edged with deeply dissected escarpments on three sides and sloping gently northeastward from the Red Sea to the eastern lowlands adjoining the Persian Gulf. The peninsula's highest peak, An-Nabi Shu'ayb, at 12,008 feet (3,660 metres), is located approximately 20 miles northwest of San'a' in Yemen.
Rachmaninoff, Sergey
Rachmaninoff's music, although written mostly in the 20th century, remains firmly entrenched in the 19th-century musical idiom. He was, in effect, the final expression of the tradition embodied by Tchaikovsky - a melodist of Romantic dimensions still writing in an era of explosive change and experimentation.
Epistemology, Impact of modern science on epistemology
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 - 1543), a cleric, argued in On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres (1543) that the Earth revolves around the Sun. His theory was epistemologically shocking for at least two reasons. First, it goes directly counter to how humans experience their relation to the Sun; it is everyone's prescientific view that the Sun revolves around the Earth. If science can
Yaddo
Formally �The Corporation Of Yaddo� a working community of writers, composers, and visual artists, located on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs, New York, U.S. Yaddo is a nonprofit organization founded in 1900 by New York financier Spencer Trask (1844 - 1909), his wife, the writer Kate, or Katrina, Nichols Trask (1853 - 1922), and philanthropist George Foster Peabody (1852 - 1938) for the purpose of providing a place for artists to reside and work in
Crocket
In architecture, a small, independent, sharply projecting medieval ornament, usually occurring in rows, and decorated with foliage. In the late 12th century, when it first appeared, the crocket had the form of a ball-like bud, with a spiral outline, similar to an uncurling fern frond; but in the later Gothic period it took the form of open, fully developed leaves that by the
Egypt, The Eastern Desert
The Eastern Desert comprises almost one-fourth of the land surface of Egypt and covers an area of about 85,690 square miles. The northern tier is a limestone plateau, consisting of rolling hills, stretching from the Mediterranean coastal plain to a point roughly opposite Qina on the Nile. Near Qina, the plateau breaks up into cliffs about 1,600 feet high and is deeply scored by wadis,
Allgemeine Zeitung
(German: �General Newspaper�), greatest German newspaper in the 19th century, founded at T�bingen in 1798 by Johann Friedrich Cotta, later Freiherr (baron) von Cottendorf. Censorship and other pressures forced it to move successively to Stuttgart, Ulm, Augsburg, and Munich. The name has been carried on in a sense by the Frankfurter Allgemeine and the Westdeutsche
Obi Islands
Also called �Ombi Islands, � group of the northern Moluccas, Maluku provinsi (�province�), Indonesia. They lie south of the island of Halmahera, north of the island of Ceram, and east of the Sula Islands. The principal island of the group is Obi Island, 52 miles (84 km) long and 28 miles (47 km) wide, which contains the only major village, Laiwui, located on the northeastern coast opposite Bisa Island. Obi Island is mountainous,
Ob River
River of central Russia. One of the greatest rivers of Asia, the Ob flows north and west across western Siberia in a twisting diagonal from its sources in the Altai Mountains to its outlet through the Gulf of Ob into the Kara Sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is a major transportation artery, crossing territory at the heart of Russia that is extraordinarily varied in its physical
Paradip
Town and major port of east-central Orissa state, eastern India, on the Bay of Bengal. It is situated on the delta of the Mahanadi River at the mouth of one of its branches. The development of Paradip was begun after 1958. In the 1970s it was enlarged and has since become Orissa state's principal port. Pop. (1981) 33,042.
Industrial Polymers, Major, Polyimides
Polyimides are polymers that usually consist of aromatic rings coupled by imide linkages - that is, linkages in which two carbonyl (CO) groups are attached to the same nitrogen (N) atom. There are two categories of these polymers, condensation and addition. The former are made by step-growth polymerization and are linear in structure; the latter are synthesized by heat-activated
Ammonoid
Any of a group of extinct cephalopods (of the phylum Mollusca), forms related to the modern pearly nautilus, that are frequently found as fossils in marine rocks of the Devonian to the Cretaceous periods (408 to 66.4 million years ago). The ammonoids were shelled forms, many predacious in habit. Ammonoid shells, which are either straight or coiled, served as protective and supportive
Avon, River
Also called �East Avon� or �Hampshire Avon� river that rises 3 miles (5 km) east of Devizes, Wiltshire, England, on the north side of the Vale of Pewsey and flows generally southward for 48 miles (77 km) to the English Channel. The river shares the name Avon (derived from a Celtic word meaning �river�) with several other rivers in Great Britain, including the Avon of Bristol (or Lower Avon) and the Avon of Warwickshire (or Upper
Achilles Painter
The �Achilles and Briseis� amphora is a red-figure vase (that is, the figures are painted in red
Gahnite
The mineral zinc aluminum oxide, a member of the spinel (q.v.) series.
Mollien, Nicolas-fran�ois, Count (comte)
Mollien worked in the office that controlled the activities of the farmers general (private contractors who collected oppressive taxes from the peasants, often by harsh measures) from 1781, and in 1786 he drew up a contract whereby these tax collectors' payments to the Royal Treasury
Derbyshire Dales
The Romans mined lead in the area between Wirksworth and Castleton, and lead mining continued until the 19th century. Cotton textiles became important when Sir Richard Arkwright built the first water-powered cotton-spinning
Zlatoust
City, Chelyabinsk oblast (province), western Russia. It lies on both banks of the Ay River and on the Ufa-Chelyabinsk trunk railway, where river and rail cut through the Urenga Range of the Ural Mountains. In 1754 the Kosotur Iron and Copper Works were established there, and city status was granted in 1865. A major pre-revolutionary steel city noted for its engraved steel and swords,
Halicarnassus
Ancient Greek city of Caria, situated on the Gulf of Cerameicus. According to tradition, it was founded by Dorian Troezen in the Peloponnese. Herodotus, a Halicarnassian, relates that in early times the city participated in the Dorian festival of Apollo at Triopion, but its literature and culture appear thoroughly Ionic. The city, with its large sheltered harbour
Earhart, Amelia
Earhart moved often with her family and completed high school in Chicago in 1916. She worked as a military nurse in Canada during World War I and as a social worker in Denison House,
A-kuei
The scion of a noble family, A-kuei directed Chinese military expeditions that quelled uprisings in the western provinces of Szechwan and Kansu. He also conquered Ili and Chinese Turkistan, areas on China's northwestern frontier that are today part of the Uighur Autonomous
Ipiutak Culture
Eskimo culture of northwestern Alaska, probably dating from the 2nd to the 6th century AD. A Siberian origin has been suggested, based on similarities in burial practices and ceremonialism, animal carvings and designs, and some use of iron; but evidence is not conclusive. There seem to be links with the Kachemak culture (q.v.) as well as with some areas of southwestern and western
France, History Of, French culture in the 17th century
If historians are not yet agreed on the political motives of Louis XIV, they all accept, however, the cultural and artistic significance of the epoch over which he and his two 17th-century predecessors reigned. In their different ways - Henry IV's interest lay in town planning, Louis XIII's in music, and Louis XIV's in the theatre and in landscape gardening - they all actively
Denpasar
City, capital of Bali propinsi (province), south central Bali, Indonesia, 40 miles (70 km) south of Singaraja. The largest city on the island of Bali, it is also the capital of the Badung kabupaten (regency). Denpasar was the site of a suicidal battle of the rajas of Badung against the Dutch Militia in 1906. A large open square in the centre of the city, named Puputan Square, commemorates
Wagner, Richard
The artistic and theatrical background of Wagner's early years (several elder sisters became opera singers or actresses) was a main formative influence. Impulsive and self-willed, he was a negligent scholar at the Kreuzschule, Dresden, and the Nicholaischule, Leipzig. He frequented concerts, however, taught himself the piano and composition, and read the plays of
Montserrat
Island and overseas territory of the United Kingdom. Located in the Lesser Antilles chain, this pear-shaped island is known as the �Emerald Isle of the Caribbean.� The de facto capital is St. John's, in the northern part of the island. Plymouth, on the southwestern coast, was the capital and only port of entry until 1997, when volcanic eruptions destroyed much of the town and the
Black Bass
Any of about six species of elongated freshwater fishes that constitute the genus Micropterus of the sunfish family, Centrarchidae (order Perciformes). Black basses are found in eastern North America. Two of them, the largemouth (see photograph) and smallmouth black basses (M. salmoides and M. dolomieui), have been introduced in other countries
Eastern Africa, History Of, The colonial era
Suggestions that he might at this time establish his dominion over the East African interior prompted Sultan Barghash to send a Baluchi force to Tabora, but the idea was never pursued. A comparable notion, however, led Khedive Isma'il Pasha of Egypt to appoint in 1869 the Englishman Samuel White Baker as governor of the Equatorial Province of the Sudan, so that Baker might
