Olympic Games, Oslo, Norway, 1952

With the awarding of the sixth Winter Olympics to Oslo, the Games were held for the first time in a Scandinavian country. While some questioned the country's ability to stage the competition, the worries proved unfounded. New facilities were built and existing ones were refurbished to meet the high Olympic standard. Oslo saw the Winter Games debut of the Olympic torch,

Finsen, Niels Ryberg

Finsen was born into a prominent Icelandic family that was involved in the administration of

Vigan�, Salvatore

Vigan� was born of a family of dancers and was the nephew

Soissons, Charles De Bourbon, Count (comte) De

Louis I de Bourbon, the first prince de Cond�, had acquired the countship of Soissons in 1557, and upon his death in 1569 it passed to his youngest son, Charles. This count fought for Henry of Bourbon (the future Henry IV) against Henry III of France at

Shikarpur

City, northern Sindh province, southern Pakistan. The city lies 18 miles (29 km) west of the Indus River and is connected by road and rail with Sukkur (20 miles [32 km] southeast), Jacobabad, and Larkana. It is a historical trade centre, founded in 1617 on a caravan route through the Bolan Pass into Afghanistan. Shikarpur's manufactures include brass and metal goods, carpets, cotton cloth, and embroidery.

Fracastoro, Girolamo

At the University of Padua Fracastoro was a colleague of the astronomer Copernicus. As a physician, he maintained

Cape Town, The city site

The first settlement of Cape Town was situated between Table Mountain and Table Bay. It was bounded on the northwest by the ridges known as Lion's Head and Lion's Rump (later called Signal Hill), on the north by Table Bay, on the south by Devil's Peak, and on the east by marshlands and the sandy Cape Flats beyond. The nearest tillable land was on the lower eastern slopes of Devil's

Architecture, History Of Western, Iberia

Highly interesting artistic flowerings occurred in Spain at the end of the protohistoric era. First, in the southwest of the peninsula, near the town of Cadiz, there developed at the extreme end of the 2nd millennium BC a civilization, still poorly understood, that tradition attributes to the semi-historic, semilegendary state of Tartessus. Archaeology has not yet revealed

France, History Of, The conversion of Clovis

Clovis came to believe that his victory at Tolbiacum in 496 was due to the help of the Christian God, whom his wife Clotilda had been encouraging him to accept. With the support of Bishop Remigius of Reims, a leader of the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, Clovis converted with some 3,000 of his army. Clovis' conversion assured the Frankish king of the support not only of the ecclesiastical

Abkhazo-adyghian Languages

Also called �Northwest Caucasian Languages, � group of languages spoken primarily in the northwestern part of the Caucasus Mountains. The languages of this group - Abkhaz, Abaza, Adyghian, Kabardian (Circassian), and the nearly extinct Ubykh - are noted for the great number of distinctive consonants and limited number of distinctive vowels in their sound systems.

Averro�

Averro�s was born into a distinguished family of jurists at C�rdoba and died at Marrakech, the North African capital of the Almohad dynasty. Thoroughly versed in the traditional Muslim sciences (especially exegesis of the Qur'an - Islamic scripture - and Hadith, or Traditions, and fiqh, or Law), trained in medicine, and accomplished in philosophy, Averro�s rose to be chief

Jovellanos, Gaspar Melchor De

After studying law, Jovellanos was appointed to judicial posts at Sevilla (1767) and Madrid (1778). He gained fame for his literary and scholarly activities and for his personal integrity, but from 1790 to 1797, after unsuccessfully intervening

Armstrong, Edwin H.

In full� Edwin Howard Armstrong � American inventor who laid the foundation for much of modern radio and electronic circuitry, including the regenerative and superheterodyne circuits and the frequency modulation (FM) system.

Don Pacifico Affair

David Pacifico (known as Don Pacifico) was a Portuguese Jew who, having been born in Gibraltar in 1784, was a British subject. After serving as Portuguese consul in Morocco (1835 - 37) and then as consul-general in Greece, he settled in Athens as a merchant. In

Steele, Sir Richard

Pseudonym �Isaac Bickerstaff � English essayist, dramatist, journalist, and politician, best known as principal author (with Joseph Addison) of the periodicals The Tatler and The Spectator.

Sankt Veit

Also called �Sankt Veit An Der Glan, � town, K�rnten Bundesland (federal state), southern Austria. It lies along the Glan River north of Klagenfurt. Sankt Veit was the capital of the duchy of K�rnten (Carinthia) until 1518. Its town hall dates from 1468 and its old ducal castle from the 15th to 16th century. The Romanesque parish church was altered in the Gothic style in the 14th century. There are several castles in the vicinity,

Gymnosperm

Any vascular plant that reproduces by means of an exposed seed, or ovule, as opposed to an angiosperm, or flowering plant, whose seeds are enclosed by mature ovaries, or fruits.The seeds of many gymnosperms (literally, �naked seed�) are borne in cones and are not visible. These cones, however, are not the same as fruits. During pollination, the immature male gametes, or pollen

Alembert, Jean Le Rond D'

His earlier literary and philosophical activity, however, led to the publication of his M�langes de litt�rature, d'histoire et de philosophie (1753). This work contained the impressive Essai sur les gens de lettres, which exhorted writers to pursue �liberty, truth and poverty� and also urged aristocratic patrons to respect the talents and independence of such

San Carlo Alle Quattro Fontane

Also called �San Carlino, � influential Baroque church in Rome that was designed by Francesco Borromini. It was commissioned in 1634 and was built during 1638 - 41, except for the tall facade, which was added in about 1667. Built to fit in a cramped and difficult site, the church has an unusual and somewhat irregular floor plan in the shape of a Greek cross defined by convex curves. The facade is similarly undulating

France, History Of, Cities

Commerce rather than industry buoyed up French cities, especially the Atlantic seaports. In 1789, 15 percent of Frenchmen lived in cities with more than 2,000 inhabitants. Paris, a city of about 500,000 inhabitants, was only half the size of London, the world's largest seaport. But regardless of their size, French cities were centres of intellectual transformation on the Continent. It was

Ben-gurion, David

Zionist statesman and political leader, the first prime minister (1948 - 53, 1955 - 63) and defense minister (1948 - 53; 1955 - 63) of Israel. It was Ben-Gurion who, on May 14, 1948, at Tel Aviv, delivered Israel's declaration of independence. His charismatic personality won him the adoration of the masses, and, after his retirement

Arts, Islamic, Decentralization of Islamic literatures

Safavid Iran, as it happened, lost most of its artists and poets to the neighbouring countries: there were no great masters of poetry in Iran between the 16th and 18th centuries. And while the Persian Shah Esma'il wrote Turkish mystical verses, his contemporary and enemy, Sultan Selim I of Turkey (died 1520), composed quite elegant Persian ghazals. Babur (died 1530), in turn, composed his autobiography

Shah 'alam Ii

Son of the emperor 'Alamgir II, he was forced to flee Delhi in 1758 by the minister 'Imad-ul-Mulk, who kept the emperor a virtual prisoner. He took refuge with Shuja'-ud-Dawlah, nawab of Oudh, and after his father's assassination in 1759 he proclaimed himself emperor. With the intention of seeking to

L�vesque, Ren�

L�vesque went to school in Gasp�sie and afterward to Laval University, Quebec. Already a part-time journalist while still a student, he broke off his law studies to serve in Europe (1944 - 45) as a reporter and

Pius Vi

He held various papal administrative positions before being ordained priest in 1758. Progressing rapidly, he became treasurer of the apostolic chamber under Pope Clement XIII in 1766, and in 1773 was made cardinal by Pope Clement XIV, after whose death a four-month

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

American symphony orchestra based in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was founded in 1895 by the all-female board of trustees of the Cincinnati Orchestra Association, headed by Helen Herron Taft, wife of future U.S. president William Howard Taft. The fifth oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, the Cincinnati Symphony maintains a year-round performing schedule, including

Serlio, Sebastiano

Trained by his father as a painter, Serlio went to Rome in 1514, where he studied architecture under Baldassarre Peruzzi, one of the initiators of the Mannerist style of architecture. With the sack of Rome

Belcher, Sir Edward

The grandson of a governor of Nova Scotia, Belcher entered the navy in 1812. After serving as a surveyor with an expedition to the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Strait in 1825, he commanded a surveying ship along the north and west coasts of Africa (1830 - 33). He

Spoon River

River in west-central Illinois, U.S. It rises in southwestern Bureau county and flows south and southwest to a point near Lewistown, where it turns southeast, joining the Illinois River opposite Havana after a course of 160 miles (257 km). The Dickson Mounds, a rich archaeological area, are near the confluence of the two rivers. Spoon River was made famous by Edgar Lee Masters, the

Spoon River

River in west-central Illinois, U.S. It rises in southwestern Bureau county and flows south and southwest to a point near Lewistown, where it turns southeast, joining the Illinois River opposite Havana after a course of 160 miles (257 km). The Dickson Mounds, a rich archaeological area, are near the confluence of the two rivers. Spoon River was made famous by Edgar Lee Masters, the