Saturday, July 31, 2004

Adams, John

In 1784 Jefferson arrived in Paris to replace Franklin as the American minister at the French court. Over the next few months, Jefferson became an unofficial member of the Adams family, and the bond of friendship between Adams and Jefferson was sealed, a lifelong partnership and rivalry that made the combative New Englander and the elegant Virginian the odd couple of the American Revolution. Jefferson also visited the Adams family in England in 1785, after Adams had assumed his new post as American ambassador in London. The two men also joined forces, though Adams as the senior figure assumed the lead, in negotiating a $400,000 loan from Dutch bankers that allowed the American government to consolidate its European debts.

Friday, July 30, 2004

France, History Of, The causes of the French Revolution

In an immediate sense, what brought down the ancien r�gime was its own inability to change or, more simply, to pay its way. The deeper causes for its collapse are more difficult to establish. One school of interpretation maintains that French society under the ancien r�gime was rent by class war. This position implies that the French Revolution revolved around issues

Thursday, July 29, 2004

Gobi, Geology

The Gobi's various chalky plains are chiefly Cenozoic in age (i.e., up to 66.4 million years old), though some of the low, isolated hills are older. The terrain contains small masses of shifting sands. In the central Gobi the remains of dinosaurs from the Mesozoic Era (245 to 66.4 million years ago) and fossils of Cenozoic mammals have been found. The desert also contains Paleolithic and

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Insurance, Financing and administering employment injury insurance

Almost all systems of employment injury insurance are financed by employers' contributions exclusively, and in almost all these systems the contribution is proportional to the risk represented by the class of activity in which the employer is engaged. Usually the insurance institution adapts the contribution to the accident experience of the undertaking

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Conservation, The Antarctic Treaty

The Antarctic continent remained unknown and unexplored during the period when most other parts of the world were being claimed and colonized by European powers. Uninhabited and, until recently, of little or no value to any country, Antarctica never became an area for international dispute. Although segments of the continent and sub-Antarctic islands have been

Monday, July 26, 2004

Spring

In hydrology, opening at or near the surface of the Earth for the discharge of water from underground sources. A spring is a natural discharge point of subterranean water at the surface of the ground or directly into the bed of a stream, lake, or sea. Water that emerges at the surface without a perceptible current is called a seep. Wells are holes excavated to bring water

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Karadzic, Vuk Stefanovic

Karadzic learned to read and write in the old monastery Tronosha (near his native village). Mostly in the

Saturday, July 24, 2004

Alden, Cynthia May Westover

Cynthia Westover was reared largely by her father, a geologist, in western mining camps, and she could shoot a rifle and ride a horse at an early age. After completing a teaching degree at

Friday, July 23, 2004

Dhrupad

The classical dhrupad, heavy and majestic in style, required great breath control. It was used in praise

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Frederick William I

The son of the elector Frederick III, later Frederick I, king of Prussia, Frederick William grew up at a glamorous court,

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Diplomacy, New styles of diplomacy

One result of the breakdown of old premises, mainly in new states, was that diplomatic immunity was breached, and diplomacy became a hazardous career. Disease was no longer the chief killer of diplomats, nor was overindulgence at court; the new hazards were murder, maiming, and kidnapping. Diplomats were a target because they represented states and symbolized privileged

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Whittingham, Charles

American horse trainer of over 2,500 winners, including Kentucky Derby winners Ferdinand (1986) and Sunday Silence (1989), both of which made him the oldest trainer of a Derby champion; he won top-trainer Eclipse Awards three times (1971, 1982, and 1989) and in 1974 was elected to the Racing Hall of Fame (b. April 13, 1913, Chula Vista, Calif. - d. April 20, 1999, Pasadena, Calif.).

Monday, July 19, 2004

Switzerland, Geography

Emil Egli, Switzerland: A Survey of Its Land and People, trans. from German (1978), provides a description of landscape, climate, settlement patterns, and economy. Swiss National Tourist Office, Switzerland and Her Glaciers: From the Ice Age to the Present (1981), gives a vivid portrayal, with detailed text and excellent colour photographs. Jaro Stvan, Les Alpes apprivois�es (1991), is an illustrated analysis of the infrastructural impact on the Swiss Alpine environment. Max Ikl�, Switzerland: An International Banking and Finance Center (1972; originally published in German, 1970), chronicles the history of the country's financial institutions. Kenneth D. McRae, Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies, vol. 1, Switzerland (1983); and Carol L. Schmid, Conflict and Consensus in Switzerland (1981), offer historical insight into the reasons why relative social and political stability exists in Switzerland.

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Packing

In mathematics, a type of problem in combinatorial geometry that involves placement of figures of a given size or shape within another given figure - with greatest economy or subject to some other restriction. The problem of placement of a given number of spheres within a given volume of space is an example of a packing problem.

Saturday, July 17, 2004

Ozier Pattern

In tableware, molded basket-weave pattern produced in Germany in the 1730s on Meissen porcelain tableware. It was probably one of the numerous inventions of the celebrated modeler Johann Joachim K�ndler. There are four basic types of ozier molding: the ordinair-ozier (�ordinary ozier�), a kind of zigzag basket weave; the alt-ozier (�old ozier�), which has radial ribs; the neu-ozier

Friday, July 16, 2004

Seton, Ernest Thompson

Seton was raised in North America, his family having emigrated to Canada in 1866. Drawn to nature, Seton resisted his family's attempt to make an artist of him. He gained experience as a naturalist by trailing and

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Europe, History Of, The revolutions of 1848

France's monarchy had turned toward greater repression in the 1840s, spurring new liberal agitation. Artisan concerns also had quickened, against their loss of status and shifts in work conditions following from rapid economic change; a major recession in 1846 - 47 added to popular unrest. Some socialist ideas spread among artisan leaders, who urged a regime in which workers

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Earth Sciences, Pressure, temperature, and atmospheric circulation

If clouds are essentially multicompartmented balloons, their motions could be explained by the movements of winds blowing on them. Descartes suggested that the winds might blow upward as well as laterally, causing the clouds to rise or at least preventing them from descending. In 1749 Benjamin Franklin explained updrafts of air as due to local heating of the atmosphere

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Earth Sciences, Pressure, temperature, and atmospheric circulation

If clouds are essentially multicompartmented balloons, their motions could be explained by the movements of winds blowing on them. Descartes suggested that the winds might blow upward as well as laterally, causing the clouds to rise or at least preventing them from descending. In 1749 Benjamin Franklin explained updrafts of air as due to local heating of the atmosphere

Monday, July 12, 2004

Port Elizabeth

Port city, Eastern province, South Africa. It lies on Algoa Bay of the Indian Ocean. Port Elizabeth was established in 1820 as a British settlement around Fort Frederick (1799), the oldest British building in southern Africa, and was named by Sir Rufane Donkin, the acting governor of the Cape Colony, for his deceased wife, Lady Elizabeth. Completion of the Kimberley Railroad (1873) spurred

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Cartwright, John

John Cartwright joined the Royal Navy

Saturday, July 10, 2004

Cong� D'�lire

English �permission to elect� formal message conveying the English sovereign's permission for the dean and chapter of the cathedral of a vacant bishopric to proceed in regular chapter to a new election. Before the Norman Conquest (1066) it was the king's prerogative to appoint bishops to vacant sees. This came to be contested by the popes, though the sovereign usually was able to secure the appointment

Friday, July 09, 2004

Teschenite

Coarse- to fine-grained, rather dark-coloured, intrusive igneous rock that occurs in sills (tabular bodies inserted while molten between other rocks), dikes (tabular bodies injected in fissures), and irregular masses and is always altered to some extent. It consists primarily of plagioclase feldspar, analcime, and titaniferous augite, with barkevikite, nepheline,

Thursday, July 08, 2004

Morandi, Giorgio

Morandi cannot be closely identified with a particular school of painting. He first exhibited in 1914 in Bologna with the Futurist painters, and in 1918 - 19 he was associated

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Yamato-koriyama

Also called �Koriyama-kingyo� (Koriyama-Goldfish), city, Nara ken (prefecture), western Honshu, Japan. It is located 3 miles (5 km) southwest of Nara city. A prehistoric settlement, it became a castle town during the last decade of the 15th century. With the opening of a trunk line of the National Railway, a modern textile factory was established there in 1893. The most important industry of the city has been goldfish

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Epistemology, The �other-minds problem�

The second problem also involves seeing but in a somewhat unusual way. It deals with that which one cannot see, namely the mind of another. Suppose a woman is scheduled to have an operation on her right knee and her surgeon tells her that when she wakes up she will feel a sharp pain in her knee. When she wakes up, she does feel the pain the surgeon alluded to. He can hear her groaning

Monday, July 05, 2004

Excretion, The contractile vacuoles of protozoans

Some protozoan animals possess an organelle having the form of an internal sac, or vacuole, which enlarges by the accumulation of a clear fluid and then discharges its contents to the exterior. The cycle of filling and emptying may be repeated as frequently as every half minute. The chief role of the contractile vacuole appears to be in osmotic regulation, not in nitrogen

Sunday, July 04, 2004

Pendentive

In architecture, a triangular segment of a spherical surface, filling in the upper corners of a room, in order to form, at the top, a circular support for a dome. The challenge of supporting a dome over an enclosed square or polygonal space assumed growing importance to the Roman builders of the late empire. It remained for Byzantine architects, however, to recognize the

Saturday, July 03, 2004

Anhalt

Former German state, which was a duchy from 1863 to 1918 and a Land (state) until 1945, when it was merged in Saxony-Anhalt. Saxony-Anhalt was a Land of the German Democratic Republic from 1949 to 1952, when it was broken up into Bezirke (districts), the former territories of Anhalt being divided between the Bezirke of Magdeburg and of Halle. Upon the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, Saxony-Anhalt

Friday, July 02, 2004

Brahmaputra River, Plant and animal life

The most notable

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Alchemy

Alchemy was the name given in Latin Europe in the 12th century to an aspect of thought that corresponds to astrology, which is apparently an older tradition. Both represent attempts