Sunday, October 31, 2004

Children's Game

Some children's games have been played for centuries. Swings existed on the island of Crete in

Saturday, October 30, 2004

Pozzolana

Also spelled �pozzuolana�, or �pozzolan� hydraulic cement discovered by the Romans and still used in some countries, made by grinding pozzolana (a type of slag that may be either natural - i.e., volcanic - or artificial, from a blast furnace) with powdered hydrated lime. Roman engineers used two parts by weight of pozzolana mixed with one part of lime to give strength to mortar and concrete in bridges and other masonry

Friday, October 29, 2004

Performing Arts, Latin America.

Generally

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Eritrea

Eritrea consists of a northward extension of the Ethiopian Plateau, bordered by lower plains to the east and west. The plateau, 6,500 feet (2,000 m) in elevation, is dissected by the valleys of westward-flowing rivers whose eroding action has formed steep-sided, flat-topped formations known as ambas. To the east, the arid, treeless coastal plain (10 - 50 miles [16 - 80 km] wide) is sharply delimited

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Yablochkov, Pavel Nikolayevich

In 1871 Yablochkov was appointed director of the telegraph lines between Moscow

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Ch�teau-renault, Fran�ois-louis Rousselet, Marquis De

In 1689 he transported French troops to Ireland to aid the deposed Catholic King James II of Great Britain, and he obtained a short-lived advantage by defeating a British fleet off the south coast of

Monday, October 25, 2004

Price, Sir Uvedale, 1st Baronet

Price was a wealthy country squire, Knight his friend and neighbour; both were enthusiastic amateur landscape designers and critics of the prevailing trend.

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Anne Of France

Anne's energy, strength of will, cunning, and political sense enabled her to overcome the difficulties threatening the kingdom,

Friday, October 22, 2004

Smith Center

City, seat (1872) of Smith county, northern Kansas, U.S. Smith Center is located about 85 miles (135 km) northwest of Salina. It was founded in 1871 by L.T. Reese with the aim of making it the county seat (the county had been named after Major J. Nelson Smith). The economy of Smith Center is based on grain and livestock. The homestead cabin of Brewster Higley, where he wrote (1873) the lyrics of the well-known

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Akwamu

Its founders, an Akan people who are traditionally said to have come from Twifu Heman, northwest of Cape Coast, moved during the late 16th or early

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Duxbury

Town (township), Plymouth county, eastern Massachusetts, U.S. It lies on Duxbury Bay (an inlet of Cape Cod Bay), 33 miles (53 km) south of Boston, and includes the villages of Duxbury and South Duxbury. Settled about 1628, it counts among its founders the Pilgrim colonists Myles Standish, William Brewster, and John Alden. Named for Duxbury Hall in Lancashire, England, seat of the Standish

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Tibet, Plant and animal life

The windswept Ch'iang-t'ang is devoid of trees and larger forms of vegetation. Its arid climate supports little except grasses. The varied plant life of Tibet is found in the river valleys and in the lower, wetter regions of the south and southeast. Plant life includes willows, poplars, several types of conifers, teak, rhododendrons, oaks, birches, elms, bamboo, sugarcane,

Sunday, October 17, 2004

Babelthuap

Also called �Babeldaob, �Palau, �Baberudaobu,� or �Arrecifos� largest of the Caroline Islands and largest island within Palau (a sovereign state since 1994). It has an area of 143 square miles (370 square km) and lies in the western Pacific Ocean, 550 miles (885 km) east of the Philippines. Partly elevated limestone and partly volcanic in origin, Babelthuap measures 27 miles by 8 miles (43 km by 13 km); it is fertile and wooded and rises to an elevation of 713 feet (217 metres).

Saturday, October 16, 2004

Fiske, Bradley Allen

Fiske graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1874. As the navigator of the gunboat Petrel, he used one of his inventions, a stadimeter range finder, to communicate the ranges of enemy ships to American gunners

Friday, October 15, 2004

Duala

Also spelled �Douala, � Bantu-speaking people of the forest region of southern Cameroon living on the estuary of the Wouri River. By 1800 the Duala controlled Cameroon's trade with Europeans, and their concentrated settlement pattern developed under this influence. Their system of chieftaincy was partly founded on trading wealth. For much of the 19th century there were two political - commercial

Thursday, October 14, 2004

O'bannion, (charles) Dion

From a life of petty crime O'Bannion rose during Prohibition to command the best distilleries and breweries in Chicago and dominated bootleg distribution on the North Side, including the elegant Gold Coast, and among

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Irminger Current

Branch of the warm North Atlantic Current, flowing generally westward along the south coast of Iceland. It divides into two currents west of Iceland. One proceeds northward and then eastward around Iceland, and the other flows westward and then southwestward, merging with the East Greenland and, eventually, the West Greenland currents. The Irminger Current is a

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Paean

Solemn choral lyric of invocation, joy, or triumph, originating in ancient Greece where it was addressed to Apollo in his guise as Paean, physician to the gods. Paeans were sung at banquets following the boisterous dithyrambs, at the festivals of Apollo, and at public funerals. It was the custom for them to be sung by an army on the march and before going into battle, when

Monday, October 11, 2004

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

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Cyril And Methodius, Saints

Brothers who for christianizing the Danubian Slavs and for influencing the religious and cultural development of all Slavic peoples received the title �the apostles of the Slavs.� Both were outstanding scholars, theologians, and

Saturday, October 09, 2004

Gas

The best elementary discussion of the kinetic theory of gases is T.G. Cowling, Molecules in Motion (1960), clearly explaining the fundamental physical ideas without excessive mathematical manipulation. Other elementary books include Joel H. Hildebrand, An Introduction to Molecular Kinetic Theory (1963); Sidney Golden, Elements of the Theory of Gases (1964); and Walter Kauzmann, Kinetic Theory of Gases (1966). Two excellent books make greater demands on the mathematical background of the reader: James Jeans, An Introduction to the Kinetic Theory of Gases (1940, reissued 1982), which is an abridged and slightly simplified version of the author's classic The Dynamical Theory of Gases, 4th ed. (1925, reissued 1954); and Richard D. Present, Kinetic Theory of Gases (1958), an excellent though selective textbook. The historical literature is especially rich; the following works may be profitably consulted: J.S. Rowlinson (ed.), J.D. van der Waals: On the Continuity of the Gaseous and Liquid States (1988), a translation of van der Waals's 1873 Dutch thesis with a marvelous extended introductory essay by the editor that is unique in the field and surveys modern developments in the theory of liquids and solutions; Stephen G. Brush (ed.), Kinetic Theory, 3 vol. (1965 - 72), a set of famous historical papers along with introductory commentaries and summaries by the editor; Robert Lindsay (ed.), Early Concepts of Energy in Atomic Physics (1979), selections from famous historical papers - many of them omitted from the previous work - together with the editor's comments; and Stephen G. Brush, The Kind of Motion We Call Heat: A History of the Kinetic Theory of Gases in the 19th Century, 2 vol. (1976, reissued 1986), a thorough historical account without much mathematics, and Statistical Physics and the Atomic Theory of Matter: From Boyle and Newton to Landau and Onsager (1983), covering a much broader range and requiring a thorough scientific background. More advanced professional treatments include Sydney Chapman and T.G. Cowling, The Mathematical Theory of Non-uniform Gases, 3rd ed. (1970, reprinted 1990), the acknowledged classic on the modern kinetic theory of gases based on the Enskog-Chapman approach; Joseph O. Hirschfelder, Charles F. Curtiss, and R. Byron Bird, Molecular Theory of Gases and Liquids (1954, reissued with added notes 1964), a monumental compendium of detailed results on equations of state, transport properties of gases, and intermolecular forces, especially valuable as a reference; J.H. Ferziger and H.G. Kaper, Mathematical Theory of Transport Processes in Gases (1972), successfully combining the best features of the previous two works; Carlo Cercignani, The Boltzmann Equation and Its Applications (1988), by a mathematician, one of the few books that concerns itself with free-molecule gases and the transition to continuum behaviour; and Frederick R.W. McCourt et al., Nonequilibrium Phenomena in Polyatomic Gases, 2 vol. (1990 - 91), an account of the extension of the Enskog-Chapman theory to include truly molecular shape effects, including the effects of external electric and magnetic fields and of surface collisions. Special topics are addressed in Martin Knudsen, The Kinetic Theory of Gases, 3rd ed. (1950), a series of lectures from 1933 on rarefied gas phenomena, by one of the experimental pioneers in the subject; K.E. Grew and T.L. Ibbs, Thermal Diffusion in Gases (1952), a short monograph on one of the more intriguing special topics of the kinetic theory of gases; J.S. Rowlinson, The Perfect Gas (1963), emphasizing the internal mechanics of molecules as related to the calculation of the thermodynamic properties of gases by statistical mechanics; and E.A. Mason and T.H. Spurling, The Virial Equation of State (1969), emphasizing experimental measurements and the detailed connection with intermolecular forces.

Friday, October 08, 2004

Devonshire, Spencer Compton Cavendish, 8th Duke Of, Marquess Of Hartington, Earl Of Devonshire, Baron Cavendish Of Hardwick

Entering the House of Commons

Thursday, October 07, 2004

Hypertext

Also called �Hyperlinking, � the linking of related pieces of information by electronic connections in order to allow a user easy access between them. Hypertext is a feature of some computer programs that allow the user of electronic media to select a word from text and receive additional information pertaining to that word, such as a definition or related references within the text. In the

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Winterhalter, Franz Xaver

Trained in Freiburg im Breisgau and Munich, Germany, Winterhalter entered court circles when in 1828 he became drawing master to Sophie, later grand duchess of Baden, at Karlsruhe. After 1834 he went to Paris and quickly became fashionable, at first under

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Ayyubid Dynasty

Saladin's father, Ayyub (in full, Najm ad-Din Ayyub ibn Shadhi), for whom the Ayyubid dynasty is named, was a member of a family of Kurdish soldiers of fortune who in the 12th century took service under the Seljuq Turkish rulers

Monday, October 04, 2004

California, U.S. colonization and acquisition

Secularization of the missions was sought by Spanish-Mexican settlers known as Californios when Mexico became independent of Spain in 1821. Between 1833 and 1840 the mission ranches were parceled out to political favourites by the Mexican government. The padres withdrew, and the Indians were cruelly exploited and diminished. In 1841 the first wagon train of settlers left Missouri

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Lenca

Indians of the northern highlands of Honduras and El Salvador who are somewhat intermediate culturally between the Maya to the north and circum-Caribbean peoples such as the Kuna to the south. The aboriginal culture of the Lenca has virtually disappeared and is not well known. It is thought that formerly each village was autonomous, controlled by a chief and a council

Saturday, October 02, 2004

Pierre

Capital of South Dakota, U.S., seat (1880) of Hughes county, on the Missouri River, in the geographic centre of the state. Before 1800 the capital of the Arikara Indian nation was located on its site. Founded in June 1880 as the western terminus of the Chicago and North Western Railway, it was first known as Mahto (Sioux: �Bear�) but was renamed in December 1880 for Pierre Chouteau, a French fur trader.

Friday, October 01, 2004

Basil The Great, Saint

Latin �Basilius � early Church Father who defended the orthodox faith against the heretical Arians. As bishop of Caesarea he wrote several works on monasticism, theology, and canon law. He was declared a saint soon after his death.