Friday, December 31, 2004

Anderson, Richard Heron

Anderson graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1842 and won the brevet of first lieutenant in the Mexican War, becoming first lieutenant in 1848 and captain in 1855; he took part in the following year in the Kansas troubles. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, he resigned from the

Thursday, December 30, 2004

Kazak Language

Also spelled �Kazakh, � member of the Turkic language family (a subfamily of the Altaic languages), belonging to the northwestern, or Kipchak, branch. The Kazak language is spoken primarily in Kazakstan and in the Uighur Autonomous Region of Sinkiang in China but is also found in Uzbekistan, Mongolia, and Afghanistan. The so-called Kipchak-Uzbek dialect is closely related to Kazak and is considered

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Wesleyan University

Private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Middletown, Connecticut, U.S. It comprises the College of Letters and the College of Social Studies and departments in the sciences, mathematics, humanities, arts, and social and behavioral sciences. Altogether it offers 50 major fields of study for undergraduate students, 11 master's degree programs, and doctoral

Monday, December 27, 2004

Mauretania

Transatlantic passenger liner of the Cunard Line, called the �Grand Old Lady of the Atlantic.� It was launched in 1906 and made its maiden voyage in 1907; thereafter, it held the Atlantic Blue Riband for speed until 1929, challenged only by its sister ship, the Lusitania (sunk by a German submarine on May 7, 1915). During World War I the Mauretania worked as a transport and hospital ship. During

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Lower Vascular Plant

Formerly �pteridophyte, �also called �vascular cryptogam, � any of the spore-bearing vascular plants, including the ferns, club mosses, spike mosses, quillworts, horsetails, and whisk ferns. Once considered of the same evolutionary line, these plants were formerly placed in the single group Pteridophyta and were known as the ferns and fern allies. Although modern studies have shown that the plants are not in fact related, these

Friday, December 24, 2004

Interest

Interest may also be viewed as the income derived from the possession of contractual promises from others to pay sums in the future. The question may be asked, �What is the value today of a promise to pay $100 a year from now?� If the answer is $100, then no interest income is generated.

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Protist, Section I. Chromobionts (heterokonts or Chromophyta sensu lato)

Predominantly golden-brown, yellow-green, and brown algae plus some lower fungal groups and 3 nonpigmented zooflagellate taxa; tubular mitochondrial cristae; pigmented moiety with chlorophylls a, c, and d and chloroplasts located within rough endoplasmic reticulum, tubular mastigonemes on anterior flagellum, and food reserves stored outside plastids; ubiquitous;

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Mufti, Sa'id Al-

In 1924 al-Mufti entered local government service in Amman, where he vigorously opposed British rule. He joined the governing cabinet of Transjordan (later Jordan) as minister of communications

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Vietnamese Literature

The oral poetry tradition is purely

Monday, December 20, 2004

Thousand Days, The War Of A

The Liberal Party represented coffee plantation owners and import-export merchants who favoured a laissez-faire economic policy. Largely excluded from participation in government after the Conservative victory

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Foreman, George

Foreman grew up in Houston, Texas, and learned to box in a U.S. Job Corps camp in Oregon. At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, he won the gold medal in the heavyweight boxing competition.

Saturday, December 18, 2004

Grunge

Influenced by punk rock, by

Friday, December 17, 2004

Gipsite

A variety of the mineral gypsum (q.v.).

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Choral Music, Anthems

The use of the vernacular after the Reformation in England made it necessary for composers to forge a new style of choral music. The elaborate melodic tracery of Robert Fayrfax and John Taverner gave way to a completely unelaborate kind of choral counterpoint designed to allow the English words to be clearly heard. Both Thomas Tallis and William Byrd made outstanding

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Yung-lo

In the early years of his reign, he seems to have been fascinated by the regions beyond China's southern borders, perhaps in part because of rumours that the emperor Chu Y�n-wen had escaped overseas. In 1403 the Yung-lo emperor sent out three fleets under eunuch commanders to proclaim his accession throughout Southeast Asia as far as Java and southern India. More vigorously

Monday, December 13, 2004

Sa�da

Town, northwestern Algeria, on the southern slopes of the Tell Atlas and the northern fringe of the Hauts (high) Plateaux. The city's site has been of military importance since the construction there of a Roman fort. Sa�da was a stronghold of Abdelkader, the Algerian national leader who burned the town upon the approach of French forces in 1844. Modern Sa�da was founded as

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Perak

Traditional region, northwestern West Malaysia (Malaya), bordering Thailand to the north and fronting the Strait of Malacca to the west. Its area includes a large portion of West Malaysia's west-coast plains and centres upon the Perak River, which flows north-to-south between the Keledang Range to the east and the Bintang Range to the west; both of these mountain ranges

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Inselberg

(from German Insel, �island,� and Berg, �mountain�), isolated hill that stands above well-developed plains and appears not unlike an island rising from the sea. The early German explorers of southern Africa were impressed by such features, and they dubbed the domed or castlelike highlands inselbergs. Spectacular examples include Ayers Rock and the Olga Rocks in central

Friday, December 10, 2004

Roman Catholicism

Christian church characterized by its uniform, highly developed doctrinal and organizational structure that traces its history to the Apostles of Jesus Christ in the 1st century AD. Along with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, it is one of the three major branches of Christianity.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Acupuncture

Acupuncture grew out

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

P�ros

Island of the Saronic group, lying close to the Argolis peninsula of the Peloponnese, part of the nom�s (department) of Attik�, Greece. It actually comprises two islands totaling 9 square miles (23 square km), the larger of which is the wooded, limestone island of Kal�vria, separated from the village of Galat�s on the mainland by a narrow channel, or poros, whence the collective

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Chase, Philander

Ordained a priest in 1799, Chase served several parishes in New York State, New Orleans, and Hartford, Conn., prior to his consecration as bishop for the new Ohio diocese in 1819. Because he felt the needs of the frontier West could

Monday, December 06, 2004

Robecchi-bricchetti, Luigi

On his first African expedition he reached the oasis of Siwa (in western Egypt) in 1886, where he found a vast necropolis from which he collected skulls for European museums. On his two greatest expeditions, he twice traversed the previously unexplored

Sunday, December 05, 2004

Talmud And Midrash, Haggadic

Most notable among biblical collections

Saturday, December 04, 2004

Athens 1980s Overview

It is said that in every musical generation something new crawls out of the American South. But few would have expected anything earthshaking from Athens, a small city in Georgia that calls itself the �Classic City.� American college towns tend to be consumers rather than creators of musical trends. Athens, where one-third of the population are students at the University

Friday, December 03, 2004

Wiesel, Elie

Wiesel's early life, spent in a small Hasidic community in the town of Sighet, was a rather hermetic existence of prayer and contemplation. In 1940 Sighet was annexed

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Bhangra

Dancers in pairs give spontaneous solo displays that include virile jumps and even

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

West Covina

City, Los Angeles county, California, U.S. It lies at the eastern end of the San Gabriel Valley and is about 20 miles (32 km) east of the city centre of Los Angeles. Settled in 1905, it began as an agricultural community surrounded by citrus and walnut groves. After World War II it experienced rapid growth with the urbanization of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. West Covina consists