Fernández De Avellaneda, Alonso

Probably the pseudonym of the otherwise unknown author of Segundo tomo del ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (1614; “Second Book of the Ingenious Knight Don Quixote of La Mancha”), a fraudulent sequel to the first volume of Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605). In the 59th chapter of the second volume of Don Quixote (1615), Cervantes mocks the spurious book. Suggestions of the author's

K'uei Hsing

K'uei Hsing, whose name before deification was Chung K'uei, is said to have passed his own examination with remarkable success but was denied the usual honours when the emperor beheld his ugly features. Brokenhearted, K'uei attempted

Strambotto

Plural  strambotti  one of the oldest Italian verse forms, composed of a single stanza of either six or eight hendecasyllabic (11-syllable) lines. Strambotti were particularly popular in Renaissance Sicily and Tuscany, and the origin of the form in either region is still uncertain. Variations of the eight-line strambotto include the Sicilian octave (ottava siciliana), with the rhyme scheme

Michelsen, (peter) Christian (hersleb Kjerschow)

Michelsen began his career as a lawyer; later he started his own shipping firm, which became one of the largest in Norway. A member of the Storting (parliament) from 1891, he adhered at first to the “Pure” Left Party but later broke with

Dysentery

There are two major types of dysentery: bacillary and amebic, caused, respectively, by bacteria and amoebas. Bacillary dysentery, or shigellosis, is caused by bacilli of the genus Shigella. Symptomatically,

Belarusian Ridge

Belarusian also spelled  Belorussian, or Byelorussian,  Russian  Belorusskaya Gryada, or Belorusskaja Gr'ada,   upland region in Belarus. From northeastern Poland the ridge runs southeast into western Belarus and then swings northeast. Its total length is 320 miles (520 km). The ridge, covered by marine sands and clays, is in reality a series of separate uplands, of which the highest point is Dzerzhinskaya Mountain, at 1,132 feet (345 m), in the Minsk Upland. To the south of the ridge lie the extensive

France, History Of, Culture and art

Cultural circles remained strongly oriented to aristocratic values and the past. With the accession of the Valois came a high nobility, distinguished by lavish and exclusive conceits. When John II formed the Order of the Star (1351), an institution imitated by the great lords for their clientages, chivalry stood incorporated as the most distinguished of religious confraternities.

Jacksonville

City, Jackson county, southwestern Oregon, U.S. It lies along Jackson Creek, just west of Medford, in the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains. It began in 1851–52 as a mining camp with placer gold discoveries along the creek (named for a prospector). By the 1920s mining activities had declined together with the population, and, bypassed by the railroad, in 1927 the city lost to Medford its status

Kuantan

City situated on the eastern coast of the Malay Peninsula, West Malaysia. It lies at the mouth of the Kuantan River, on the South China Sea. Situated on a wide alluvial plain north of the fertile Pahang River delta, Kuantan is Malaysia's most important east-coast port, shipping tin, rubber, and copra south to Singapore for export. Tin is extracted from the deep lode mine at

Smith, Hoke

Admitted to the bar in 1873, Smith practiced law in Atlanta and became active in local Democratic politics. He published the Atlanta Journal (1887–1900), which he used as a forum to champion virtually all progressive measures of the period, with the notable exception

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

Asparagus

Asparagus may be erect or climbing, and most of the species are more

Arrowroot

Any of several species of the genus Maranta, members of the family Marantaceae (q.v.), the rhizomes, or rootstocks, of which yield an edible starch; the chief among these is M. arundinacea, the source of genuine, or West Indies, arrowroot. This herbaceous perennial, probably a native of Guyana and western Brazil, is cultivated throughout the West Indies,

Nabulus

Shechem, a Canaanite city, was important in ancient Palestine because of its position in an east–west pass between

Hellenistic Romance

Adventure tale, usually with a quasi-historical setting, in which a virtuous heroine and her valiant lover are separated by innumerable obstacles of human wickedness and natural catastrophe but are finally reunited. A precursor of the modern novel, the Hellenistic romance is the source for classic love stories, such as those of Hero and Leander, Pyramus and Thisbe,

Pacific Mountain System

The Pacific mountain region had a large American Indian population before the arrival of white explorers and settlers. Hunting, the gathering of berries, roots, and nuts, and fishing were the major economic activities. Trade and barter were common among tribes, especially in the north, where peoples from the interior traded hides, meat, and roots for salmon caught

Animal Magnetism

A presumed intangible or mysterious force that is said to influence human beings. The term was applied by the German physician Franz Anton Mesmer to the hypnotism that he used in the treatment of patients. He believed that it was an occult force or invisible fluid emanating from his body and that, more generally, the force permeated the universe, deriving especially

Sinhala Maha Sabha

Political group in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) that was founded in 1937 by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike. It was a communally oriented group and promoted the interests of the Sinhalese sector of the population and of Buddhism. In 1945 Bandaranaike threw the support of the Sabha behind the newly created United National Party (UNP) of D.S. Senanayake, which was to dominate politics for the first

Biblical Literature, The physical aspects of New Testament texts

To establish the reliability of the text of ancient manuscripts in order to reach the text that the author originally wrote (or, rather, dictated) involves the physical aspects of the texts: collection, collation of differences or variant readings in manuscripts, and comparison in matters of dating, geographical origins, and the amount of editing or revision noted,

Ogata Kenzan

Kenzan received a classical Chinese and Japanese education and pursued Zen Buddhism. At the age of 27 he began studying with the potter Ninsei and in 1699 established his own kiln in Narutaki. Encountering financial

Prickly Pear

Any member of a genus (Opuntia) of flat-stemmed spiny cacti (family Cactaceae), native to the Western Hemisphere. The name refers to the edible fruit of certain species, especially the Indian fig (Opuntia ficus-indica), which is an important food for many peoples in tropical and subtropical countries. When Opuntia species were first introduced to Australia and southern

Orangery

The great period of the orangery,

Computers, UNIVAC

After leaving the Moore School, Eckert and Mauchly struggled to obtain capital to build their latest design, a computer they called the Universal Automatic Computer, or UNIVAC. (In the meantime, they contracted with the Northrop Corporation to build the Binary Automatic Computer, or BINAC, which, when completed in 1949, became the first American stored-program computer.)

Gabelentz, Hans Conon Von Der

After completing his university studies, Gabelentz did research on the Chinese

Daniels, Josephus

In 1933 Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Tasmania, Prehistory and European exploration

The flooding of Bass

Kyaukse

Town, central Myanmar (Burma). Lying on the Zawgyi River, 25 miles (40 km) south of Mandalay, it is served by the Mandalay-Yangôn (Rangoon) railway. The first Myanmar (Burmese) probably settled in the area about 800, and local 12th- and 13th-century inscriptions refer to Kyaukse as “the first home.” Remains of pagodas and old cities are found throughout the area. The Shwethalyaung pagoda, built

Zipper

The idea of a slide fastener was exhibited by Whitcomb

Agricultural Sciences, The

Food is the most basic human need. The domestication and cultivation of plants and animals beginning almost 10,000 years

Fibrin

An insoluble protein that is produced in response to bleeding and is the major component of the blood clot. Fibrin is a tough protein substance that is arranged in long fibrous chains; it is formed from fibrinogen, a soluble protein that is produced by the liver and found in blood plasma. When tissue damage results in bleeding, fibrinogen is converted at the wound into

Ant

Any member of the approximately 8,000 species of the insect family Formicidae (order Hymenoptera). Ants occur worldwide but are especially common in hot climates. All ants are social in habit; i.e., they live together in organized colonies, and they range in size from 2 to about 25 millimetres (about 0.08 to 1 inch). Their colour is usually yellow, brown, red, or black. A few genera

Moser-pröll, Annemarie

Pröll skied from the age of four. She tried out for the Austrian national ski team at the age of 15. Her Olympic Winter Games success came late. She won silver medals for the downhill and the giant slalom at the 1972 Winter Games in Sapporo, Japan,

Mammal, The evolution of the mammalian condition

Mammals were derived in the Triassic Period from members of the reptilian order Therapsida. The therapsids, members of the subclass Synapsida (sometimes called the mammal-like reptiles), generally were unimpressive in relation to other reptiles of their time. Synapsids were present in the Carboniferous Period (about 280,000,000 to 345,000,000 years ago) and are one of the earliest known

Durant

City, seat (1907) of Bryan county, southern Oklahoma, U.S., in the Red River valley, a few miles north of the Texas border. Settled about 1870 and named for a well-known Choctaw family, the city grew steadily after the arrival of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad in 1872. Durant developed as a service centre for a diversified farming area, and in 1909 Southeastern State Normal (teacher-training)

Armenia, Flag Of

Long without an independent state of their own, 19th-century Armenians also lacked a national flag around which they could rally to support their language and culture. Armenians in exile in France looked to a scholar at the Armenian Institute in Venice, Ghevont Alshin, for a flag in 1885. He recommended the “rainbow flag given to the Armenians when Noah's Ark came to rest on

Fly

Any of several thousand species of insects belonging to the order Diptera and characterized by the use of only one pair of wings for flight and the reduction of the second pair of wings to knobs (called halteres) used for balance. The term fly is commonly used for almost any small flying insect. In entomology, however, the name refers specifically to the approximately

Tseng-tzu

Tseng-tzu was highly influential in reaffirming the Confucian emphasis on the virtue of hsiao

Amorphous Solid, Amorphous semiconductors in electronics

Amorphous semiconductors, in the form of thin films prepared by methods such as that shown in Figure 4D, are important in applications requiring large areas of electronically active material. The first electronic application of amorphous semiconductors to occur on a large scale was

Kumamoto

Kumamoto ken is predominantly agricultural and produces rice surpluses for northern Kyushu's industrial cities, along with some mandarin oranges, silk, igusa (a rush for weaving tatami mats), tobacco, and

France, History Of, Napoleon and the Revolution

The Revolutionary legacy for Napoleon consisted above all in the abolition of the ancien régime's most archaic features—“feudalism,” seigneurialism, legal privileges, and provincial liberties. No matter how aristocratic his style became, he had no use for the ineffective institutions and abuses of the ancien régime. Napoleon was “modern” in temperament as well as

Kodaira Kunihiko

Kodaira attended the University of Tokyo (Ph.D., 1949). His dissertation attracted the attention of Hermann Weyl, who invited Kodaira to join him at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New

Aselli, Gaspare

Aselli became professor of anatomy and surgery at the University of Pavia and practiced at Milan. His discovery of the lacteals (lymph vessels that take up the end products of fat digestion from the intestine) occurred