PoliticalStreet

Poland, The Carpathians

2005-11-17T20:25:00.000-08:00

The southernmost and also most scenic portion of Poland embraces the Carpathian Mountains and their associated chains and basins, created in the geologically recent mountain-building Tertiary Period (about 66.4 to 1.6 million years ago). Within the Polish frontiers lie the Oswiecim and Sandomierz basins, a portion of the Beskid Mountains, the Orawka-Podhale Basin, and the

Furtwangen

2005-10-15T16:20:00.000-07:00

City, Baden-Württemberg Land (state), southwestern Germany, in the upper valley of the Breg River, in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald), northeast of Freiburg im Breisgau. First mentioned in 1179, it was a possession of the abbey of St. George until it passed to Baden in 1806. It was chartered in 1873. Furtwangen has been a centre of the Black Forest clock industry since 1740 and has a clock museum.

Cooper, Cynthia

2005-07-28T14:10:00.000-07:00

Cooper was raised

Earth Sciences, William Smith and faunal succession

2005-07-26T19:45:00.000-07:00

In 1683 the zoologist Martin Lister proposed to the Royal Society that a new sort of map be drawn showing the areal distribution of the different kinds of British “soiles” (vegetable soils and underlying bedrock). The work proposed by Lister was not accomplished until 132 years later, when William Smith published his Geologic Map of England and Wales with Part of

Jerusalem, Siegfried

2005-07-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

Siegfried Jerusalem's name and voice were both well suited to a Wagnerian heldentenor. Strong, clear, and expressive, with a slight vibrato to give it richness, his voice was, Jerusalem believed, perfect for the role of Siegmund in Die Walküre. He also was praised for his effortless phrasing and seductive tone. In addition, Jerusalem had the good looks and athletic build

T'ien-t'ai

2005-07-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

The chief scripture of the school is the Lotus Sutra (Chinese: Fa-hua Ching; Sanskrit: Saddharmapu

Light

2005-06-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

Electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by the human eye. In terms of wavelength, electromagnetic radiation occurs over an extremely wide range, from gamma rays with a wavelength of 3 ´ 10-14 centimetre to long radio waves measured in millions of kilometres. In that spectrum the wavelengths visible to humans occupy a very narrow band, from about 7 ´ 10-5 centimetre (red light)

Surduc Pass

2005-06-17T03:40:00.000-07:00

Also called Jiu Defile , or Jiu Pass Romanian Pasul Surduc pass, southwestern Romania. The Jiu River flows through the pass between the Vâlcan (west) and the Parâng (east) mountains, in the Transylvanian Alps (Southern Carpathians). The pass connects the Petrosani Depression (upper Jiu Valley) with the Plain of Oltenia. A road and the Bumbesti–Livezeni railway line, opened in 1947, follow the pass by means of 30 tunnels and several

Syzran

2005-06-13T22:25:00.000-07:00

City, Samara oblast (province), western Russia. It lies along the Volga River at the latter's confluence with the Syzran River. Founded in 1683 as a stronghold at the eastern end of the Syzran defensive line, the city is a significant river port and an important centre of the western Volga-Urals oil field. Oil refining, manufacture of chemicals, glassmaking, timber working, and

Port

2005-06-02T17:45:00.000-07:00

Also called Porto, specifically, a sweet, fortified, usually red wine of considerable renown from the Douro region of northern Portugal, named for the town of Oporto where it is aged and bottled; also, any of several similar fortified wines produced elsewhere. The region of true port production is strictly delimited by Portuguese law. The soil and grapes, and the skill of Oporto vintners

Sartawi, 'isam

2005-05-31T00:30:00.000-07:00

Trained as a medical doctor in Baghdad, Iraq, Sartawi was conducting research in the United States

Bengali Literature

2005-05-17T03:35:00.000-07:00

The body of writings in the Bengali language of the Indian subcontinent. Its earliest extant work is a pre-12th-century collection of lyrics that reflect the beliefs and practices of the Sahajiya religious sect. The dispersal of the poets of the Muslim invasion of 1199 broke off all poetic activity until the mid-14th century. Thereafter, the literature is divided into medieval

Italy

2005-05-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

Officially Italian Republic , Italian Italia or Repubblica Italiana country of south-central Europe, occupying a peninsula that juts deep into the Mediterranean Sea. It has a shape that has been likened frequently to a high-heeled boot about to prod its triangular subject island of Sicily. Another important island, Sardinia, lies some 160 miles (260 kilometres) west of Italy's “shin.” The magnificent mountain barrier of the Alps forms a northern

Taree

2005-03-15T01:39:00.000-08:00

City, northeastern New South Wales, Australia, 10 miles (16 km) above the coastal mouth of the Manning River. Established in 1854 as a private town, it was proclaimed a municipality in 1885 and a city in 1981; it derives its name from the Aboriginal tareehin, or tarrebit, referring to a local wild fig. Situated on the Sydney-Brisbane rail line and the Pacific Highway, 80 miles (130 km) northeast of Newcastle,

Henri, Robert

2005-03-14T01:35:00.000-08:00

Henri studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, from 1884 to 1888, and at both the Acad�mie Julian and the �cole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Upon

Aesthetics, The origins of modern aesthetics

2005-03-12T06:46:00.000-08:00

Francis Bacon wrote essays on beauty and deformity, but he confined his remarks to the human figure. Ren� Descartes produced a treatise on music, although it contains little that would be recognized as aesthetics in the modern sense. During the first decades of modern philosophy, aesthetics flourished, not in the works of the great philosophers, but in the writings

West Germanic Languages, Characteristics of modern Standard German

2005-03-09T15:36:00.000-08:00

German has the following consonants, given here in phonetic symbols because the spelling often varies: stops, p, b, t, d, k, g; fricatives, f, v, �~x; sibilants, s, z,

Self-fertilization

2005-03-08T10:27:00.000-08:00

Fusion of male and female gametes (sex cells) produced by the same individual. Self-fertilization occurs in bisexual organisms, including most flowering plants, numerous protozoans, and many invertebrates. Autogamy, the production of gametes by the division of a single parent cell, is frequently found in unicellular organisms such as the protozoan Paramecium

Benedetti, Vincent, Comte

2005-03-07T05:24:00.000-08:00

Benedetti studied law in Paris and in 1840 entered consular service. He served in several embassies in Europe and the Middle East between 1845 and 1864, when he was named ambassador to Prussia with instructions from Napoleon III to prevent

Andreini, Isabella

2005-03-06T08:47:00.000-08:00

In 1578 Flaminio Scala, a theatrical manager and scenario writer, engaged Isabella Canali to play the female lead in his company. There she met Francesco Andreini and married him the same year. They helped form the

Nix

2005-03-05T14:41:00.000-08:00

Also called �nixie�, or �nixy� in Germanic mythology, a water being, half human, half fish, that lives in a beautiful underwater palace and mingles with humans by assuming a variety of physical forms (e.g., that of a fair maiden or an old woman) or by making itself invisible. One of three attributes may betray the disguises of nixes: they are music lovers and excellent dancers, and they have the gift of prophecy.

Abbadie, Antoine-thomson D'; And Abbadie, Arnaud-michel D'

2005-03-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

Their parents, a French father and an Irish mother, moved to France in 1818. In 1835 the French Academy sent Antoine on a scientific mission to Brazil. Arnaud

Mukacheve

2005-03-03T08:36:00.000-08:00

Russian �Mukachovo, �also spelled �Mukachevo, or Mukacevo, �Hungarian �Munk�cs, � city, Zakarpattya oblast (province), western Ukraine, on the Latoritsa River. Its location controls the southern approach to a major pass across the Carpathian Mountains, today followed by road and rail. This position has given Mukacheve a key fortress role in sub-Carpathian Ruthenia since its foundation in the 10th century - mainly during its period of Hungarian rule

O'higgins, Bernardo

2005-03-02T11:48:00.000-08:00

Bernardo O'Higgins was born in Chill�n, a town in southern Chile, then a colony of Spain. As noted in his certificate of Baptism, he was the illegitimate

Biblical Literature, Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls

2005-03-01T08:07:00.000-08:00

New literary documents from the intertestamental period were found in the caves of Qumran in the vicinity of the Dead Sea in the 1940s, but only a portion of them has yet been published. All the Dead Sea Scrolls were written before the destruction of the Second Temple; with the exception of small Greek fragments, they are all in Hebrew and Aramaic. The scrolls formed the library