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Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Lesser Slave Lake

Lake in central Alberta, Canada, 130 miles (209 km) northwest of Edmonton and 400 miles (640 km) south of Great Slave Lake (in the Northwest Territories). It is 60 miles (97 km) long by 12 miles (19 km) wide and has an area of 451 square miles (1,168 square km). Fed by many small streams, it drains eastward into the Athabasca River via the Lesser Slave River. The name, first used by the Cree Indians, refers to the Slave (Dogrib)

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Christianity, New forms of worship

The veneration of martyrs and the growth of pilgrimages stimulated liturgical elaboration. Great centres (Jerusalem and Rome, in particular) became models for others, which encouraged regional standardization and cross-fertilization. Though the pattern of the eucharistic liturgy was settled by the 4th century, there were many variant forms, especially of the

Monday, March 29, 2004

Anthony, Katharine (susan)

A college teacher of geometry, Anthony was deeply interested in psychiatry. Eventually this interest came to shape her approach to biography,

Sunday, March 28, 2004

Peter Iii

In 1262 he had married Constance, heiress of Manfred, the Hohenstaufen king of Sicily; and after the revolt of the Sicilians in 1282 he invaded the island and was proclaimed king at Palermo, despite strong Guelph and papal opposition (see Sicilian

Saturday, March 27, 2004

Holberg, Ludvig, Friherre Holberg

Gerald S. Argetsinger, Ludvig Holberg's Comedies (1983); F.J. Billeskov Jansen, Ludvig Holberg (1974); and Sven Hakon Rossel (ed.), Ludvig Holberg - A European Writer: A Study in Influence and Reception (1994).

Friday, March 26, 2004

Biblical Literature, The role of Samson

The exploits of the great Israelite strongman judge, Samson (a member of the tribe of Dan), are related in chapters 13 - 16. Dedicated from birth by his mother to Yahweh, Samson became a member of the Nazirites, an anti-Canaanite reform movement. As a Nazirite, he was required never to cut his hair, drink wine, or eat ritually unclean food. He married a Philistine woman whom he then

Thursday, March 25, 2004

Penzias, Arno

In full �Arno Allan Penzias� German-American astrophysicist who shared one-half of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics with Robert Woodrow Wilson for their discovery of a faint electromagnetic radiation throughout the universe. Their detection of this radiation lent strong support to the big-bang model of cosmic evolution. (The other half of the Nobel Prize was awarded to the Soviet

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Literature

In many ways 1996 was a dispiriting year for literature. While more books were published than ever before, the rift between serious literary writing and the vast majority of titles grew wider. This was the result, particularly in the �first world,� of four converging trends: the continuing absorption of independent publishing houses; the focus on cultural studies that

Monday, March 22, 2004

Earth, The figure of the Earth

Recent standard works include G. Bomford, Geodesy, 4th ed. (1980, reprinted 1983); Weikko A. Heiskanen and Helmut Moritz, Physical Geodesy (1967); Wolfgang Torge, Geodesy, an Introduction (1980; originally published in German, 1975), a classical treatment; and Petr Van�cek and Edward J. Krakiwsky, Geodesy, the Concepts, rev. ed. (1986). See also International Association Of Geodesy, Systeme geodesique de reference 1967: Geodetic Reference System 1967 (1971).

Saturday, March 20, 2004

Mason, George

As a landowner and near neighbour of George Washington,

Friday, March 19, 2004

Land Crab

Any crab of the family Gecarcinidae (order Decapoda of the class Crustacea), typically terrestrial, square-bodied crabs that only occasionally, as adults, return to the sea. They occur in tropical America, West Africa, and the Indo-Pacific region. All species feed on both animal and plant tissue. Cardisoma guanhumi, a land crab of Bermuda, the West Indies, and the southern

Thursday, March 18, 2004

Land Snail

Any of the approximately 22,000 species of snails adapted to life away from water. Most are members of the subclass Pulmonata (class Gastropoda); a few are members of the subclass Prosobranchia. Typically, land snails live on or near the ground, feed on decaying plant matter, and lay their eggs in the soil. They are most common on tropical islands but occur also

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Ta-yeh

Pinyin �Daye, � town in eastern Hupeh sheng (province), China. Ta-yeh is situated on the south bank of the Yangtze River near Huang-shih and about 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Han-k'ou (Wu-han). The site is low-lying and has many swamps and lakes, but to the northwest of the town there is a belt of hills containing iron deposits. These had been known from early times, and the T'ang dynasty (618 - 907) had a government

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

China, The dynasty's founder

Chu Y�an-chang, founder of the new dynasty, came from a family of physiognomists from K'ai-feng who in Y�an times had deteriorated into itinerant tenant farmers in northern Anhwei Province. Orphaned by famine and plague in 1344, young Chu was taken into a small Buddhist monastery near Feng-yang city as a lay novice. For more than three years he wandered as a mendicant through

Monday, March 15, 2004

Breconian Stage

Division of the Old Red Sandstone of the Devonian Period in western Europe (the Devonian Period began about 395,000,000 years ago and lasted about 50,000,000 years); the Breconian Stage follows the Dittonian and precedes the Farlovian Stage. It was named for exposures studied at the Brecon Beacons in southern Wales. The rocks of the Breconian consist of red, gray, and green sandstones in

Sunday, March 14, 2004

Biblical Literature, The Thomas Matthew version

In the same year that Coverdale's authorized version appeared, another English Bible was issued under royal license and with the encouragement of ecclesiastical and political power. It appeared (Antwerp?) under the name of Thomas Matthew, but it is certainly the work of John Rogers, a close friend of Tyndale. Although the version claimed to be �truly and purely translated

Saturday, March 13, 2004

Sorsogon

Town, southeastern Luzon, Philippines, near the southernmost tip of the Bicol Peninsula. The town of Sorsogon is a port on the northeastern shore of Sorsogon Bay. The adjacent hinterland consists of volcanic cones interspersed with broad, level farmlands that produce abaca, coconuts, rice, and sweet potatoes. Sorsogon has processing facilities for abaca and copra.

Friday, March 12, 2004

Aymaran Languages

A group of South American Indian languages spoken over a fairly large region in the southern Peruvian highlands and adjacent areas of Bolivia. Some scholars classify the Aymaran group and the Quechuan group together in the Quechumaran stock. See Quechuan languages.

Thursday, March 11, 2004

Dacko, David

Central African Republic politician (b. March 24, 1930, Bouchia, Moyen Congo, French Equatorial Africa - d. Nov. 20, 2003, Yaound�, Cameroon), was twice president (1960 - 65 and 1979 - 81) of the Central African Republic and twice was removed from office by a military coup. After then president Barth�lemy Boganda died in a plane crash in March 1959, Dacko established himself in the top post, and from 1960 he headed an autocratic

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Field, Eugene

Field attended several colleges but took no degree; at the University of Missouri he was known less as a student than as a prankster. After his marriage in 1873, Field did editorial work for a variety of newspapers, including the Denver Tribune. From his Tribune column,

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

Field, Eugene

Field attended several colleges but took no degree; at the University of Missouri he was known less as a student than as a prankster. After his marriage in 1873, Field did editorial work for a variety of newspapers, including the Denver Tribune. From his Tribune column,

Monday, March 08, 2004

Smith, A(rthur) J(ames) M(arshall)

As an undergraduate at McGill University in Montreal, Smith founded and edited the McGill Fortnightly Review (1925 - 27), the first literary magazine dedicated to freeing Canadian literature from its narrow provincialism. He encouraged other

Sunday, March 07, 2004

Dahriyah

The Dahriyah are portrayed in Islamic theological literature

Saturday, March 06, 2004

Wright Military Flyer Of 1909

The

Friday, March 05, 2004

Roman Catholicism, History Of, The reign of Leo XIII (1878 - 1903)

Although Leo XIII was no less conservative in his theological inclinations than his predecessor, his positive appreciation of the church's opportunities in modern society gave his pontificate a significantly different cast from that of Pius. On issues of church doctrine and discipline his administration was a strict one. It was during his reign that the Modernist

Thursday, March 04, 2004

Dacier, Andr�

Dacier studied at Saumur with the Humanist Tanneguy Lef�bvre, whose daughter Anne he married in 1683. He was made keeper of the library of the Louvre and, elected to the French Academy in 1695, became

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Bales, Peter

A highly skilled copyist, Bales gained fame for his microscopic writing, producing a Bible about the size of a walnut. He inscribed a number of texts within a circumference about that of a penny, mounted this example of dexterous penmanship

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Montgomery

Capital of the state of Alabama, U.S., and seat (1822) of Montgomery county, located in the central part of the state. The city lies near the point where the Alabama River is formed by the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers. It was originally the site of Native American villages and was visited by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in 1540. About 1717 the French built Fort Toulouse

Monday, March 01, 2004

Interior Design, Renaissance to the end of the 18th century

The Renaissance was a revival of the old classical styles, and it is not surprising that it first showed itself to a marked degree in Italy. The Gothic style had made comparatively little headway in Italy, where it was regarded as barbarous except in some of the more northerly towns, such as Milan and Venice. The style had more or less coincided with a period of primitive