Vanbrugh, Sir John

Vanbrugh's grandfather was a Flemish merchant, and his father was a sugar baker in Chester, Cheshire, England, where the young Vanbrugh (by tradition)

Animal Learning

That animals can learn seems to go without saying. The cat that runs to its food dish when it hears the sound of the cupboard opening; the rat that solves a maze in the laboratory; the bird that acquires the song of its species—these

Accompaniment

In music, auxiliary part or parts of a composition designed to support the principal part or to throw it into relief. In secular medieval music and in much folk and non-European music, instrumental accompaniments for singers consist of unison or octave duplications of the melody (sometimes with slight differences, creating heterophony, the simultaneous performance

Ramillies, Battle Of

The battle was fought at the village of Ramillies, 13 miles north of Namur (in modern Belgium), between a 62,000-man Allied army under Marlborough and a 60,000-man

France, History Of, The grandsons of Clovis

At the death of Chlotar I (561) the Frankish kingdom, which had become the most powerful state in the west, was once again divided, this time between his four sons. The partition agreement, based on that of 511, dealt with more extensive territories. Guntram received the eastern part of the former kingdom of Orléans, enlarged by the addition of Burgundy. Charibert I's share was fashioned

Straparola, Gianfrancesco

Straparola's Piacevoli notti (1550–53; The Nights of Straparola) contains 75 novellas (short prose tales) that were later used as source material by William Shakespeare, Molière, and others; it introduced into European literature 20 folktales, among

Uraninite

The element uranium was discovered by