Monday, August 30, 2004

Arraiolos Rug

Embroidered floor covering made at Arraiolos, north of Évora in Portugal. The technique is herringbone or cross-stitch on a linen cloth foundation. Early Arraiolos rugs utilized designs derived from the Persians, from whom the Portuguese learned the craft. Portuguese artisans soon replaced these Persian designs with Portuguese folk-art patterns in more limited

Sunday, August 29, 2004

Dehydration

In food processing, means by which many types of food can be preserved for indefinite periods by extracting the moisture, thereby inhibiting the growth of microorganisms. Dehydration is one of the oldest methods of food preservation and was used by prehistoric peoples in sun-drying seeds. The North American Indians preserved meat by sun-drying slices, the Chinese

Saturday, August 28, 2004

Mountbatten (of Burma), Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl, Viscount Mountbatten Of Burma, Baron Romsey Of Romsey

He was the

Tachikawa

City, Tokyo to (metropolis), Honshu, Japan. It lies along the Chuo Line (railway), east of Tokyo city. In 1922 an army airfield was constructed nearby, and large munitions and aircraft factories were concentrated in the city. After World War II the military installations were taken over by the U.S. Air Force; the air base was returned to Japan in 1977. Tachikawa is now a commercial centre

Friday, August 27, 2004

Axiology

(from Greek axios, “worthy”; logos, “science”), also called Theory Of Value, the philosophical study of goodness, or value, in the widest sense of these terms. Its significance lies (1) in the considerable expansion that it has given to the meaning of the term value and (2) in the unification that it has provided for the study of a variety of questions—economic, moral, aesthetic, and even

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Valley

Elongate depression of the Earth's surface. Valleys are most commonly drained by rivers and may occur in a relatively flat plain or between ranges of hills or mountains. Those valleys produced by tectonic action are called rift valleys. Very narrow, deep valleys of similar appearance are called gorges. Both of these latter types are commonly cut in flat-lying strata

Wilde, Cornel

Wilde, a member of the 1936 Olympic fencing team, studied to become a physician at Columbia University in New York City, before finding

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Qaddafi, Muammar Al-

The son of an itinerant Bedouin farmer, Qaddafi was born in a tent in the Libyan desert. He proved a talented student and graduated from the University of Libya in 1963. A devout Muslim and ardent Arab nationalist, Qaddafi early began

Monday, August 23, 2004

Bussy-rabutin, Roger De

During the civil wars of the Fronde (uprisings against the government of Cardinal Mazarin), Bussy-Rabutin served first the rebels, then

Saturday, August 21, 2004

Indian Philosophy, Relation to the “Mimamsa-sutras”

Along with Badari and Jaimini, Badarayana, a contemporary of Jaimini, was the other major interpreter of Vedic thought. Just as the Mimamsa-sutra traditions of Badari's tradition were revived by Prabhakara, a 7th–8th-century scholar, and Jaimini's defended by Sabara and Kumarila, a 7th–8th-century scholar, Baharayana's sutras laid the basis for the development of Vedanta philosophy. The relation

Friday, August 20, 2004

Suchet, Louis-gabriel, Duke (duc) D'albufera Da Valencia

The son of a Lyon silk manufacturer, Suchet originally had intended to follow his father's business; but, having in 1792 served as a volunteer in the cavalry of the national guard, he manifested military

Wandering Jew

In horticulture, any of several popular houseplants in the family Commelinaceae. See spiderwort; Zebrina.

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Chagall, Marc

Belorussian-born French painter, printmaker, and designer. He composed his images based on emotional and poetic associations, rather than on rules of pictorial logic. Predating Surrealism, his early works, such as I and the Village (1911), were among the first expressions of

Scilly, Isles Of

Also called  Scilly Isles  group of about 50 small islands and many more islets lying southwest of Cornwall, England, 25–36 miles (40–58 km) off Land's End. Administratively, the islands are a distinct unit within England, though they form a part of the historic county of Cornwall. Because their council serves the functions of both a district and a county, they have a status similar to that of a unitary

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Bukhari, Al-

In full  Abu 'abd Allah Muhammad Ibn Isma'il Al-bukhari  one of the greatest Muslim compilers and scholars of Hadith (the recorded corpus of the sayings and acts of the Prophet Muhammad). His chief work is accepted by Sunnite Muslims—i.e., those following the majority tradition—as second only to the Qur'an as both a source of religious law and a sacred

Monday, August 16, 2004

Uttaradit

Town, northern Thailand. It is a provincial capital and a farming market centre on the Nan River and the Bangkok–Chiang Mai railway. The town centre was rebuilt after being destroyed by a fire in 1967. The Pha Then Buddhist shrine is southwest of the town. Uttaradit is in one of Thailand's foremost fruit-growing regions, producing rambutans, mangosteens, durians, coconuts,

Sunday, August 15, 2004

Paekche

One of three kingdoms into which ancient Korea was divided before 660. Occupying the southwestern tip of the Korean peninsula, Paekche is traditionally said to have been founded in 18 BC in the Kwangju area by a legendary leader named Onjo. By the 3rd century AD, during the reign of King Koi (234–286), Paekche emerged as a fully developed kingdom. By the reign of King Kunch'ogo (346–375), it had established

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Irigoyen, Hipólito

Irigoyen became a lawyer, teacher, rancher, and politician and in 1896 took control of the Radical Party. His relentless effort to obtain free elections succeeded

Latin-american Literature, Vanguard literature

When the Modernist leaders Darío and Lugones turned to frequent use of more traditional forms and especially to themes dealing with the troubled external world, their followers and many younger poets continued to explore the complex versification and language and new thematic sources with which Modernism had enriched Hispanic poetry. Prominent among them

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Visayan

Also spelled  Bisayan,   any of three cultural-linguistic groups of the Philippines—Cebuano, Hiligaynon, and Samaran (qq.v.).

Welding

Technique used for joining metallic parts usually through the application of heat. This technique was discovered during efforts to manipulate iron into useful shapes. Welded blades were developed in the first millennium AD, the most famous being those produced by Arab armourers at Damascus, Syria. The process of carburization of iron to produce hard steel was known

Monday, August 09, 2004

Dog, Jackals

There has been some disagreement over the years about whether the jackal is a true canid, but the four known varieties are now thought to be part of the same genus. Jackals are native from southeastern Europe into southern Asia, India, and Africa. The best-known variety is the golden jackal, which is a shimmery rust-gold in colour. Jackals are fleet-footed

Sunday, August 08, 2004

Anthelmintic

Most of the anthelmintics

Friday, August 06, 2004

Yap Ah Loy

Yap Ah Loy arrived in the Malay state of Selangor in 1856 at the age of 19. He spent his first years in the peninsula as a miner and petty trader, but in 1862 his fortunes

Social Protection, "Truth Commissions."

Increasing use was made of "truth commissions" as a method for identifying and documenting human rights violations and helping to bring perpetrators of abuses to justice. Although these fact-finding bodies had no authority to prosecute crimes, they were designed to obtain and publicize information about past atrocities as a first step toward acknowledging

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Vajiravudh

Vajiravudh was educated at Oxford University, where he read history and law; he also received military training at Sandhurst and served briefly with the British Army. Having been named heir apparent in 1895, he returned to Siam in 1903 and succeeded

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Anatidae

Anserinae—tribes Dendrocygnini (see whistling duck, or tree duck) and

Sunday, August 01, 2004

'arif, 'abd Al-salam

'Arif, the son of a cloth merchant, graduated from military college in 1939 and during his military career trained with British troops in Germany. His rise to power began in 1958 when he, along with General 'Abd al-Karim Qasim, played a prominent role in the overthrow of the Hashimite

Cape Verde

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund structural-adjustment programs had profound implications for national politics in Cape Verde in 2000. Designed to help attract foreign investment, the government's privatization program—especially the privatization of the state petroleum company Enacol—was strongly criticized by the main opposition party, the