Smith, Amanda

Born a slave, Berry grew up in York county, Pa., after her father bought his own freedom and that of most of the family. She was educated mainly at home and at an early age began working as a domestic. An unhappy first marriage ended with the disappearance

Selye, Hans

Selye was educated at the German University of Prague (M.D., 1929; Ph.D., 1931) and at the universities of Paris and Rome. In 1931 he came to the United States to work as a research fellow at Johns Hopkins University. In 1932 he continued his fellowship at McGill University

Fruit

In its strict botanical sense, the fleshy or dry ripened ovary of a plant, enclosing the seed or seeds. Thus, apricots, bananas, and grapes, as well as bean pods, corn grains, tomatoes, cucumbers, and (in their shells) acorns and almonds, are all technically fruits. Popularly, however, the term is restricted to the ripened ovaries that are sweet and either succulent or pulpy. The

Môle Saint-nicolas

Village, just northeast of Cap Saint-Nicolas, on the northwestern coast of Haiti. Situated on an inlet of the Windward Passage (a strait between Haiti and Cuba), it was the site where Christopher Columbus first landed (Dec. 6, 1492) on the island, which he named La Isla Española (taken into English as Hispaniola). Saint-Nicolas was named for the saint on whose day it was discovered.

La Junta

City, seat (1889) of Otero county, southeastern Colorado, U.S. It lies along the Arkansas River at the northern edge of the Comanche National Grassland, at an elevation of 4,052 feet (1,235 metres). Founded in 1875, it was first called Otero, after a Spanish settler; its present name is Spanish for “the junction,” referring to its location at the convergence of the old Santa Fe and Navajo trails. La Junta

Perga

In Perga the apostles Paul and Barnabas began their first mission in Anatolia (Acts of the Apostles 13:13). A difficult mountain route into Phrygia began at Perga, and Alexander the Great used it

Liechtenstein

In late October the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, ruled that Prince Hans Adam

Checkers

Also called  Draughts,   board game, one of the world's oldest games. Checkers is played by two persons who oppose each other across a board of 64 light and dark squares, the same as a chessboard. The 24 playing pieces are disk-shaped and of contrasting colours (whatever their colours, they are identified as black and white). At the start of the game, each contestant has 12 pieces arranged on the board. While

Qualitative Chemical Analysis

Branch of chemistry that deals with the identification of elements or grouping of elements present in a sample. The techniques employed in qualitative analysis vary in complexity, depending on the nature of the sample. In some cases it is necessary only to verify the presence of certain elements or groups for which specific tests applicable directly to the sample

Iridescence

Interference of light either at the surface or in the interior of a material that produces a series of colours as the angle of incidence changes. Best known are the colours seen in precious opal resulting from the interference of light by submicroscopic layers of nearly spherical particles 1,500–3,000 angstroms in diameter that are arranged in a regular pattern. Common opal

Hasan Al-basri, Al-

Hasan was born nine years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. One year after the Battle of Siffin (657), he moved to Basra, a military camp town situated 50 miles (80 km) northwest of the Persian Gulf. From this base, military expeditions to

Alaska, Transportation

High costs of transportation continue to sap Alaska's economic development, largely because the major transportation links, both internal and external, are by air, which provides the fastest way to cross Alaska's great distances and formidable terrain. Two dozen airlines serve Alaska, with daily service for passengers and cargo from the South 48 and Canada, Europe,

Lahbabi, Mohammed Aziz

Lahbabi taught philosophy at the University of Rabat, where he was dean of the faculty of letters as well as professor, and at the University of Algiers. He also founded the Union of Arab Writers

Jewish Religious Year, Importance

The central significance of the Sabbath for Judaism is reflected in the traditional commentative and interpretative literature called Talmud and Midrash (e.g., “if you wish to destroy the Jewish people, abolish their Sabbath first”) and in numerous legends and adages from more recent literature (e.g., “more than Israel kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath kept Israel”). Some of

Football

For an explanation of contemporary football sports, see football (soccer); football,

North Germanic Languages, Vocabulary

The everyday stock of Scandinavian words, including most of the high-frequency words, is Indo-European and Germanic in its core. Of the 200,000 or more entries in the large dictionaries of each language, the vast majority are either compounds and derivatives of the simpler words or else borrowings from other languages—mostly of a scientific and cultural nature. At the end

Kwakiutl

Indians of the northwest Pacific coast of North America. The Kwakiutl live in British Columbia, Canada, along the shores of the waterways between Vancouver Island and the mainland opposite. They speak one of three major dialects: Haisla, spoken on the Gardner Canal and Douglas Channel; Heiltsuq, spoken from Gardner Canal to Rivers Inlet; and southern Kwakiutl, spoken

Kadoma

Formerly  Gatooma,   town, central Zimbabwe. Named for nearby Kadoma (Gatooma) Hill, it was constituted a village in 1907 and received municipal status in 1917. Located in a fertile area and on the main road and railway between Harare (formerly Salisbury) and Bulawayo, the town is a commercial centre for agricultural products (cattle, cotton, corn [maize], and tobacco) and manufactures cotton textiles.

Flora

In Roman religion, the goddess of the flowering of plants. Titus Tatius (according to tradition, the Sabine king who ruled with Romulus) is said to have introduced her cult to Rome; her temple stood near the Circus Maximus. Her festival, called the Floralia, was instituted in 238 BC. A representation of Flora's head, distinguished only by a floral crown, appeared on coins of the

Locke, John, Empiricism

As for “the original,” the answer was plain. Knowledge of the world began in sense perception, and self-knowledge in introspection, or “reflection” in Locke's language. It did not begin in innate knowledge of maxims or general principles, and it did not proceed by syllogistic reasoning from such principles. In the 17th century there had been much vague talk about innate knowledge,

Strabismus

Also called  squint , or  heterotropia  failure of the eyes to align properly on the object toward which a person seeks to direct his gaze. The deviant eye may be directed inward, toward the other eye (cross-eye, or esotropia); outward, away from the other eye (walleye, or exotropia); upward (hypertropia); or downward (hypotropia). The squint is called comitant if the deviation remains constant no matter in what direction

Alaca Hüyük

Ancient Anatolian site northeast of the old Hittite capital of Hattusa at Bogazköy, north-central Turkey. Its excavation was begun by Makridi Bey in 1907 and resumed in 1935 by the Turkish Historical Society. Inside a sphinx gate, traces of a large Hittite building were discovered. Below the Hittite remains was a royal necropolis of 13 tombs dating from about 2500 BC. Although material

Aidan, Saint

Aidan was a monk at Iona, an island of the Inner Hebrides in Scotland, when King Oswald of Northumbria requested that he be made bishop of the newly converted Northumbrians. Consecrated in

Earth Sciences, Surface water discharge

A complicated empirical formula for the discharge of streams resulted from the studies of Andrew Atkinson Humphreys and Henry Larcom Abbot in the course of the Mississippi Delta Survey of 1851–60. Their formula contained no term for roughness of channel and on this and other grounds was later found to be inapplicable to the rapidly flowing streams of mountainous regions.

China, Incipient Neolithic

Study of the historical reduction of the size of human teeth suggests that the first human beings to eat cooked food did so in South China. The southern sites of Hsien-jen-tung in Kiangsi and Tseng-p'i-yen in Kwangsi have yielded artifacts from the 10th to the 7th millennium BC that include low-fired, cord-marked sherds with some incised decoration and mostly chipped stone

Penal Laws

Laws passed against Roman Catholics in Britain and Ireland after the Reformation that penalized the practice of the Roman Catholic religion and imposed civil disabilities on Catholics. Various acts passed in the 16th and 17th centuries prescribed fines and imprisonment for participation in Catholic worship and severe penalties, including death, for Catholic

Gray, Walter De

He became chancellor of England in 1205 and, after John had made his peace with the church, was elected bishop of Worcester (1214). In 1215 John advanced him as a candidate for the see of York against the wishes of the cathedral chapter, and Pope Innocent

Middle East

The lands around the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran and sometimes beyond. The central part of this general area was formerly called the Near East, a name given to it by some of the first modern Western geographers and historians, who tended to divide the Orient into three regions. Near

F-104

Also called  Starfighter,   jet day fighter aircraft built by Lockheed Aircraft Corporation for the U.S. Air Force but adopted by a total of 15 NATO and other countries. It was widely adapted for use as a fighter-bomber. The F-104 had a wingspan of 21 feet 11 inches (6.68 m) and a length of 54 feet 9 inches (16.7 m). It was a single-seat, single-engine midwing monoplane, powered with a General Electric J79 series turbojet engine with

Struve, Pyotr Berngardovich

While studying economic theory and history at the University of St. Petersburg, Struve became a Marxist. The Marxist analysis of Russian capitalism that he presented in 1894 in his Kriticheskiye zametki k voprocy ob ekonomicheskom razviti rossi (“Critical Remarks on

Stainless Steel

Any one of a family of alloy steels usually containing 10 to 30 percent chromium. In conjunction with low carbon contents, chromium imparts remarkable resistance to corrosion and heat. Other elements such as nickel, molybdenum, titanium, aluminum, niobium, copper, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, and selenium may be added to increase corrosion resistance to specific environments,