Arabia, History Of, Himyarites

Himyar is the Arabic form of the name of a people who appear in the inscriptions as Hmyr and in Greek sources as Homeritai. They occupied the extreme southwest of the peninsula and had their capital at Zafar, a site some nine miles southeast of present-day Yarim, on the motor road from Aden and Ta'izz to San'a'. The first appearance of Himyar in history is in Pliny's Naturalis

Hyperion

One of the smaller satellites of Saturn, discovered in 1848 independently by the astronomers William Bond and George Bond of the United States and William Lassell of England. Hyperion orbits Saturn once every 21.3 days at a distance of 1,482,000 km (918,840 miles), between the orbits of the major satellites Titan and Iapetus. Its orbit is unusual in that it is somewhat eccentric (e = 0.104°) yet uninclined

Daddy Longlegs

Also called  Harvestman,   any of the 3,400 species of the arachnid order Opiliones (sometimes named Phalangida). A daddy longlegs differs from all true spiders (order Araneae) by the extreme length and thinness of its legs and by the small size and spherical or oval shape of its body, which is not divided into two regions by a constriction. The body is 1 to 22 mm (0.04 to 0.9 inch) long; the slender legs, which easily break

Floor Exercise

Gymnastics event in which movements are performed on the floor in an area 12 metres (40 feet) square. This area is covered by some type of cloth or mat, usually with some cushioning. No other apparatus is used. Men's routines are 50 to 70 seconds in duration. The type of exercise required is a series of movements combining elements of flexibility, strength, jumps, holding of poses, and

Computers, Microsoft's Windows Operating System

In 1985 Microsoft came out with its Windows operating system, which gave PC compatibles some of the same capabilities as the Macintosh. Year after year, Microsoft refined and improved Windows so that Apple, which failed to come up with a significant new advantage, lost its edge. IBM tried to establish yet another operating system, OS/2, but lost the battle to Gates's company.

Nägeli, Hans Franz

Nägeli was captain of the Bernese forces in the campaign against the adventurer-robber baron Giangiacomo Medici, lord of Musso (1531) and during the occupation of the frontier of the canton of Valais in the second Kappel War (an intercantonal religious

Carlini, Armando

Educated at

Mclachlan, Alexander

Scottish-born poet, called by some the Burns of Canada for his Scots dialect poetry, much of which deals with the homesickness of Scots immigrants. McLachlan was the foremost among a number of such Scottish bards, whose themes of nostalgia for Scotland appear to be literary conventions rather than original

Cyril Of Jerusalem, Saint

A senior presbyter when he succeeded Maximus as bishop (c. 350), Cyril was exiled about 357 and at two later times from his see by the Arians. Many years later at the Council of Constantinople (381) there was evidence

False Bay

Afrikaans  Valsbaai,   bay on the south side of Cape Peninsula, South Africa, 13 mi (21 km) southeast of Cape Town. Cape Hangklip (east) and Cape Point (west) are about 20 mi apart. Its name refers to the fact that early sailors confused the bay with Table Bay to the north. It is well sheltered, though experiencing southeasterly winds in summer; and its waters are approximately 10° F (5.5° C) warmer than those of Table

Platinum Group, Assaying

Assaying ores and concentrates for platinum-group metals is extremely difficult, since the concentration of any particular metal may be less than one part per million. Initial concentration is achieved by fire assay. The assay bead is dissolved in aqua regia and the metals separated and concentrated, often by solvent extraction. Dissolution of the bead is complicated

Margaret Of Antioch, Saint

Also called  Saint Marina  virgin martyr and one of the 14 Holy Helpers (a group of saints jointly commemorated on August 8), who was one of the most venerated saints during the Middle Ages. Her story, generally regarded to be fictitious, is substantially that of the Eastern St. Marina of Antioch, whose feast day is July 17, and is

Kyaukpyu

Town, western Myanmar (Burma). It lies at the northern end of the offshore island of Ramree in Combermere Bay, an inlet of the Bay of Bengal, about 250 miles (400 km) northwest of Yangôn (Rangoon). Kyaukpyu's excellent natural harbour is formed by deep, narrow saltwater inlets separating the smaller offshore islands, and it is a regular port of call for steamers in the rice trade between

Masham (of Swinton), Samuel Cunliffe Lister, 1st Baron

In 1838 Samuel and his brother John opened a worsted mill in Manningham. He had worked on a machine to comb wool

Pen, International

International organization of writers. The original PEN was founded in London in 1921 by the English novelist John Galsworthy, and it has since grown to include writers worldwide. The name PEN is an acronym standing for “poets, playwrights, editors, essayists, and novelists.” International PEN promotes international intellectual exchanges and goodwill among writers.

Nara Period

(AD 710–784), in Japanese history, period in which the imperial government was at Nara, and Sinicization and Buddhism were most highly developed. Nara, the country's first permanent capital, was modeled on the Chinese T'ang dynasty (618–907) capital, Ch'ang-an. Nara artisans produced refined Buddhist sculpture and erected grand Buddhist temples. A network of roads connected the capital

Yajuj And Majuj

In Islamic eschatology, two hostile forces who will ravage the Earth before the end of the world. The Qur'an relates that a certain people terrorized by Yajuj and Majuj induced Alexander the Great to construct a great wall between them. Yajuj and Majuj, thus trapped between two mountains until the last days of the world, dig under the wall every night trying to escape, only to find

Gobi, Plant life

Vegetation, as mentioned above, is sparse and rare. On the plateau and on the plains beneath the mountains, small bushlike vegetation occurs: echinochloa (a type of succulent grass found in warm regions), yellowwood bean caper, winter fat (a shrub covered with densely matted hairs), Dzungarian reaumur, nitre bush, and bushlike halophytic vegetation. In the salt marshes,

Tibet, Tibet under Manchu overlordship

The Dalai Lama's death in 1682 and the discovery of his five-year-old reincarnation in 1688 were concealed by Sangs-rgyas rgya-mtsho, who was intent on continuing the administration without disturbance. He informed the Manchu only in 1696. Emperor K'ang-hsi (reigned 1661–1722) was incensed at the deception. In 1703 he discovered an ally in Tibet and an antagonist to Sangs-rgyas rgya-mtsho when Lha-bzang

Fable, Parable, And Allegory, Typology and typological symbolism

Erich Auerbach, “Figura,” in Scenes from the Drama of European Literature: Six Essays (1959); A.C. Charity, Events and Their Afterlife: The Dialectics of Christian Typology in the Bible and Dante (1966); Jean Danielou, Sacramentum futuri: études sur les origines de la typologie biblique (1950; Eng. trans., From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers, 1960); Austin Farrer, A Rebirth of Images: The Making of St. John's Apocalypse (1949); R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event (1959); W.G. Madsen, From Shadowy Types to Truth: Studies in Milton's Symbolism (1968).

Eliphaz The Temanite

In three speeches of increasing severity, Eliphaz attempts to reconcile Job to God and induce him to repent. In

Dubna

City, Moscow oblast (province), western Russia. The city lies along the Volga River where it is joined by the Moscow Canal (completed 1937). Dubna is a new city, incorporated in 1956; in 1960 it absorbed the town of Ivankovo on the opposite bank. It is one of several planned “science cities,” its existence depending on the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, which employs scientists from

Object Language

In semantics and logic, the ordinary language used to talk about things or objects in the world—as contrasted with metalanguage, an artificial language used by linguists and others to analyze or describe the sentences or elements of object language itself. The concept was developed by such 20th-century logical positivists as Polish-American Alfred Tarski and German-American

Mammal, Locomotion

Specialization in habitat preference has been accompanied by locomotor adaptations. Terrestrial mammals have a number of modes of progression. The primitive mammalian stock was doubtless ambulatory and plantigrade, walking with the digits, metacarpals, and metatarsals (bones of the midfoot), and parts of the ankle and wrist in contact with the ground. The limbs

Moscow

Since it was first mentioned in chronicles of 1147, Moscow has played a vital role in Russian history; indeed the history of the city and of the Russian nation are closely interlinked. Today Moscow is not

Bernese Alps

Also called  Bernese Oberland,  German  Berner Alpen, or Berner Oberland,  French  Alpes Bernoises,   segment of the Central Alps lying north of the Upper Rhône River and south of the Brienzer and Thunersee (lakes) in Bern and Valais cantons of southwestern Switzerland. The mountains extend east-northeastward from the bend of the Rhône near Martigny-Ville to Grimsel Pass and Haslital (valley of the upper Aare River). Many peaks rise to more than 12,000 ft (3,660 m); Finsteraarhorn

Hayek, Friedrich Von

Hayek studied law, psychology, and economics at the University of Vienna, receiving a doctorate in 1923. He spent the following

Mole

The mole designates an extremely large number of units, 6.0221367 ´ 1023, which is the number of atoms determined experimentally to be found in 12 grams of carbon-12. Carbon-12 was chosen arbitrarily to serve as the reference standard of the

Robert Ii

On the death (1326) of his father, Walter the Steward, in 1326, Robert became seventh hereditary steward of Scotland at age 10. From 1318 he

Amorphous Solid

One of the most important glass formers is silica (SiO2). Pure crystalline silica melts at 1,710° C. In pure form, silica glass exhibits such properties