Frauenfeld

Capital (since 1803) of Thurgau kanton (“canton”), northern Switzerland, on the Murg River, close to its junction with the Thur River, northeast of Zürich. First mentioned in 1246, it was founded by the count of Kyburg and the abbot of Reichenau on land belonging to the abbot. Frauenfeld (“Field of Our Lady”) passed to the Habsburgs in 1264 and was seized by the Swiss Confederates (Eidgenossen)

Earring

A personal ornament worn pendent from the ear, usually suspended by means of a ring or hook passing through a pierced hole in the lobe of the ear or, in modern times, often by means of a screwed clip on the lobe. The impulse to decorate or to modify the appearance of the ear seems to be almost universal. In general, usage appears to call for wearing earrings in pairs, the two

Cinchona

Four species of Cinchona were cultivated for many years, primarily in Java and also in India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Their bark was processed to obtain quinine, which is

Fibiger, Johannes

A student of the bacteriologists Robert Koch and Emil von Behring in Berlin, Fibiger became professor of pathological

Sabkhah

Also spelled  Sebkha  (Arabic), saline flat or salt-crusted depression, commonly found along the coasts of North Africa and Saudi Arabia. Sabkhahs are generally bordered by sand dunes and have soft, poorly cemented but impermeable floors, due to periodic flooding and evaporation. Concentration of seawater and capillary discharge of groundwater result in deposits of gypsum, calcite,

China, Ming dynasty

The last Ming years and the struggles of post-Mingloyalists are dealt with in James B. Parsons, The Peasant Rebellions of the Late Ming Dynasty (1970); Lynn A. Struve, The Southern Ming, 1644–1662 (1984); and Jonathan D. Spence and John E. Wills, Jr. (eds.), From Ming to Ch'ing: Conquest, Region, and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century China (1979). Studies in Ming intellectual and religious history are found in Wm. Theodore De Bary et al., Self and Society in Ming Thought (1970), and The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism (1975).

Latin American Integration Association

Spanish  Asociación Latinoamericana de Integración (ALADI)  organization that was established by the Treaty of Montevideo (August 1980) and became operational in March 1981. It seeks economic cooperation among its members. Original members were Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Cuba joined in 1999. Several countries and organizations maintain observer status. Headquarters

Midas

King of Phrygia (an ancient district in west-central Anatolia), first mentioned in extant Greek literature by Herodotus as having dedicated a throne at Delphi, before Gyges—i.e., before or little after 700 BC. Later reports that he married a daughter of Agamemnon, king of Aeolic Cyme, and that Midas, or Midacritus (a Greek sailor named for his royal patron?), traded with a western

Pleurococcus

Pleurococcus is found as a thin, green covering on the moist, shaded side of trees, rocks, and soil. Because it grows on the north (or shaded) side of trees, stone walls, and fences, Pleurococcus is an

Nahuel Huapí, Lake

Largest lake (210 sq mi [544 sq km]) and most popular resort area in Argentina's lake district, lying in the wooded eastern foothills of the Andes at an altitude of 2,516 ft (767 m). Nahuel Huapí (Araucanian Indian for “island of the jaguars”) was discovered in 1670 by the Jesuit priest Nicolás Mascardi, who built a chapel on the lake's Huemul Peninsula and established an Indian reducción (work mission).

Taoka Kazuo

Taoka was born to a poor farm family in a village on the island of Shikoku;

Buzkashi

Buzkashi has two main forms: the traditional, grassroots game, known as tudabaray (Persian [Dari]: “coming out of the crowd”), and the modern government-sponsored version, qarajay (“black place”). Both feature mounted

Roiphe, Anne

Anne Roth graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1957 and married Jack Richardson in 1958. The marriage ended in divorce in 1963, and in 1967 she married Herman Roiphe. That year she also published

Mathews, Shailer

Educated at Colby College, Waterville, Maine; Newton Theological Institution, Newton, Mass.; and the University of Berlin, Mathews taught at Colby

Chisholm, Shirley

Shirley St. Hill was the daughter of immigrants; her father was from British Guiana (now Guyana) and her mother from Barbados. She grew up in Barbados and in her native Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Brooklyn College