Ventnor
Town (�parish�), Isle of Wight, historic county of Hampshire, England. The town lies along the southeastern coast of the Isle of Wight. From a small fishing hamlet it grew in the 19th century into a fashionable resort, noted for its mild climate and long hours of sunshine. The novelist Charles Dickens lived for a time nearby, and the poet Algernon Swinburne is buried in
Adams, Douglas
Adams received an M.A. (1974) in English literature
Usa
City, Oita ken (prefecture), northern Kyushu, Japan; it lies 24 miles (39 km) northwest of the prefectural capital Oita. The city developed around the site of the first and most famous of shrines dedicated to the Shinto god Hachiman, Usa Hachiman Shrine, which dates to about 717 - 724. An annual festival is held on March 18, and the Shinkosai festival, with a procession of portable shrines (mikoshi
Aichinger, Ilse
Aichinger's education was interrupted by World War II when, because she was half Jewish, she was refused entrance to medical school. Although she eventually did begin
Argentina, The conservative restoration and the Concordancia, 1930 - 43
During the next 13 years, which have often been termed �the Infamous Decade,� the armed forces sponsored a conservative restoration. After expelling Irigoyen, they installed General Jos� F�lix Uriburu in the presidency (1930 - 32). Uriburu was a descendent of an old, conservative northern family, and he leaned toward fascism. His influence with the army, however, was not as great
Altman, Robert
Unconventional and independent American motion-picture director whose works emphasize character and atmosphere over plot in exploring themes of innocence, corruption, and survival. Perhaps his best-known film was his first and biggest commercial success, the antiwar comedy M*A*S*H (1970), set in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during
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.
Bonnet Monkey
(species Macaca radiata), Indian macaque named for the thatch of long hair forming a cap, or �bonnet,� on the crown. The bonnet monkey is grayish brown with a hairless pink face. It is about 35 - 60 cm (14 - 24 inches) long, excluding its 50 - 70-centimetre tail, and weighs about 3 - 9 kg (7 - 20 pounds). It is an agile monkey and sometimes raids gardens or stores of food.
Babism
Religion that developed in Iran around Mirza 'Ali Mohammad's claim to be a bab (Arabic: �gateway�), or divine intermediary, in 1844. See Bab, the.
Syriam
Town and port, southwestern Myanmar (Burma). It is situated on the Yang�n River, a tributary of the Irrawaddy River, opposite Yang�n (Rangoon), the national capital. Formerly part of the Mon kingdom, Syriam subsequently became a port of the Portuguese and French. In 1756 Alaungpaya (1714 - 60), the Myanmar king, conquered the Mon and their French allies, whom he put into slavery; the town was
Moravia, Alberto
Moravia contracted tuberculosis of the bone (a form of osteomyelitis usually caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis) at the age of 8, but, during several
India, The Afghan factor in North India, 1747 - 72
Unlike Nadir Shah, Ahmad Shah Abdali (or Ahmad Shah Durrani) - as Ahmad Khan came to be known after 1747 - had little interest in the area west of Afghanistan. Rather, his principal endeavour was to create a state that would lie astride the major overland trade routes that passed from northern India to Central and western Asia. Qandahar naturally had an important place in this scheme, but a great
Carloman
The younger brother of Charlemagne, with whom, at the instance of their father, Pippin III the Short, he was anointed king of the Franks in 754 by Pope Stephen II (or III) in the abbey of Saint-Denis. Carloman inherited the eastern part of Pippin's lands (768). He favoured alliance with the Lombards and married Gerberga, a daughter of their king, Desiderius. When
Natchez
City, seat (1817) of Adams county, southwestern Mississippi, U.S., on the Mississippi River (there bridged to Vidalia, Louisiana), about 70 miles (110 km) southwest of Vicksburg. Established in 1716 as Fort Rosalie by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, it survived a massacre (1729) by Natchez Indians for whom it was later named. It passed from France to England (1763) at the conclusion of the French and
Mitra, Ramon
Philippine politician (b. 1928, Palawan, Phil. - d. March 20, 2000, Manila, Phil.), was a prominent politician, a pro-democracy activist, and an outspoken critic of the 1966 - 86 regime of Philippine Pres. Ferdinand Marcos. After working as a journalist and diplomat, Mitra served in the House of Representatives in the 1960s and was elected to the Senate in 1971. After Marcos imposed martial law in the Philippines
Balakovo
City, Saratov oblast (province), southwestern Russia, on the left bank of the Volga River. Founded in 1762, it long remained a small agricultural town. Its growth was greatly stimulated by the construction in 1967 - 70 of the Saratov hydroelectric station on the Volga. Balakovo is also the site of construction of a nuclear power station. A major chemical industry, developed in the 1960s
Round Table
In Arthurian legend, the table of Arthur, Britain's legendary king, which was first mentioned in Wace of Jersey's Roman de Brut (1155). This told of King Arthur's having a round table made so that none of his barons, when seated at it, could claim precedence over the others. The literary importance of the Round Table, especially in romances of the 13th century and afterward, lies in
Dragonfish
Also called �sea moth� any of about five species of small marine fishes comprising the family Pegasidae and the order Pegasiformes. Dragonfish are found in warm Indo-Pacific waters. They are small (to about 16 centimetres [6 1/2 inches] long), elongated fish encased in bony rings of armour. The armour is fused on the head and body but not on the tail, which is thus flexible. The pectoral
Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra
Bankim Chandra was a member of an orthodox Brahman family and was educated at Hooghly College, at Presidency College, Calcutta, and at the University
Ob River
Politically, most of the Ob basin is within Russia, but its southern portion forms the northernmost part of Kazakhstan. Russians and other Slavs constitute the majority of the population, but there also are numerous non-Slavic peoples. These include the Kazakhs in the south, the Altay and Shor peoples of the mountains, the Tatars of the Irtysh basin, the Khanty (Ostyak)
Development Bank
The number of development banks has increased rapidly since the 1950s; they have been encouraged by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and its affiliates.
Chelm
City, capital of Chelm wojew�dztwo (province), eastern Poland. The city is located on the Uherka River, a tributary of the Bug River, 15 miles (24 km) west of the Ukrainian border. It received town rights in 1233, passed to Poland in 1377, and fell to Austria (1795) and then to Russia (1815). During World War II, 90,000 people died in two German prisoner-of-war camps in the town. The Polish republic was proclaimed in
Jupiter, Other satellites
The only other Jovian satellite that was close enough to the trajectories of the Voyager spacecraft in 1979 to allow surface features to be seen was Amalthea. So small that its gravitational field is not strong enough to deform it into a sphere, it has an irregular, oblong shape (see Table). Like Io, its surface exhibits a reddish colour that may result from a coating of sulfur
Jupiter, Other satellites
Cable News Network was created in June 1980 by Ted Turner (q.v.), founder of the Turner Broadcasting System. He established news bureaus in major American cities and in other cities throughout the world. The resulting continuous live news coverage,
Debr�, Olivier
French abstract painter best known for his large-format commissions, including huge ornamental paintings for the French pavilions at the World's Fairs in Montreal (1967) and Osaka, Japan (1970), and the stage curtains for the Hong Kong Opera, the Shanghai Opera, and both the Com�die Fran�aise and the Th��tre des Abbesses in Paris (b. April 14/15, 1920, Paris, France - d. June 1, 1999, Paris).
Consanguinity
Kin are of two basic kinds: consanguineous (sharing common ancestors) and affinal (the kinsmen of one's spouse). In some societies other
Bishop, Sir Henry Rowley
Bishop conducted at Covent Garden Theatre (1810), King's Theatre, Haymarket (1816 - 17), Drury Lane (from 1825), and Vauxhall Gardens (1830). He became professor of music successively at the Universities of Edinburgh (1841) and Oxford (1848) and was knighted in 1842. Bishop composed light
Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Global
Anthropology And Archaeology, Eastern Hemisphere.
The year 2002 yielded a number of stunning archaeological discoveries. A 50-cm (20-in)-long limestone ossuary, or box for storage of bones, bearing a text in Aramaic, was hailed as the first archaeological evidence for the historical Jesus. The ossuary, found near Jerusalem, was carved with a single line of text reading, �Ya'akov bar Yosef akhui diYeshua,� or �James, son of Joseph, brother
