Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Perry, Lilla Cabot

Lilla Cabot was a descendant not only of the Boston Brahmin Cabot family but also of the equally distinguished Lowells. In 1874 she married Thomas Sergeant

Monday, August 30, 2004

Rousseau, Henri

Byname �Le Douanier (French: The Customs Officer) � French painter, archetype of the modern naive artist. He expressed himself mainly in richly coloured and meticulously detailed pictures of lush jungles, wild beasts, and exotic figures (e.g., �The Sleeping Gypsy,� 1897, and �The Snake-Charmer,� 1907 [see photograph]). After exhibiting with the Fauves in 1905, he became an object of admiration to avant-garde

Sunday, August 29, 2004

Carlisle

Borough (town), seat (1751) of Cumberland county, southern Pennsylvania, U.S., in the Cumberland Valley, 18 miles (29 km) southwest of Harrisburg. James Le Tort, a French-Swiss Indian trader, settled with an Indian tribe near the site about 1720. The town, laid out in 1751, was named for Carlisle, Cumberland, England. It was the setting for continuous conflict with the Iroquois Confederacy until Benjamin

Saturday, August 28, 2004

Chelyabinsk

The oblast, in the Urals

Friday, August 27, 2004

Van Zandt, Marie

Van Zandt was apparently taken to Europe as a small child by her mother, who pursued a successful career as a concert and operatic singer under the name Madame Vanzini. Marie soon displayed vocal abilities as

Thursday, August 26, 2004

Bottome, Margaret Mcdonald

N�e �Margaret McDonald� American columnist and religious organizer, founder of the Christian spiritual development and service organization now known as the International Order of the King's Daughters and Sons. She attended school in Brooklyn and in 1850 married the Reverend Frank Bottome. Her long-standing practice of giving informal talks on the Bible

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Mormon

Mormon doctrine diverges from the orthodoxy of established Christianity, particularly in its polytheism, in affirming that God has evolved from man and that men might evolve into gods, that the Persons of the Trinity are distinct beings, and that human souls have preexisted. Mormons accept that Christ came to earth so that all might be saved and raised from the dead

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

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

Monday, August 23, 2004

Herat School

15th-century style of miniature painting that flourished in Herat, western Afghanistan, under the patronage of the Timurids. Shah Rokh, the son of the Islamic conqueror Timur (Tamerlane), founded the school, but it was his son Baysunqur Mirza (died 1433) who developed it into an important centre of painting, bringing to his court artists from all over Persia and Afghanistan.

Saturday, August 21, 2004

Jansky, Karl (guthe)

In 1928 Jansky joined the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, where his assignment was to track

Friday, August 20, 2004

Jansky, Karl (guthe)

In 1928 Jansky joined the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, where his assignment was to track

Thursday, August 19, 2004

Moray, Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl Of

Randolph was the son of one of Robert's sisters. When Robert revolted against the English and claimed the

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Ku Klux Klan

The 19th-century Klan was originally organized as a social club by Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tenn., in 1866. They apparently derived the name from the Greek word kyklos,

Monday, August 16, 2004

Tibet, Education

There were a few secular schools in Tibet before the Chinese established control. The monasteries were the main seats of learning, and some of the larger ones were similar in operation to theological universities. Secular facilities were established in the 1950s, including government-run primary schools, community primary schools, and secondary technical and tertiary

Sunday, August 15, 2004

Zoffany, John

Zoffany, after studying in Germany and Italy,

Saturday, August 14, 2004

Pangolin

Also called �Scaly Anteater, � any of the armoured placental mammals of the order Pholidota. Pangolin, from the Malayan meaning �rolling over,� refers to this animal's habit of curling into a ball when threatened. About eight species of pangolins, usually considered to be of the genus Manis, family Manidae, are found in tropical Asia and Africa. Pangolins are 30 to 90 cm (1 to 3 feet) long exclusive of the tail and

Friday, August 13, 2004

Holly

Any of the shrubs and trees of the genus Ilex, in the family Aquifoliaceae, comprising about 400 species of red- or black-berried plants, including the popular Christmas hollies. They have alternate, simple leaves and single or clustered, small, usually greenish flowers (male and female being usually on separate plants). English holly (I. aquifolium), a tree growing

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Biblical Literature, The Catholic Letters

As the history of the New Testament canon shows, the seven so-called Catholic Letters (i.e., James, I and II Peter, I, II, and III John, and Jude) were among the last of the literature to be settled on before the agreement of East and West in 367. During the 2nd and 3rd centuries, only I John and I Peter were universally recognized and, even after acceptance of all seven, their varying positions

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Coronado, Francisco V�zquez De

Coronado went to New Spain (Mexico) with Antonio de Mendoza, the Spanish viceroy, in 1535 and earned early distinction in pacifying Indians.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Paul V

One of his first acts was to excommunicate the recalcitrant

Monday, August 09, 2004

Petaluma

City, Sonoma county, western California, U.S., at the head of navigation on the Petaluma River, 38 miles (61 km) north of San Francisco. Founded in 1852, it derived its name from the Rancho Petaluma (Miwok Indian pe'ta, �flat�; lu'ma, �back�). The poultry and egg industry, dairying, and wine making are foremost commercial activities, supplemented by light manufactures (notably processing machinery

Sunday, August 08, 2004

Dadra And Nagar Haveli

Dadra and Nagar Haveli came under

Saturday, August 07, 2004

Canada, The War of 1812

The War of 1812 was to a large degree caused by the Anglo-U.S. rivalry in the fur trade. British traders and soldiers had supplied Indian tribes and afforded them moral support in their contest with the advancing U.S. frontier. Britain had surrendered the western posts by the Jay Treaty of 1794, but the cause of the Canadian fur trade and of the Indians remained the same - the preservation

Friday, August 06, 2004

Peredvizhniki

(Russian: The Wanderers), group of Russian painters who in the second half of the 19th century rejected the restrictive and foreign-inspired classicism of the Russian Academy to form a new realist and nationalist art that would serve the common man. Believing that art should be useful, a vehicle for expressing humanitarian and social ideals, they produced realistic

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Auliye-ata

Kazak Zhambyl, also spelled �Dzhambul�, or �Dzambul� city, southern Kazakstan. It lies at the junction of the Talas River and the Turk-Sib Railway. Auliye-Ata is one of the oldest towns of Kazakstan. It stands on the site of the ancient city of Taraz, which flourished as a stop along the Silk Road until it was destroyed by Mongol armies in the 13th century. A new town called Auliye-Ata was established on the site by the emirs of Kokand

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Bloemfontein

Founded by Major H. Douglas Warden in 1846 as a fort and residency, it became the seat of the British-administered Orange River Sovereignty (1848 - 54) and of the Orange Free State (an independent Boer republic formed in 1854). The failure of the Bloemfontein Conference

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Ramadi, Ar-

Capital of al-Anbar muhafazah (governorate), central Iraq. It lies on the Euphrates River just northwest of Hawr (Lake) al-Habbaniyah. Ancient settlements existed in the vicinity, but ar-Ramadi was founded only in 1869 to encourage settlement by the nomadic Dulaym tribes, a goal that has been partially fulfilled. The town prospered after becoming the departure point of a trade route

Sunday, August 01, 2004

Kireyevsky, Ivan Vasilyevich

Born into an aristocratic family, Kireyevsky studied metaphysics in Germany in 1830. Upon his return to Russia he founded in 1832 a literary journal called Yevropeyets (�European�), which was banned