France, History Of, Mitterrand's second term

Restraint paid dividends when Mitterrand ran for a second term in April - May 1988. In the first round of balloting, Chirac managed to defeat his conservative rivals (Giscard, Barre, and Le Pen), but in the second round Mitterrand scored a clear victory (54 to 46 percent). The resurgent president chose the Socialist Michel Rocard as prime minister and once again dissolved the National

Bar Code

A printed series of parallel bars or lines of varying width that is used for entering data into a computer system. The bars are typically black on a white background, and their width and quantity vary according to application. The bars are used to represent the binary digits 0 and 1, sequences of which in turn can represent numbers from 0 to 9 and be processed by a digital computer.

Dublin

Irish �Baile �tha Cliath� county in the province of Leinster, Ireland, bounded by County Meath (north), by the Irish Sea (east), by County Wicklow (south), and by Counties Kildare and Meath (west). County Dublin is one of the smallest counties in Ireland and, including Dublin city, is one of the most populous. Its central and northern parts are low-lying, whereas low mountains occupy the southern border

Houbraken, Jacobus

The leading portrait engraver in 18th-century Holland. The son of the painter and art writer Arnold Houbraken, he settled in Amsterdam in 1707, and during his lifetime he engraved 400 portraits after paintings by contemporary Dutch painters.

Norfolk

Administrative and historic county of eastern England, bounded by Suffolk (south), Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire (west), and the North Sea (north and east). The administrative county comprises seven districts: Breckland, Broadland, North Norfolk, and South Norfolk; the boroughs of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn and West Norfolk; and the city of Norwich. The historic

Ilesha

Town, Osun state, southwestern Nigeria. It lies in the Yoruba Hills and at the intersection of roads from Ile-Ife, Oshogbo, and Akure. The town is one of the oldest settlements in Yorubaland - according to tradition, it was founded by an owa (�king�) who was one of the 16 sons of the deity Oduduwa. Ilesha was an important military centre in the campaigns against Ibadan, 60 miles (97 km) west-southwest,

Dwight, John

After taking the degree of bachelor of civil law at Christ Church, Oxford, Dwight was appointed registrar and scribe to the diocese of Chester. In 1665 he moved to Wigan and sometime between 1671 and 1674 moved to Fulham, London. In 1671 Dwight took out a patent for �transparent earthenware, commonly knowne

Alaungpaya Dynasty

Also called �Konbaung� the last ruling dynasty (1752 - 1885) of Myanmar (Burma). The dynasty's collapse in the face of British imperial might marked the end of Myanmar sovereignty for more than 60 years. (Some authorities limit the name Konbaung dynasty to the period beginning with King Bodawpaya in 1782 and continuing to 1885.) The Alaungpaya dynasty led Myanmar in an era of expansionism that was only brought to an

Biblical Literature, Redemption and revelation

Significant in the early chapters is God's special concern for the Hebrew slaves, his reference to them as �my people,� and his revelation to Moses, the rebel courtier whom he has picked to be their leader, that he is YHWH, the God of their fathers, an abiding presence that will rescue them from their misery and bring them into Canaan, the land of promise. This assurance is repeated

Turkey

Either of two species of birds in the family Meleagrididae (order Galliformes). The best known is the common turkey (Meleagris gallopavo; see photograph), a native game bird of North America but widely domesticated for the table. The other species is Agriocharis (or Meleagris) ocellata, the ocellated turkey. For unrelated but similar birds, see bustard

Diving Petrel

Any of five species of small seabirds of the sub-Antarctic regions that constitute the family Pelecanoididae (order Procellariiformes). Although their nearest relatives are the storm petrels, shearwaters, and albatrosses, diving petrels differ from these long-winged forms and instead resemble the smaller auks of the Northern Hemisphere, a classic example of

Sicilian Octave

An Italian stanza or poem having eight lines of 11 syllables (hendecasyllables) rhyming abababab. The form may have originated in Tuscany about the 13th century, though little is known about its origins. The Sicilian octave was in use until the 16th century, when the madrigal overtook it in popularity.

Oman

Officially �Sultanate of Oman, �Arabic �Saltanat 'Uman� country occupying the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bounded to the southwest by Yemen, to the south and east by the Arabian Sea, to the north by the Gulf of Oman, to the northwest by the United Arab Emirates, and to the west by Saudi Arabia. A small enclave, the Ru'us Al-Jibal (�the Mountaintops�), occupies the northern tip of the Musandam Peninsula at the Strait

Rush, Benjamin

American physician and political leader, a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His encouragement of clinical research and instruction was frequently offset by his insistence upon bloodletting, purging, and other debilitating therapeutic

Lenz, Jakob Michael Reinhold

Lenz studied theology at K�nigsberg University but gave up his studies in 1771 to travel to Strasbourg as a tutor and companion

Costa Rica, Ethnic and religious groups

Costa Rica is noted for having the largest percentage of Spanish population in Central America. The Meseta Central, with more than half the nation's population, is the most predominantly Spanish region in both its manner of living and its ancestry. Spanish is spoken with distinctive national accents and usages. In Central America, a Costa Rican is called a Tico, for

Bradley, Tom

The son of sharecroppers and the grandson of slaves, Bradley grew up in poverty. When he was seven years old, his parents moved to Los Angeles. Excelling at track

Leaf Beetle

Any member of the 25,000 species of leaf-feeding insects of the family Chrysomelidae (order Coleoptera). Leaf beetles occur throughout the world but are concentrated in the tropics. They are oval and short-legged and tend to be less than 12 mm (0.5 inch) long; the antennae are about half the body length. Many are important pests. The family is divided into numerous subfamilies.

Eckstine, Billy

Eckstine left Howard University after winning an amateur contest in 1933 and began singing in nightclubs and with xance bands. From 1939 to 1943 he sang with Earl Hines's band, and at his urging Hines hired

Fullerton

City, Orange county, southern California, U.S. Laid out in 1887 and named for George H. Fullerton, it developed as a citrus centre after the arrival of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1888. Residential and industrial growth has kept pace with the rapid development of the county since World War II. Fullerton College was founded in 1913, Pacific Christian College in 1928, and the California State University

Dowden, Edward

Educated at Queen's College, Cork, and Trinity College, Dublin, Dowden became professor of English literature at Trinity in 1867 and lectured at Oxford (1890 - 93) and Cambridge (1893 - 96). His Shakspere: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art (1875) was the first book in English to attempt

Index Librorum Prohibitorum

Compiled by official censors, the Index was an implementation of one part of the teaching function of the Roman Catholic

Antarctica

Deva

City, capital of Hunedoara judet (county), west-central Romania, on the banks of the Mures River, at an elevation of 590 feet (180 m). The town is dominated by Citadel Hill (1,217 feet), shaped like a truncated cone, which affords a commanding view of the Mures valley. Atop the hill are the ruins of a citadel, built in the 13th century at the time of the Mongol invasions. The city grew in the protective

Antarctica, The surrounding seas

The seas around Antarctica have often been likened to the moat around a fortress. The turbulent �Roaring Forties� and �Furious Fifties� lie in a circumpolar storm track and a westerly oceanic current zone commonly called the West Wind Drift, or Circumpolar Current. The three major oceans, Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian, are bounded on the south by Antarctic shores. Warm,

Byzantine Art

Architecture, paintings, and other visual arts produced in the Middle Ages in the Byzantine Empire (centred at Constantinople) and in various areas that came under its influence. The pictorial and architectural styles that characterized Byzantine art, first codified in the 6th century, persisted with remarkable homogeneity within the empire until its final dissolution

Laing, R(onald) D(avid)

Laing was born into a working-class family and grew up in Glasgow. He studied medicine and psychiatry and earned a doctoral degree in medicine at the University of Glasgow in 1951. After serving as a conscript psychiatrist in the British army

Atlantic Languages

Formerly �West Atlantic languages� branch of the Niger-Congo language family spoken primarily in Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. The approximately 45 Atlantic languages are spoken by about 30 million people. One language cluster, Fula (also called Fulani, Peul, Fulfulde, and Toucouleur), accounts for more than half of this number and is the most widely scattered language

Maule

Regi�n, central Chile. It faces the Pacific Ocean on the west and borders Argentina on the east. Created in 1974, it comprises Curic�, Talca, Cauquenes, and Linares provincias. Its area spans coastal mountains, the Central Valley, and the Andean cordillera. The region is drained in the north by the Mataquito River, the tributaries of which (the Teno and Lontu� rivers) rise in the

Torbay

Unitary authority, geographic and historic county of Devon, England, on the English Channel coast. It comprises three old towns - Torquay, Paignton, and Brixham - grouped around Tor Bay. A village existed at Torre before the foundation of a Premonstratensian abbey in 1196. Cockington Court (Elizabethan and later) and its estate are part of the municipal park system. Torbay's