Nagorno-karabakh

Also spelled �Nagorno-karabach, � region of southwestern Azerbaijan. It occupies an area of 1,700 square miles (4,400 square km) on the northeastern flank of the Karabakh Range of the Lesser Caucasus and extends from the crest line of the range to the margin of the Kura River lowland at its foot. Nagorno-Karabakh's environments vary from steppe on the Kura lowland through dense forest of oak, hornbeam, and beech

Lignite

Brown to black coal that has been formed from peat under moderate pressure; it is one of the first products of coalification and is intermediate between peat and subbituminous coal. Dry lignite contains about 60 to 75 percent carbon. It has been estimated that about 45 percent of the world's total coal reserves are lignitic, but these reserves have not been exploited to any

Toad Bug

Toad bugs are found in all zoogeographic regions living along the muddy edges of streams and ponds. Some species spend part

Ryzhkov, Nikolay

Little is known with certainty of Ryzhkov's early career. He seems to have begun his working career as a miner and then, by 1950, was a shift foreman at the Ordzhonikidze Uralmash plant (for heavy machinery) in the Urals, later rising to positions of shop superintendent and deputy manager. In 1956 he joined the Communist Party, and in 1959 he graduated

World War I, Forces and resources of the combatant nations in 1914

All the initial belligerents

Wayne, Anthony

The owner of a tannery and extensive property in Pennsylvania, Wayne was commissioned a colonel in the Continental Army in January 1776. That spring his regiment was sent

Orapa

Mining town, east-central Botswana. It is located about 240 miles (385 km) north of Gaborone, the national capital. Situated on the eastern edge of the Kalahari (desert), the town was built to accommodate mine workers after the discovery in 1967 of a large diamond field, or pipe (a roughly cylindrical diamond-bearing geological formation), with a surface area of 277 acres (112 hectares); it is one

Habash, George

Habash was forced to flee Palestine in 1948, after the State of Israel was established there, and earned a medical degree at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon. In the early 1950s he was active in the �Youth of Vengeance� group, which advocated violent

Wagner, Richard

For the next 15 years Wagner was not to present any further new works. Until 1858 he lived in Z�rich, composing, writing treatises, and conducting (he directed the London Philharmonic concerts in 1855). Having already studied the Siegfried legend and the Norse myths as a possible basis for an opera, and having written an operatic �poem,� Siegfrieds Tod (Siegfried's Death), in which he

Deformation And Flow

Everyday substances are ordinarily classed as either solids, liquids, or gases, and, under normal circumstances, gases and liquids flow relatively freely and solids deform when they are subjected

Tsuchiura

City, Ibaraki ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan, on the western shore of Lake Kasumi. A castle was constructed on the city site during the Muromachi period (1338 - 1573), and Tsuchiura grew to be a flourishing centre of land and sea transportation. Fishing was also highly developed. The Joban Line (railway) was opened through Tsuchiura in 1896, and in 1920 a Japanese naval base and related machinery

Densitometer

Device that measures the density, or the degree of darkening, of a photographic film or plate by recording photometrically its transparency (fraction of incident light transmitted). In visual methods, two beams of equal intensity are used. One is directed through the plate, while the intensity of the other is adjusted by an optical wedge, by an iris diaphragm, or by moving

Ulan-ude

The city's development was greatly stimulated when the Trans-Siberian

Rime

White, opaque, granular deposit of ice crystals formed on objects that are at a temperature below the freezing point. Rime occurs when supercooled water droplets (at a temperature lower than 0� C [32� F]) in fog come in contact with a surface that is also at a temperature below freezing; the droplets are so small that they freeze almost immediately upon contact with the object.

Aum Shinrikyo

AUM emerged out of Asahara's dissatisfaction

Clarion River

River formed at Johnsonburg, Elk county, northwestern Pennsylvania, U.S., by the confluence of East Branch and West Branch Clarion rivers. It flows generally southwest for about 110 miles (177 km), past the towns of Ridgway and Clarion, to join the Allegheny River. The Clarion Dam and Reservoir are on the East Branch near Glen Hazel. The river's name is attributed to surveyors who

Potrerillos

Mining area, Atacama regi�n, northern Chile. The open-pit copper mine lies in the Andean Atacama Desert, 9,440 feet (2,877 m) above sea level and 75 miles (120 km) inland from the port of Cha�aral, to which it is linked by rail. Although the deposits are smaller and the ores of poorer quality than at Chuquicamata, the mine and smelter at Potrerillos contribute a substantial portion of Chile's

Karaganda

The first settlement appeared in 1856, and small-scale coal mining began in 1857 to supply a nearby copper smelter. Mining ceased in the 1920s

Great Basin

Also called �Great Basin Desert�

Alcal� De Guadaira

Town, Sevilla provincia, in the Andalusia comunidad aut�noma (�autonomous community�), southwestern Spain. It is just southeast of Sevilla city, on the Guadaira River. The town is popularly known as Alcal� de los Panaderos (Alcal� of the Bakers) because of its large number of bakeries and flour mills, which supply Sevilla with most of its flour. Olives are also exported,

Welti, (friedrich) Emil

Political leader and Landammann (chief executive) of his native canton of Aargau in 1858, 1862, and 1866, Welti entered the federal St�nderat (council of cantons) in 1857 and subsequently served as assembly president (1860, 1866). Elected to the federal executive (Bundesrat)

Segovia Aqueduct

Byname �El Puente (Spanish: �The Bridge�),� water-conveyance structure built under the Roman emperor Trajan (reigned AD 98 - 117) and still in use; it carries water 10 miles (16 km) from the Fr�o River to the city of Segovia, Spain. One of the best-preserved Roman engineering works, it was built of some 24,000 dark-coloured Guadarrama granite blocks without the use of mortar. The aboveground portion is 2,388 feet (728 metres) long and consists of some

Falkland Current

Branch of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current in the Southern Hemisphere, flowing northward in the South Atlantic Ocean along the east coast of Argentina to about latitude 30� to 40� S, where it is deflected eastward after meeting the southward-flowing Brazil Current. Characterized by cold temperatures varying from 41� to 66� F (5� to 19� C), the current has a relatively low salinity averaging

Finland, Education

School attendance in Finland is compulsory beginning at the age of seven. The national and local governments support the schools, and tuition is free. The introduction of a new nine-year comprehensive school system, consisting of a six-year primary stage and a three-year secondary stage, was completed during the 1970s. The English language is taught beginning in the third

Indian Removal Act

(May 28, 1830), first major legislative departure from the U.S. policy of respecting the legal and political rights of the American Indians. The act authorized the president to grant Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their desirable territories within state borders (especially in the Southeast), from which the tribes would be removed. The rapid

Earth Exploration, Radioactive methods

Radioactive disintegration, or decay, gives rise

World War Ii, Montgomery's Battle of el-Alamein and Rommel's retreat, 1942 - 43

By mid-October the British 8th Army had 230,000 men

Torelli, Salinguerra

Torelli was born into a noble family of Bolognese origin whose members were rivals of the Este in Ferrara from the end of the 12th century. He carried on an indecisive struggle with

Ji Pengfei

Chinese diplomat (b. 1910, Linyi, Shanxi province, China - d. Feb. 10, 2000, Beijing, China), served from 1982 to 1990 as director of Hong Kong and Macau affairs in the State Council, playing a lead role in the negotiations with Britain over the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. He was also chairman of the committee that drafted the Basic Law, the constitution governing the relationship between

Scylax Of Caryanda

It is known from Herodotus that Scylax was sent by the Persian king Darius I (in about 515 BC) to explore the course of the Indus River and that he returned by sea after two and a half years to the Isthmus of Heroonpolis (Suez). References in ancient authorities