Orange, House Of

The counts of Orange became independent upon the disintegration of the feudal kingdom of Arles. They were vassals of the Holy Roman emperors from the 12th

Mahavastu

(Sanskrit: �Great Story�), important legendary life of the Buddha, produced as a late canonical work by the Mahasanghika school of early Buddhism and presented as a historical introduction to the vinaya, the section of the canon dealing with monastic discipline. Its three sections treat the Buddha's former lives, the events from his entering the womb of Queen Maha Maya to his

Amp�re's Law

One of the basic relations between electricity and magnetism, stating quantitatively the relation of a magnetic field to the electric current or changing electric field that produces it. The law is named in honour of Andr�-Marie Amp�re, who by 1825 had laid the foundation of electromagnetic theory. An alternative expression of the Biot-Savart law (q.v.), which also relates

Gymnostome

Any ciliated protozoan of the large holotrichous order Gymnostomatida; included are oval to elongated protozoans with simple, uniformly distributed hairlike processes (cilia) and a mouth opening (cytostome) on the body surface rather than in a groove or pit as in other ciliates. Gymnostomes are found in fresh and salt water and in the

Aretaeus Of Cappadocia

Greek physician from Cappadocia who practiced in Rome and Alexandria, led a revival of Hippocrates' teachings, and is thought to have ranked second only to the father of medicine himself in the application of keen observation and ethics to the art. In principle he adhered to the pneumatic school of medicine, which believed that health was maintained by

Theatrical Production, The modern repertory company

During the rise of the stock company and single-show system, there continued to exist highly refined examples of the repertory ensemble. The Com�die Fran�aise, originally an amalgamation of two Parisian troupes, has existed since 1680. In opera the repertory system remains fundamentally unchanged. Toward the end of the 19th century, however, a widespread transformation

John Of Ephesus,

A Syrian monk, he became a deacon at Amida in 529, but because of the Byzantine persecution of the Monophysites he was forced to lead a nomadic life. Later, at the Eastern imperial court of Constantinople, John was

Switzerland, Crop cultivation at high altitudes

The Alpine pastures of the Monte Rosa region reach an altitude of 10,800 feet, and until recently the highest Alpine grainfields, which have fallen victim to the decline in Alpine agriculture, lay above Zermatt at an altitude of 6,900 feet. The highest vineyard of central Europe, at an altitude of 3,900 feet, is still located near Visperterminen in the Valais. The largest vineyards are

Amakihi

(Loxops virens), perhaps the most common native songbird in Hawaii, a member of the Hawaiian honeycreeper family, Drepanididae (order Passeriformes). It is 12 cm (5 inches) long, with yellow body, black eye-mark, and rather short, slightly curved bill. It feeds on insects and small fruits in brushland and forest, and it has mewing and trilling calls.

France, History Of, Trade

Despite the Islamic conquests, Mediterranean commerce did not decline abruptly. In Gaul, such goods as papyrus, oil, and spices were imported from the East, and there were numerous colonies of Syrians. Currency continued to be based on the gold standard, and imperial units were still used. All signs, moreover, point to the existence of manufacturing for trade (marble from

Deorai, Battle Of

Dara challenged Aurangzeb, relying on the promised support of Jaswant Singh of Marwar, but Jaswant then deserted him, and Dara was left to face Aurangzeb's superior army alone.

Thompson, Francis

Thompson was educated in the Roman Catholic faith at Ushaw College, a seminary in the north of England. He studied medicine at Manchester, but not conscientiously, and went to London to seek a

Arr�bida Highway Bridge

In Porto, Port., bridge (completed in 1963) spanning the gorge of the Douro River. The bridge carries a roadway 82 feet (25 m) wide, supported 170 feet (52 m) above the river; its overall length of 1,617 feet (493 m) includes a reinforced-concrete arch 885 feet (270 m) long, one of the largest in the world.

Soubise, Benjamin De Rohan, Seigneur De

Soubise apprenticed as a soldier under Prince Maurice of Orange-Nassau in the Low Countries. In the Huguenot rebellions that rocked France in the 1620s, his elder brother chiefly commanded the Huguenots' forces on land and in the south, while Soubise commanded those

R�o De Oro

Southern region of Western Sahara. It has an area of 71,000 square miles (184,000 square km) and lies between Cape Blanco and latitude 26� N, near Cape Bojador. The climate is very arid, with virtually no rainfall, and there are extreme variations of temperature in the interior, ranging from nearly 32� F (0� C) at night to about 122� F (50� C) in the afternoon. Its principal town, Dakhla (formerly Villa Cisneros),

Zama, Battle Of

(202 BC), victory of the Romans led by Scipio Africanus over the Carthaginians commanded by Hannibal. It was the last and decisive battle of the Second Punic War. The battle took place at a site identified by the Roman historian Livy as Naraggara (now Saqiyat Sidi Yusuf, Tunisia). The name Zama was given to the site (which modern historians have never precisely identified) by the Roman

Suboscine

In general, any bird of the suborders Eurylaimi, Tyranni, and Menurae of the order Passeriformes (perching birds, or passerines) as distinguished from an oscine, or songbird (q.v.), a member of the suborder Passeres. The term suboscine implies, perhaps rightly, that birds of this group are more primitive in anatomy and behaviour than the oscines, which are usually considered

Swazi

Bantu-speaking people inhabiting the tree-studded grasslands of Swaziland, the neighbouring Eastern Transvaal province of South Africa, and Mozambique. The Swazi, who are chiefly agriculturists and pastoralists, numbered about 1,810,000 in the late 20th century. The language of the Swazi, called Swati or Swazi, belongs to the Benue-Congo group of the Niger-Congo languages;

Levita, Elijah Bokher

Levita went to Italy early in life and in 1504 settled at Padua. There he wrote a manual of Hebrew (1508) that was appropriated by his transcriber,

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).

Quinoline

Any of a class of organic compounds of the aromatic heterocyclic series characterized by a double-ring structure composed of a benzene and a pyridine ring fused at two adjacent carbon atoms. The benzene ring contains six carbon atoms, while the pyridine ring contains five carbon atoms and a nitrogen atom. The simplest member of the quinoline family is quinoline

Scandinavian Literature, The modern Swedish novel

The development of the novel was associated with Gustaf Hellstr�m, Ludvig Nordstr�m, Elin W�gner, and Sigfrid Siwertz. Hellstr�m's work as a journalist in Europe, the United States, and England greatly influenced him. Irony and careful detail emerged in his best known novel, Sn�rmakare Lekholm f�r en id� (1927; Lacemaker Lekholm Has an Idea). Siwertz was a more elegant stylist,

Furniture, France and England: 17th and 18th centuries

The French Rococo chair in its most mature form - that is, as developed in Paris around 1750 - spread over most of Europe and has been imitated or copied into the mid-20th century. The model owes its popularity to a combination of comfort and elegance. The seat conforms to the human body and permits a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Normally the seat

Philodemus

After studying under the Epicurean Zeno of Sidon at Athens, he moved to Rome c. 75 BC and became the mentor of the Roman aristocrat Lucius Calpurnius Piso, who invited Philodemus to live in his villa at Herculaneum, near Naples. In the ruins of that villa

Franca

City, in the highlands of northeastern S�o Paulo estado (�state�), Brazil. It lies at 3,314 feet (1,010 m) above sea level. Known variously as Vila Franca del Rei and Vila Franca do Imperador, it was given town status in 1824 and was made the seat of a municipality in 1856. The city has one of the largest sugar refineries in Brazil; coffee, rice, corn (maize), cotton, and feij�o (beans) are also grown locally.

Police Zone

Southern two-thirds of South West Africa (now Namibia) in which the German and later South African colonial administrations were able to establish effective European-style police control beginning in the early 20th century. The name of the area and its original boundary were adopted in 1919 by the South Africans from a 1911 German map of the territory on which the area was marked