Sankt Gallen

French �Saint-gall, � canton, northeastern Switzerland, bounded north by Lake Constance (Bodensee); east by the Rhine Valley, which separates it from the Austrian Vorarlberg Bundesland (federal state) and from Liechtenstein; south by the cantons of Graub�nden, Glarus, and Schwyz; west by the canton of Z�rich; and northwest by the canton of Thurgau. Appenzell Ausser-Rhoden and Appenzell Inner-Rhoden

Chelyabinsk

Chelyabinsk was founded as a fortress in 1736 on the site of a Bashkir village; it became a town in 1787. First a local centre of an agricultural region, it began to grow with the coming of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1894 - 96. Thereafter

Wolof

The typical rural community is small (about 100 persons). Most Wolof are farmers, growing peanuts (groundnuts) as a cash crop and millet and sorghum as staples; many, however, live and work in Dakar and Banjul as traders, goldsmiths, tailors, carpenters,

Adam, Robert

Toward the end of his life, Adam built the Register House (1772 - 92), Edinburgh, in which he

Permafrost, Permafrost zones

Permafrost is widespread in the northern part of the Northern Hemisphere, where it occurs in 85 percent of Alaska, 55 percent of Russia and Canada, and probably all of Antarctica. Permafrost is more widespread and extends to greater depths in the north than in the south. It is 1,500 metres (5,000 feet) thick in northern Siberia, 740 metres thick in northern Alaska, and thins progressively

Maharashtra, Education

Maharashtra's literacy rate - which consists of more than half of the state's adult population - exceeds the national average. The state provides free compulsory education for children between the ages of 6 and 14. Vocational and multipurpose high schools also have grown in importance. The state operates two universities (including one for women) at Bombay and others at

Cylinder Recording

Earliest form of phonograph record, invented by Thomas A. Edison in 1877. The sound to be recorded was focused by a horn onto a diaphragm, causing it to vibrate; the vibrations were transmitted to a stylus and modulated its motion as it followed a helical path along the surface of a yielding material (such as wax) that coated a cylinder rotating under the stylus. See also phonograph

'abd Al-malik

'Abd al-Malik spent the first half of his life with his father, Marwan ibn al-Hakam, fourth Umayyad caliph, in Medina, where he received religious instruction and developed friendly relations with the pious circles of that city that were to stand him in good stead in his later life. At the age of 16, he was entrusted by his kinsman, the caliph Mu'awiyah, with administrative responsibilities.

Frederick, Pauline

After receiving her A.M. degree in international law from American University, Washington, D.C., Frederick worked as a free-lance reporter on so-called women's issues. She used this experience to gain a foothold in journalism, and after the end of World War II she reported on

Da Nang

French �Tourane, � city, central Vietnam. Lying at the southern end of a horseshoe-shaped bay, it is one of the largest cities in Vietnam and the chief port of the central lowlands. Although partially enclosed on the northeast by the Annamese Cordillera (French: Cha�ne Annamitique; Vietnamese: Nui Truong Son), which there reaches an elevation of 4,636 feet (1,413 m), its excellent harbour is still somewhat

Ombudsman

The legislature appoints the ombudsman, but it may

Uruguay River

Portuguese �Rio Uruguai, �Spanish �R�o Uruguay, � river in southern South America that rises in the coastal range of southern Brazil. Its chief headstream, the Pelotas River, rises just 40 miles (64 km) from the Atlantic coast at Alto do Bispo in Santa Catarina state, Brazil, and takes the name Uruguay after it is joined by the Canoas River near Piratuba. Flowing west through the coastal range of Brazil (separating Santa Catarina

Han River

Wade - Giles romanization �Han Chiang, �Pinyin �Han Jiang, � river in eastern Kwangtung Province (sheng), China. The Han River rises in the Wu-i Shan (mountains) in southwest Fukien Province to the north of Ch'ang-t'ing. Its upper course is known as the T'ing Chiang, and it flows south to Feng-shih, below which it is joined by the Yung-ting Chi (river). Flowing south over the border into Kwangtung Province, it is joined at San-ho-pa by its principal

Arts, East Asian, Sculpture

Sculpture did not enjoy a great infusion of creativity during the Edo period. More obviously mannered and stylized interpretations of Buddhist deities and worthies were regularly produced. There were, of course, some sculptors of exceptional talent. Shoun Genkei (1648 - 1710) is renowned for his production (1688 - 95) of a set of 500 arhats (disciples of the Buddha) at Gohyaku Rakan Temple in

Ear, Human, Middle-ear cavity

The cavity of the middle ear is a narrow, air-filled space. A slight constriction divides it into an upper and a lower chamber, the tympanum (tympanic cavity) proper below and the epitympanum above. These chambers also are referred to as the atrium and attic, respectively. The middle-ear space roughly resembles a rectangular room with four walls, a floor, and a ceiling. The

Kilian, Saint

Missionary bishop who, with his companions Saints Colman and Totnan, gave his life for the Christianization of Thuringia and eastern Franconia. At W�rzburg, in about 689, all three were beheaded by orders of Duke Gozbert of W�rzburg, whom Kilian had supposedly converted and baptized. In 752 Bishop Burchard

N-town Plays

An English cycle of 42 scriptural (or �mystery�) plays dating from the second half of the 15th century and so called because an opening proclamation refers to performance �in N. town.� Since evidence suggests that the cycle was not peculiar to one city or community but traveled from town to town, the abbreviation �N.� would indicate that the appropriate name of the town at which

Japanese Law

The law as it has developed in Japan as a consequence of a meld of two cultural and legal traditions, one indigenous Japanese, the other Western. Before Japan's isolation from the West was ended in the mid-19th century, Japanese law developed independently of Western influences. Conciliation was emphasized in response to social pressures exerted through an expanded

Sea Rocket

Any of about 17 species of plants constituting the genus Cakile, of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to seashore regions of North America, Eurasia, western Asia, and Australia, and to central Arabian deserts. Cakile maritima, a European plant, has waxy, thick, lobed green leaves and pale-lavender flower clusters. Its leaf branches, 30 to 60 centimetres (1 to 2 feet) long, rise

Wieniawski, Henryk

Wieniawski was a child prodigy who entered the Paris Conservatory at age 8 and graduated from there with the first prize in violin at the unprecedented age of 11. He became a concert violinist at age 13 and began touring

Ancus Marcius

Traditionally the fourth king of Rome, from 642 to 617 BC. The details of his reign, provided by Roman historians such as Livy (64 or 59 BC - AD 17), must be regarded as largely legendary - e.g., the settlement of the Aventine Hill outside Rome, the first extension of Rome beyond the Tiber River to the Janiculum Hill, and the founding of the port of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber.

World War I, Italy and the Italian front, 1915 - 16

Great Britain, France, and Russia concluded on April 26, 1915, the secret Treaty of London with Italy, inducing the latter to discard the obligations of the Triple Alliance and to enter the war on the side of the Allies by the promise of territorial aggrandizement at Austria-Hungary's expense. Italy was offered not only the Italian-populated Trentino and Trieste but also South

Black Hundreds

Russian �Chernosotentsy, � reactionary, antirevolutionary, and anti-Semitic groups formed in Russia during and after the Russian Revolution of 1905. The most important of these groups were the League of the Russian People (Soyuz Russkogo Naroda), League of the Archangel Michael (Soyuz Mikhaila Arkhangela), and Council of United Nobility (Soviet Obedinennogo Dvoryanstva). The Black Hundreds were

Aksakov, Konstantin Sergeyevich

The son of the novelist Sergey Timofeyevich Aksakov, he entered Moscow University, where he was influenced by the work of the German philosopher G.W. Hegel. From the mid-1830s Aksakov focused, along with Yury F. Samarin

Tibet

Tibetan �Bod, �in full �Tibet Autonomous Region, �Chinese (Wade-Giles) �Hsi-tsang Tzu-chih-ch'�, �(Pinyin) �Xizang Zizhiqu � historic region and autonomous region of China that is often called �the roof of the world.� It occupies about 471,700 square miles (1,221,600 square kilometres) of the plateaus and mountains of Central Asia, including Mount Everest (Chu-mu-lang-ma Feng). It is bordered by the Chinese provinces of Tsinghai to the northeast, Szechwan to the east, and Yunnan to the southeast; Myanmar (Burma), India,

Kazankina, Tatyana

A seemingly fragile individual standing 1.61 metres (5 feet 3 inches) tall and weighing just 48 kg (106 pounds), Kazankina made an international impression with her fortitude and speed during a string of victories

Computers, IBM develops FORTRAN

In the early 1950s John Backus convinced his managers at IBM to let him put together a team to design a language and write a compiler for it. He had a machine in mind: the IBM 704, which had built-in floating-point math operations. That the 704 used floating-point representation made it especially useful for scientific work, and Backus believed that a scientifically oriented programming

Staff, Leopold

After completing his education in Lw�w, Staff moved to Krak�w, which in the 1890s was the centre of Polish literary life. There he came into close contact with representatives of the Young