Olt

Judet (county), south-central Romania. It is bounded on the south by Bulgaria. The sub-Carpathian Mountains lie in the northern portion of the county, overlooking settlement areas in intermontane valleys and lowlands. The eastward-flowing Danube River and the southeastward-flowing Olt and Vedea rivers drain the area. Slatina (q.v.) town, in existence since the 14th century,

Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid

Sayyid also spelled �Syad, or Syed, Ahmad �also spelled �Ahmed� Muslim educator, jurist, and author, founder of the Anglo-Mohammedan Oriental College at Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, and the principal motivating force behind the revival of Indian Islam in the late 19th century. His works, in Urdu, include Essays on the Life of Mohammed (1870) and commentaries on the Bible and on the Qur'an. In 1888 he was made a Knight Commander

Nigeria

A republic and suspended member of the Commonwealth, Nigeria is located in West Africa, on the Gulf of Guinea. Area: 923,768 sq km (356,669 sq mi). Pop. (1996 est.): 103,912,000. Cap.: Abuja. Monetary unit: naira, with (Oct. 11, 1996) an official par value of 22 naira to U.S. $1 (free rate of 34.66 naira = �1 sterling); a truer value of the naira was on the free market, where 79.70 naira = U.S. $1 (125.55 naira = � 1 sterling). Chairman of the Provisional Ruling Council in 1996, Gen. Sani

Aer Lingus

National airline of Ireland, comprising two government-owned companies: (1) Aer Lingus Teoranta, incorporated in 1936 and operating air services within Ireland and between Ireland and Britain and continental Europe, and (2) Aerlinte Eireann Teoranta, incorporated in 1947 and operating air services between Ireland and the United States and Canada. Though legally separate

La Matanza

Partido (political subdivision) of Gran (Greater) Buenos Aires, Arg., directly southwest of the city of Buenos Aires, in Buenos Aires province. The present-day partido was part of the Pago (country district) de las Conchas during the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 1730 the Pago de las Conchas was divided into four rural settlement areas, one of which was the Pago de la Matanza. The

Low Countries

Also called �Benelux Countries� coastal region of northwestern Europe, consisting of Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg (qq.v.). These are together known as the Benelux countries, from the initial letters of their names. The Low Countries are bordered by Germany to the east and France to the south. In 1947 the three nations formed the Benelux Customs Union, which broadened over the years into what a

Rub' Al-khali

Also spelled �Ar-Rab' al-Khali (Arabic: �Empty Quarter�)� vast desert in the southern Arabian Peninsula, covering about 250,000 square miles (650,000 square km) in a structural basin lying mainly in southeastern Saudi Arabia, with lesser portions in Yemen, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. It is the largest area of continuous sand in the world. It occupies more than one-quarter of Saudi Arabia. The topography is varied. In the west the elevation

Swartberg

Also spelled �Swartberge, � mountain range in Western Cape province, South Africa, extending east-west for 150 mi (240 km) from near the town of Willowmore to the edge of the Witteberge, roughly parallel with the Indian Ocean coast. The Swartberg is the barrier dividing the semiarid Great Karoo (north) and Little Karoo (south) plateaus. Highest elevations range from between 5,500 and 7,500 ft (1,650 and 2,300 m). Small reservoirs

Chandler

City, Maricopa county, south-central Arizona, U.S. Founded in the 1890s, the city was named for veterinarian and real-estate developer A.J. Chandler, who built an extensive agricultural canal system in the area. Chandler is a winter resort in a cotton, alfalfa, citrus fruit, pecan, sugar beet, and cattle-raising region of the irrigated Salt River valley. The city emerged in the late

Literature

The 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Toni Morrison (see NOBEL PRIZES), an American novelist who had been instrumental, proclaimed London's Daily Telegraph, in "breaking the male domination of Black American literature." She was only the eighth woman to win the prize, and her victory was unexpected. When Morrison's name was announced, Christopher Bigsby, professor

Suceava

City, capital of Suceava judet (county), northeastern Romania. Founded on a terrace above the right bank of the Suceava River before the 14th century, it was the capital of Moldavia from 1375 until 1565, when the capital was moved to Iasi. During the reign of Stephen (Stefan) the Great in the 15th century, Suceava developed as a trading centre and customs point, with many warehouses and a strong

Gobineau, Joseph-arthur, Comte De

Gobineau was a member of an aristocratic royalist family. He went to Paris in 1835, held a succession of minor clerical

Masjed Soleyman

Also spelled �Masjid-i Sulaiman, � town, southwestern Iran. Oil was discovered at Masjed Soleyman in 1908, and the town early became one of Iran's leading oil centres. Pipelines, built in 1909 - 10, link the town with Abadan, 125 miles (200 km) southwest. Pop. (1986) 104,787.

Johannsenite

Silicate mineral in the pyroxene family. It has a molecular formula of Ca(Mn,Fe)Si2O6. A calcium-manganese-iron silicate mineral, johannsenite is produced either by metamorphic processes in altered limestones or is associated with pyrite or other minerals in copper, lead, and zinc ores. It is moderately hard, has a glassy lustre, and forms brown, gray, or green crystals

Wheeler, William A(lmon)

He was nominated as vice president in order to lend sectional balance to the ticket, and in his acceptance letter he alluded to the need to end Reconstruction, as Hayes subsequently did. Wheeler ran on a platform favouring administrative integrity, civil service reform, and aid to education in the South. Distracted by health and personal problems - his wife died just prior to the Republican convention in 1876 - he retired from public life after his term in office was over.

Holbach, Paul-henri Dietrich, Baron D'

French encyclopaedist and philosopher, a celebrated exponent of atheism and Materialism, whose inherited wealth allowed him to entertain many of the noted philosophers of the day, some of whom (Comte de Buffon, J.-J. Rousseau, d'Alembert) reportedly withdrew from his gatherings, frightened by the audacity

Alkalai, Judah Ben Solomon Hai

Alkalai was taken to Jerusalem at an early age, and there he was reared and educated for the rabbinate. At 25 he went to Semlin, in Croatia, as a rabbi and found himself teaching Hebrew to the young men of his congregation,

Gabelentz, Hans Conon Von Der

After completing his university studies, Gabelentz did research on the Chinese

Poza Rica

Poza Rica was the scene of a major air pollution disaster in 1950, in which 22 persons

Music, Western, Modification and expansion of older forms

Dance pairs of the Renaissance grew, about the middle of the 17th century, into dance suites consisting basically of four dances: allemande, courante, saraband, and gigue, with optional dances such as the gavotte, the bourr�e, and the minuet sometimes inserted before the final movement. Variation forms - the chaconne (in which a set of harmonies or a bass theme is continuously

Penates

Formally �Di Penates� household gods of the Romans and other Latin peoples. In the narrow sense, they were gods of the penus (�household provision�), but by extension their protection reached the entire household. They are associated with other deities of the house, such as Vesta, and the name was sometimes used interchangeably with that of the Lares, any of various tutelary deities. The Penates

Anole

(genus Anolis)� any of about 250 species of small, tree-dwelling lizard related to iguanas (family Iguanidae). Anoles occur throughout the warmer regions of North and South America and are abundant in the West Indies. Like the gecko, all anoles have enlarged finger and toe pads that are covered with microscopic hooks. These clinging pads, together with sharp claws, enable them to

Waitz, Georg

German historian who was the founder of a renowned school of medievalists at the University of G�ttingen. As the leading disciple of Leopold von Ranke's critical methods, he is regarded as the ablest of the German constitutional historians; many consider him to be superior to his teacher in exactness of

Malachowski, Stanislaw

The son of Jan Malachowski, the royal grand chancellor, Malachowski was named marshal (speaker) of the Sejm (Diet) in 1788. He was the prime force behind a constitution, adopted in 1791, that embodied such modern western European

Zambezi River

The first non-Africans to reach the Zambezi were Arab traders, who utilized the river's lower reaches from the 10th century onward. They were followed in the 16th century by the Portuguese, who hoped to use the river to develop a trade in ivory, gold, and slaves. Until the 19th century, the river, then called the Zanbere, was believed to flow south from a vast inland sea that was also

Kuching

Town, capital and chief port of Sarawak, East Malaysia, on northwestern Borneo. The town was founded in 1839 by James (later Sir James) Brooke, who became ruler of Sarawak with the title of raja. He built the town's first European-style house on the jungled southern bank of the muddy, crocodile-infested Sarawak River, 15 miles (24 km) from the South China Sea. Now a busy administrative

K�

City, Roskilde amtskommune (county commune), eastern Sj�lland (Zealand), Denmark. The city lies on K�ge Bay of The Sound (�resund). First mentioned in the 11th century and chartered in 1288, it became a market centre and base for herring fisheries in the late 13th century. In 1677 Admiral Niels Juel won a great naval victory over the Swedes in the bay. Medieval remains include St. Nicholas

Black Riveran Stage

Division of Ordovician time in North America (the Ordovician Period began about 500,000,000 years ago and lasted about 70,000,000 years); the Black Riveran precedes the Trentonian Stage and follows the Chazyan Stage of the Champlainian Series. The type area for the Black Riveran is to be found in the exposures in the cliffs along the Black River of New York. Black Riveran rocks consist largely

Sunga Dynasty

Most of the traditional accounts of Pusyamitra's

Haymarket Riot

On May 3, one person was killed and several were injured as police intervened to protect strikebreakers from strikers during a union action at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company that was part