khedive (viceroy) of Egypt under the Ottomans from 1848 to 1854. During his reign he deliberately opposed change, such as the Western-inspired reforms initiated by his grandfather Muhammad 'Ali Pasha (viceroy 1805-48).
last khedive (viceroy) of Egypt, from 1892 to 1914, when British hegemony was established. His opposition to British power in Egypt made him prominent in the nationalist movement.
Palestinian politician, who served briefly as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority in 2003 and was elected its president in 2005 following the death of Yasir 'Arafat.
second of the two great dynasties of the Muslim Empire of the Caliphate. It overthrew the Umayyad caliphate in AD 750 and reigned as the 'Abbasid caliphate until destroyed by the Mongol invasion in 1258.
painter of the Bolognese school who, along with others, introduced the post-Renaissance Italian style of painting known as Mannerism to France and helped to inspire the French classical school of landscape painting.
physicist whose theoretical and technical innovations in optical theory led to great improvements in microscope design (such as the use of a condenser to provide strong, even illumination, introduced in 1870) and clearer understanding of magnification limits. He discovered the ...
the title of a superior of certain communities of nuns following the Benedictine Rule, of convents of the Second Order of St. Francis (Poor Clares), and of certain communities of canonesses. The first historical record of the name is on ...
city, seat (1854) of Vermilion parish, southern Louisiana, U.S., on the Vermilion River, 20 miles (32 km) south-southwest of Lafayette. It was founded in 1843 by a Capuchin missionary, Pere Antoine Desire Megret, who patterned it on a French Provencal ...
county, northwestern South Carolina, U.S. It lies in a hilly piedmont region bounded to the southwest by the state's Richard B. Russell Lake border with Georgia; the Saluda River forms the county's northeastern border. Calhoun Falls State Park is on ...
town, Somme departement, Picardy region, northern France, near the mouth of the canalized Somme, northwest of Amiens. Stone Age artifacts unearthed by Boucher de Crevecoeur de Perthes in 1844 attesting to early occupation of ...
city, seat of Abbeville county, northwestern South Carolina, U.S. French Huguenots in 1764 settled the site, which was named for Abbeville, France, by John de la Howe. The city is regarded by some as the "Cradle and the Grave of ...
prehistoric stone-tool tradition generally considered to represent the oldest occurrence in Europe of a bifacial (hand-ax) technology. The Abbevillian industry dates from an imprecisely determined part of the Middle Pleistocene, somewhat less than 700,000 years ago. It was recovered from ...
group of buildings housing a monastery or a convent, centred on an abbey church or a cathedral and under the direction of an abbot or an abbess. In this sense, an abbey consists of a complex of buildings serving the ...
Dublin theatre, established in 1904. It grew out of the Irish Literary Theatre (founded in 1899 by William Butler Yeats and Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory, and devoted to fostering Irish poetic drama), which in 1902 was taken over by the ...
the superior of a monastic community that follows the Benedictine Rule (Benedictines, Cistercians, Camaldolese, Trappists) and of certain other orders (Premonstratensians, canons regular of the Lateran). The word derives from the Aramaic ab ("father"), or aba ("my father"), which in ...
American astrophysicist who, as director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Washington, D.C., for almost four decades, engaged in a career-long campaign to demonstrate that the Sun's energy output varies and has a measurable effect on the Earth's weather.
former home of the 19th-century novelist Sir Walter Scott, situated on the right bank of the River Tweed, Scottish Borders council area, historic county of Roxburghshire, Scotland. Scott purchased the original farm, then known as Carley Hole, in 1811 and ...
American comedic duo who performed on stage and in films, radio, and television. Specializing in rapid-fire patter and knockabout slapstick, they are regarded as the archetypical team of burlesque comedy.
British politician, the first woman of African descent elected to the House of Commons. Abbott's parents, originally from Jamaica, immigrated to the United Kingdom in the early 1950s. She was educated at Harrow County Grammar School for Girls and received ...
American social worker, educator, and author who was instrumental in promoting the professional practice and academic discipline of social work in the United States.
American theatrical director, producer, playwright, actor, and motion-picture director who staged some of the most popular Broadway productions from the 1920s to the '60s.
city, east-central North-West Frontier Province, northern Pakistan. It is situated 38 miles (61 km) northeast of Rawalpindi. A hill station (4,120 feet [1,256 metres]), it lies on a plateau at the southern corner of the Rash (Orash) Plain and is ...
in communications (especially written), the process or result of representing a word or group of words by a shorter form of the word or phrase. Abbreviations take many forms and can be found in ancient Greek inscriptions, in medieval manuscripts ...
tabloid daily newspaper published in Madrid and long regarded as one of Spain's leading papers. It was founded as a weekly in 1903 by journalist Torcuato Luca de Tena y Alvarez-Ossorio, who later (1929) was made the marques de Luca ...
sultan of Morocco from 1894 to 1908, whose reign was marked by an unsuccessful attempt to introduce European administrative methods in an atmosphere of increasing foreign influence.
fifth caliph (685-705) of the Umayyad Arab dynasty centred in Damascus. He reorganized and strengthened governmental administration and, throughout the empire, adopted Arabic as the language of administration.
Berber caliph of the Almohad dynasty (reigned 1130-63), who conquered the North African Maghrib from the Almoravids andbrought all the Berbers under one rule.
first caliph and greatest ruler of the Umayyad Arab Muslim dynasty of Spain. He reigned as hereditary emir ("prince") of Cordoba from October 912 and took the title of caliph in 929.
dynasty of Zanatah Berbers (1236-1550), successors to the Almohad empire in northwestern Algeria. In 1236 the Zanatahs, loyal vassals to the Almohads, gained the support of other Berber tribes and nomadic Arabs and set up a kingdom at Tilimsan (Tlemcen), ...
Egyptian composer and musician, who changed the direction of modern Arabic music by incorporating European and Latin American instruments, melodies, and dance rhythms into his work.
king of Saudi Arabia from 2005. As crown prince (1982-2005), he had served as the country's de facto ruler following the 1995 stroke of his half brother King Fahd (reigned 1982-2005).
leader of a rebellion against the Umayyad ruling dynasty of the Islamic empire, and the most prominent representative of the second generation of Muslim families in Mecca, who resented the Umayyad assumption of caliphal authority.
governor of Upper (southern) Egypt for the Muslim caliphate during the reign of 'Uthman (644-656) and the cofounder, with the future caliph Mu'awiyah I, of the first Muslim navy, which seized Cyprus (647-649), Rhodes, and Cos (Dodecanese Islands) and defeated ...
estuary (khawr) separating Kuwait and Iraq, probably a drowned river mouth of the Shatt (stream) al-Arab, whose mouth is now farther north and forms the southeastern part of the border between Iraq and Iran. It extends into Iraqi territory in ...
sultan of Morocco (1822-59) who was the 24th ruler of the 'Alawi dynasty. His reign was marked by both peaceful and hostile contacts with European powers, particularly France.
