city, Sakhalin oblast (province), far-eastern Russia, on the western coast of Sakhalin Island. It was founded in 1881 as a centre for penal settlements. In 1890 the writer Anton Chekhov lived there while gathering material about convict life for his ...
commander in chief of the Russian Army for two months in World War I and a military and political leader of the White (anti-Bolshevik) forces in the Russian Civil War that followed the Russian Revolution of October 1917.
city, Tula oblast (province), western Russia, on the Oka River, 40 miles (65 km) northwest of Tula city. Aleksin, first documented in 1236, was at first a fortress, then a river port. The decline of river trade adversely affected the ...
a Germanic people first mentioned in connection with the Roman attack on them in AD 213. In the following decades, their pressure on the Roman provinces became severe; they occupied the Agri Decumates c. 260, and late in the 5th ...
French mathematician, philosopher, and writer, who achieved fame as a mathematician and scientist before acquiring a considerable reputation as a contributor to and editor of the famous Encyclopedie.
journalist, novelist, and playwright whose novel O Guarani (1857; "The Guarani Indian") initiated the vogue of the Brazilian Indianista novel (romantic tales of indigenous life incorporating vocabulary of Amerindian origin referring to flora, fauna, and tribal customs). O Guarani, which ...
town, Orne departement, Basse-Normandie region, northwestern France. Alencon lies at the juncture of the Sarthe and Briante rivers, in the centre of a plain ringed by wooded hills. It is known for its tulle ...
needle lace made in the French city of Alencon, one of the centres designated by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister of finance under Louis XIV, for aid in his effort to make French laces financially and artistically competitive with imported laces. Venetian ...
historical province of south-central Portugal. It lies southeast of the Tagus (Tejo) River and is bounded on the east by the Spanish frontier and on the southwest by the Atlantic Ocean. It is an almost featureless tableland of less than ...
(Hebrew: "it is our duty"), the opening word of an extremely old Jewish prayer, which has been recited at the end of the three periods of daily prayer since the European Middle Ages. The first section of the 'alenu is ...
principal city of northern Syria, and the second largest city of the country (after Damascus). It is situated in the northwestern part of Syria at a point about 30 miles (48 km) south of the Turkish border. Aleppo is located ...
(species Fitzroya cupressoides), coniferous tree that is the only species of the genus Fitzroya, of the cypress family (Cupressaceae), native to southern Chile and southern Argentina. In the wild it grows to become one of the oldest and largest trees ...
town, Gard departement, Languedoc-Roussillon region, southeastern France. It lies along a bend of the Gardon d'Ales River, at the foot of the Cevennes mountains, north-northwest of Nimes. The town's name meant "industry" in the ...
ancient town situated on Mont Auxois, above the present-day village of Alise-Sainte-Reine in the departement of Cote d'Or, France, famous as the site of the siege of Vercingetorix by Julius Caesar in 52 BC that was decisive in his conquest ...
Chilean president (1920-25, 1932-38) who early defended workers' groups, especially the nitrate miners of the north, but later became more conservative.
fishing port, western Norway, at the mouth of Stor Fjord. The city is set on two islands, Norvoya and Aspoy, which are connected by bridges. It dates from the 9th century when Rollo (Rolf) the Ganger built a castle nearby, ...
the Alps' largest and longest glacier, lying in the Bernese Alps of south-central Switzerland. Covering an area of 66 square miles (171 square km), it is divided into the Great Aletsch (main) and the Middle and Upper Aletsch (branches). The ...
a native of the Aleutian Islands and western portion of the Alaska Peninsula of northwest North America. Aleuts speak two mutually intelligible dialects and are closely related to the Eskimo in language and culture. The earliest people, the Paleo-Aleuts, arrived ...
one of two branches of the Eskimo-Aleut languages (q.v.). Two mutually intelligible dialects survive, Eastern Aleut and Atkan Aleut. A third dialect, Attu, now extinct in Alaska, survives on Bering Island (one of the Komandor Islands) in a creolized form ...
submarine depression forming the floor of the southwestern section of the Bering Sea in the Pacific Ocean. On the west it rises to meet Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula; on the northeast, the continental shelf of North America off southwestern ...
chain of small islands that separate the Bering Sea (north) from the main portion of the Pacific Ocean (south) and extend in an arc southwest, then northwest, for about 1,100 miles (1,800 km) from the tip of the Alaska Peninsula ...
segment of the Pacific mountain system, western North America. The range extends southwestward for about 600 miles (1,000 km) from the west end of the Alaska Range to the head of Cook Inlet of the Gulf of Alaska, Alaska, U.S. ...
(Pomolobus, or Alosa,pseudoharengus), important North American food fish of the herring family, Clupeidae. Deeper-bodied than the true herring, the alewife has a pronounced saw-edge on the underside; it grows to about 30 cm (1 foot). Except for members of ...
Byzantine emperor from May 12, 912, third son of the emperor Basil I, who founded the Macedonian dynasty and caused the renewal of warfare between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire.
Greek poet of Pleuron, in Aetolia. He was appointed by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, Macedonian king of Egypt, to arrange and catalog the tragedies in the library at Alexandria. Nothing remains of his own tragic writing except the title of one ...
group of about 1,100 islands (actually the tops of a submerged section of the Coast Ranges) off the coast of southeastern Alaska, U.S. Named by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1867 to honour Alexander II, tsar of Russia, ...
city, Tallapoosa county, east-central Alabama, U.S., 75 miles (120 km) southeast of Birmingham. Early settlement began in 1836, and gold was discovered in the area in the early 1840s. It was known as Youngsville until 1873, when it was named ...
10th king of ancient Macedonia, who succeeded his father, Amyntas I, about 500 BC. More than a decade earlier, Macedonia had become a vassal state of Persia; and in 480 Alexander was obliged to accompany Xerxes I in a campaign ...
emperor of Russia (1801-25), who alternately fought and befriended Napoleon I during the Napoleonic Wars but who ultimately (1813-15) helped form the coalition that defeated the emperor of the French. He took part in the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), drove ...
king of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (1921-29) and of Yugoslavia (1929-34), who struggled to create a united state out of his politically and ethnically divided collection of nations.
fifth pope after St. Peter and successor to St. Evaristus. His 10-year rule (105-115 or 109-119) is attested by Pope St. Eusebius (309/310). Some Catholic writers ascribe to him the introduction of holy water and the custom of mixing sacramental ...
emperor of Russia (1855-81). His liberal education and distress at the outcome of the Crimean War, which had demonstrated Russia's backwardness, inspired him toward a great program of domestic reforms, the most important being the emancipation (1861) of the serfs. ...
emperor of Russia from 1881 to 1894, opponent of representative government, and supporter of Russian nationalism. He adopted programs, based on the concepts of Orthodoxy, autocracy, and narodnost (a belief in the Russian people), that included the Russification of national ...
king of Scotland from 1249 to 1286, the last major ruler of the dynasty of kings descended from Malcolm III Canmore (reigned 1058-93), who consolidated royal power in Scotland. Alexander left his kingdom independent, united, and prosperous, and his reign ...
