(Hebrew: "Sons of the Covenant"), oldest and largest Jewish service organization in the world, with men's lodges, women's chapters, and youth chapters in countries all over the world.
U.S. variable-wing strategic bomber that entered service in 1986 as a successor to the B-52 Stratofortress. The B-1 was designed to penetrate radar-guided air defenses by flying at low levels. It was built in two versions by Rockwell International. The ...
U.S. heavy bomber used during World War II. The B-17 was designed by the Boeing Aircraft Company to specifications written in 1934. A prototype flew in 1935, and the craft was in small-scale production in 1937. The seventh substantial variation ...
long-range heavy bomber used during World War II by the U.S. and British air forces; 19,000 of them were produced, more than any other U.S. aircraft in the war. The B-24 first flew in 1939 and was operational in the ...
U.S. heavy bomber used in World War II. It was the type of airplane that was used to firebomb Tokyo and other Japanese cities and that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, ...
U.S. long-range heavy bomber, designed in 1948 and first flown in 1952. Though originally intended to be an atomic-bomb carrier capable of reaching the Soviet Union, it proved adaptable to a number of missions, and some B-52s were thus expected ...
cheaply produced, formulaic film initially intended to serve as the second feature on a double bill. During the 1930s and '40s, a period often called the Golden Age of Hollywood, B-films were usually paired with bigger-budget, more prestigious A-pictures; but ...
in ancient Egyptian religion, with ka and akh, a principal aspect of the soul; the ba appears in bird form, thus expressing the mobility of the soul after death. Originally written with the sign of the jabiru bird, and thought ...
politician who in 1937 became the first Burmese premier under British rule; he later was head of state in the pro-Japanese government during World War II (August 1943-May 1945).
in Judaism, title bestowed upon men who reputedly worked wonders and effected cures through secret knowledge of the ineffable names of God. Benjamin ben Zerah (11th century) was one of several Jewish poets to employ the mystical names of God ...
charismatic founder (c. 1750) of Hasidism, a Jewish spiritual movement characterized by mysticism and opposition to secular studies and Jewish rationalism. He aroused controversy by mixing with ordinary people, renouncing mortification of the flesh, and insisting on the holiness of ...
town, east-central Iraq. Located on the Diyala River and on a road and a rail line between Baghdad and Iran, it is a regional trade centre for agricultural produce and livestock. The name comes from the Aramaic Baya 'quba, meaning ...
Arab political party advocating the formation of a single Arab socialist nation. It has branches in many Middle Eastern countries and was the ruling party in Syria from 1963 and in Iraq from 1968 to 2003.
god worshiped in many ancient Middle Eastern communities, especially among the Canaanites, who apparently considered him a fertility deity and one of the most important gods in the pantheon. As a Semitic common noun baal (Hebrew ba'al) meant "owner" or ...
(from West Semitic ba'alat, "lady"), often used as a synonym for the special goddess of a region; also, the chief deity of Byblos. Very little is known of Baalat, "the Lady [of Byblos]," but, because of the close ties between ...
municipality, Antwerp province, Belgium, enclave (2.7 sq mi [7 sq km]) in Noord-Brabant province, southern Netherlands, 4 mi (6 km) north of the Belgian border. It has been a separate commune since 1479, when the town of Baarle was divided ...
strait between Arabia (northeast) and Africa (southwest) that connects the Red Sea (northwest) with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean (southeast). The strait is 20 miles (32 km) wide and is divided into two channels by Perim Island; ...
merchant's son whose claim to be the Bab (Gateway) to the hidden imam (the perfect embodiment of Islamic faith) gave rise to the Babi religion and made him one of the three central figures of the Baha'i faith.
in Russian folklore, an ogress who steals, cooks, and eats her victims, usually children. A guardian of the fountains of the water of life, she lives with two or three sisters (all known as Baba-Yaga) in a forest hut which ...
city, west central Ecuador, on the southern shore of the Rio Babahoyo, a major branch of the Rio Guayas. A processing and trade centre for the surrounding agricultural region, the city handles rice, sugarcane, fruits, balsa wood, and tagua nuts ...
leader of the Iranian Khorram-dinan, a religious sect that arose following the execution of Abu Muslim, who had rebelled against the 'Abbasid caliphate. Denying that Abu Muslim was dead, the sect predicted that he would return to spread justice throughout ...
poet and scholar known for his illuminating study of Yoruba ijala (a form of oral poetry) and his translations of numerous folk tales. He devoted much of his career to collecting and preserving the oral traditions of his homeland.
island and island group in the Banda Sea, Maluku propinsi (province), Indonesia. Located between Timor to the west and the Tanimbar Islands to the east, the group consists of Babar, the largest island, surrounded by the five islets of Wetan, ...
(Orbignya martiana, O. oleifera, or O. speciosa), tall palm tree with feathery leaves that grows wild in tropical northeastern Brazil. The kernels of its hard-shelled nuts are the source of babassu oil, similar in properties and uses to coconut oil ...
any of several tin- or lead-based alloys used as bearing material for axles and crankshafts, based on the tin alloy invented in 1839 by Isaac Babbitt for use in steam engines. Modern babbitts provide a low-friction lining for bearing shells ...
American composer and theorist known as a leading proponent of total serialism-i.e., musical composition based on prior arrangements not only of all 12 pitches of the chromatic scale (as in 12-tone music) but also of dynamics, duration, timbre (tone colour), ...
any of more than 250 Old World songbirds of the family Timaliidae (order Passeriformes); they are treated by many authorities as a subfamily of the Muscicapidae (q.v.). Noted for their continual and rapid vocalizations, babblers are sometimes called babbling thrushes ...
astronomer who with his son Horace Welcome Babcock invented (1951) the solar magnetograph, an instrument allowing detailed observation of the Sun's magnetic field. With their magnetograph the Babcocks demonstrated the existence of the Sun's general field and discovered magnetically variable ...
American astronomer who with his father, Harold Delos Babcock, invented the solar magnetograph, an instrument allowing detailed observation of the Sun's magnetic field.
agricultural research chemist, often called the father of scientific dairying chiefly because of his development of the Babcock test, a simple method of measuring the butterfat content of milk. Introduced in 1890, the test discouraged milk adulteration, stimulated improvement of ...
Soviet short-story writer noted for his war stories and Odessa tales. He was considered an innovator in the early Soviet period and enjoyed a brilliant reputation in the early 1930s.
in biblical literature, structure built in the land of Shinar (Babylonia) some time after the Deluge. The story of its construction, given in Genesis 11:1-9, appears to be an attempt to explain the existence of diverse human languages. According to ...
largest of the Caroline Islands and largest island within Palau (a sovereign state since 1994). It has an area of 143 square miles (370 square km) and lies in the western Pacific Ocean, 550 miles (885 km) east of the ...
Austrian ruling house in the 10th-13th century. Leopold I of Babenberg became margrave of Austria in 976. The Babenbergs' power was modest, however, until the 12th century, when they came to dominate the Austrian nobility. With the death of Duke ...
district, administrative and historic county of Suffolk, England. Babergh extends across the southern part of Suffolk. Babergh includes much of the area made familiar by the paintings of John Constable (1776-1837), who was born within the district at East Bergholt ...
any of a group of tick-borne diseases of animals caused by species of Babesia, protozoans that destroy red blood cells and thereby cause anemia. Cattle tick fever, from B. bigemina, occurs in cattle, buffalo, and zebu. Other Babesia species attack ...
early political journalist and agitator in Revolutionary France whose tactical strategies provided a model for left-wing movements of the 19th century and who was called Gracchus for the resemblance of his proposed agrarian reforms to those of the 2nd-century-BC Roman ...
highest mountain (5,659 feet [1,725 m] at Diablok) peak in the Beskid Mountains, on the Slovakia-Poland border and one of the highest peaks in Poland. It is 12 miles (19 km) north-northeast of Namestovo, Slovakia, and 12 miles (19 km) ...
English conspirator, a leader of the unsuccessful "Babington Plot" to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I and install Elizabeth's prisoner, the Roman Catholic Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, on the English throne.
