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Batumi ... bay
Batumi
city and capital of Ajaria (Adzhariya), Georgia, on a gulf of the Black Sea about 9.5 miles (15 km) north of the Turkish frontier. The city's name comes from the location of its first settlement, on the left bank of ...
Baty, Gaston
French playwright and producer who exerted a notable influence on world theatre during the 1920s and '30s.
Batyushkov, Konstantin Nikolayevich
Russian elegiac poet whose sensual and melodious verses were said to have influenced the great Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin.
Batz, Jean, baron de
royalist conspirator during the French Revolution.
Bau
in Mesopotamian religion, city goddess of Urukug in the Lagash region of Sumer and, under the name Nininsina, the Queen of Isin, city goddess of Isin, south of Nippur. In Nippur she was called Ninnibru, Queen of Nippur.
Bauchau, Henry
Belgian novelist, poet, and playwright who was also a practicing psychoanalyst. Like his contemporary Dominique Rolin but unusually for a Belgian writer, Bauchau took his inspiration from psychoanalysis.
Bauchi
town, capital of Bauchi state and traditional emirate, northeastern Nigeria. Bauchi town lies on the railroad from Maiduguri to Kafanchan (where it joins the line to Port Harcourt) and has road connections to Jos, Kano, and Maiduguri and to such ...
Bauchi
state, northeastern Nigeria. Before 1976 it was a province in former North-Eastern state. Bauchi is bounded by the states of Kano on the northwest; Kaduna on the west; Plateau, Taraba, and Adamawa on the south; and Borno and Yobe on ...
Baudelaire, Charles
French poet, translator, and literary and art critic whose reputation rests primarily on Les Fleurs du mal (1857; The Flowers of Evil), which was perhaps the most important and influential poetry collection published in ...
Baudissin, Wolf Heinrich, Graf von
German diplomat and man of letters who with Dorothea Tieck was responsible for many translations of William Shakespeare and thus contributed to the development of German Romanticism.
Baudot, Jean-Maurice-Emile
engineer who, in 1874, received a patent on a telegraph code that by the mid-20th century had supplanted Morse Code as the most commonly used telegraphic alphabet.
Baudouin de Courtenay, Jan Niecislaw
linguist who regarded language sounds as structural entities, rather than mere physical phenomena, and thus anticipated the modern linguistic concern with language structure. His long teaching career in eastern European universities began in 1871 and included professorships at the universities ...
Baudouin I
king of the Belgians from 1951 to 1993, who helped restore confidence in the monarchy after the stormy reign of King Leopold III.
Bauer, Gustav
German statesman, chancellor of the Weimar Republic (1919-20).
Bauer, Harold
British-born American pianist who introduced to the United States works by Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Cesar Franck. His playing combined traits of both 19th-century Romanticism and 20th-century restraint and was noted for its sensitivity, free approach to the printed ...
Bauer, Otto
theoretician of the Austrian Social Democratic Party and statesman, who proposed that the nationalities problem of the Austro-Hungarian Empire be solved by the creation of nation-states and who, after World War I, became one of the principal advocates of Austrian ...
Bauer, Sebastian Wilhelm Valentin
German pioneer inventor and builder of submarines.
Bauernfeld, Eduard von
Austrian dramatist who dominated the Vienna Burgtheater for 50 years with his politically oriented drawing room comedies.
Baugh, Sammy
first outstanding quarterback in the history of American professional gridiron football, who led the National Football League (NFL) in forward passing in 6 of his 16 seasons (1937-52) with the Washington Redskins. On two occasions (October 31, 1943, and November ...
Bauhaus
school of design, architecture, and applied arts that existed in Germany from 1919 to 1933. It was based in Weimar until 1925, Dessau through 1932, and Berlin in its final months. The Bauhaus was founded by the architect Walter Gropius, ...
Bauhin, Gaspard
Swiss physician, anatomist, and botanist who introduced a scientific binomial system of classification to both anatomy and botany.
Baul
member of an order of religious singers of Bengal known for their unconventional behaviour and for the freedom and spontaneity of their mystical verse. Their membership consists both of Hindus (primarily Vaisnavites, or followers of Lord Vishnu) and Muslims (generally ...
Baule
an African people inhabiting Cote d'Ivoire between the Comoe and Bandama rivers. The Baule are an Akan group, speaking a Tano language of the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo language family.
Baum, L. Frank
American writer known for his series of books for children about the imaginary land of Oz.
Baum, Vicki
Austrian-born American novelist whose Menschen im Hotel (1929; "People at the Hotel"; Eng. trans. Grand Hotel) became a best-seller and was adapted as a successful play (1930), an Academy Award-winning film (1932), a film musical (1945; renamed Weekend at the ...
Baumann Peak
mountain in southwestern Togo, near the border with Ghana. An extreme western outlier of the Atacora Chain of adjacent Benin, it rises to 3,235 feet (986 m) and is the highest point in Togo. It was named for Oskar Baumann ...
Baumbach, Rudolf
German writer of popular student drinking songs and of narrative verse.
Baumes Laws
several statutes of the criminal code of New York state, U.S., enacted on July 1, 1926-most notably, one requiring mandatory life imprisonment for persons convicted of a fourth felony. A "three-time loser" was thus one who had thrice been convicted ...
Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb
German philosopher and educator who coined the term aesthetics and established this discipline as a distinct field of philosophical inquiry.
Baumgartner, Bruce
American wrestler who won four Olympic medals and was one of the most successful American superheavyweights of all time.
Baunsgaard, Hilmar
Denmark's leading nonsocialist politician during the 1960s and '70s. He served as prime minister of a coalition government from 1968 until 1971.
Baur, Ferdinand Christian
German theologian and scholar who initiated the Protestant Tubingen school of biblical criticism and who has been called the father of modern studies in church history.
Bauria
extinct genus of advanced reptiles found as fossils in South African rocks of the Early Triassic Period (245 to 240 million years ago). The skull of Bauria had several mammallike features. A secondary palate separates air and food passages. The ...
Bauru
city, central Sao Paulo estado (state), Brazil, lying near the Batalha River at 1,640 feet (500 metres) above sea level. Formerly known as Divino Espirito da Fortaleza, it was given town status in 1887 and was made ...
Bauta
city, northwestern La Habana provincia, west-central Cuba. It is a commercial and manufacturing centre for the surrounding agricultural lands, known primarily for their tobacco and sugarcane, although pineapples and various other fruits and vegetables also are grown. The city contains ...
Bautzen
city, Saxony Land (state), eastern Germany. It lies in the Oberlausitz (Upper Lusatia) region, on a granite elevation above the Spree River. Bautzen was originally the Slavic settlement of Budissin (Budysin), and the Peace of Bautzen was ...
bauxite
rock largely composed of a mixture of hydrous aluminum oxides. Bauxite is the principal ore of aluminum.
Bavand Dynasty
(665-1349), Iranian dynasty that ruled Tabaristan in what is now northern Iran.
Bavaria
largest Land (state) of Germany. It comprises the entire southeast portion of Germany. Bavaria is bounded on the west by the Lander of Baden-Wurttemberg and Hesse, on the north by the Lander of Thuringia and Saxony, on the east by ...
Bavarian Alps
northeastern segment of the Central Alps along the German-Austrian border. The mountains extend east-northeastward for 70 miles (110 km) from the Lechtaler Alps to the bend of the Inn River near Kufstein, Austria. Zugspitze (q.v.; 9,718 feet [2,962 m]) is ...
Bavarian cream
custard enriched with whipped cream and solidified with gelatin. Bavarian creams can be flavoured with chocolate, coffee, fruits, and the like and are usually molded in fancy shapes and garnished with fruits and sweet sauces. Its country of origin is ...
Bavarian Forest
mountain region in east-central Bavaria Land (state), southeastern Germany. The Bavarian Forest occupies the highlands between the Danube River valley and the Bohemian Forest along Bavaria's eastern frontier with the Czech Republic. Located largely in the Regierungsbezirk (administrative district) of ...
Bavarian State Picture Galleries
in Munich, museum composed of several collections, the major ones being the Neue Pinakothek, the Alte Pinakothek, and the Schack Gallery. It also embraces, however, the State Gallery of Modern Art, the Olaf Gulbransson Museum in Kurpark, the State Gallery ...
Bavarian Succession, War of the
(1778-79), conflict in which Frederick II the Great of Prussia blocked an attempt by Joseph II of Austria to acquire Bavaria.
bawu
Chinese single free-reed wind instrument, an aerophone particularly popular in southwestern China. It is played in a manner similar to that of playing the flute except that all the air passes through a single, pointed reed at the mouth hole. ...
Bax, Sir Arnold
British composer whose work is representative of the neoromantic trend in music that occurred between World Wars I and II.
Baxter, Andrew
Scottish metaphysical rationalist who maintained the essential distinction between matter and spirit, resisting the more advanced British epistemology of his century.
Baxter, George
English engraver and printer who invented a process (patented 1835) of colour printing that made reproductions of paintings available on a mass scale.
Baxter, James K
poet whose mastery of versification and striking imagery made him a central figure among New Zealand writers after World War II.
Baxter, Richard
Puritan minister who influenced 17th-century English Protestantism. Known as a peacemaker who sought unity among the clashing Protestant denominations, he was the centre of nearly every major controversy in England in his fractious age.
bay
in architecture, any division of a building between vertical lines or planes, especially the entire space included between two adjacent supports; thus, the space between two columns, or pilasters, or from pier to pier in a church, including that part ...
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