the first asylum for the mentally ill in England. It is currently located in Beckenham, Kent. The word bedlam came to be used generically for all psychiatric hospitals and sometimes is used colloquially for an uproar.
town, Wansbeck district, administrative and historic county of Northumberland, England, adjacent to the North Sea port of Blyth. Its population grew rapidly with the expansion of coal mining north of the Blyth River in the 19th century. Ironworks flourished until ...
breed of dog developed in the 1800s in Northumberland, England, and named for Bedlingtonshire, a mining district in the area. The breed, which established itself locally as a fighting dog and a courageous hunter of badgers and other vermin, was ...
German physicist who, along with Karl Alex Muller (q.v.), was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize for Physics for their joint discovery of superconductivity in certain substances at temperatures higher than had previously been thought attainable.
an ulceration of skin and underlying tissue caused by pressure that limits the blood supply to the affected area. As the name indicates, bedsores are a particular affliction for persons who have been bedridden for a long time. The interference ...
top cover of a bed, put on for tidiness or display rather than warmth. Use of a bedspread is an extremely ancient custom, referred to in the earliest written sources, for example, the Bible: "I have decked my bed with ...
any plant from the genus Galium of the madder family (Rubiaceae), containing about 300 species of low perennial herbs found in damp woods and swamps and along stream banks and shores throughout the world. The finely toothed, often needle-shaped leaves ...
town, Nuneaton and Bedworth borough, administrative and historic county of Warwickshire, England. Coal mining, from two local pits, was important until it ceased at the end of the 20th century. Today the economy pivots on light engineering and the manufacturing ...
city, Slaskie wojewodztwo (province), southern Poland, just northeast of Katowice, near the Czarna Przemsza River. Located on the trade route between Wroclaw and Krakow, and one of the oldest towns in the Upper Silesia coal-mining region, it ...
any member of some 20,000 species of insects of the superfamily Apoidea (order Hymenoptera). In addition to the familiar honeybee (Apis) and bumblebee (Bombus [see ] and Psithyrus), thousands of more wasplike and flylike bees are included in the Apoidea. ...
any insect of the family Bombyliidae (order Diptera). Many resemble bees, and most have long proboscises (feeding organs) that are used to obtain nectar from flowers. Their metallic brown, black, or yellow colour is attributable to a covering of dense ...
English-Australian pop-rock band that embodied the disco era of the late 1970s. In becoming one of the best-selling recording acts of all time, the Bee Gees (short for the Brothers Gibb) adapted to changing musical styles while maintaining the high ...
any of about 25 species of brightly coloured birds of the family Meropidea (order Coraciiformes). Found throughout tropical and subtropical Eurasia, Africa, and Australasia (one species, Merops apiaster, occasionally reaches the British Isles), bee-eaters range in length from 15 to ...
American biologist, explorer, and writer on natural history who combined careful biological research with a rare literary skill. He was the coinventor of the bathysphere.
any of several different types of trees, especially about 10 species of deciduous ornamental and timber trees constituting the genus Fagus in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate and subtropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere. About 40 species of superficially ...
conductor and impresario who founded and led several major orchestras and used his personal fortune for the improvement of orchestral and operatic performances in England.
American educator and author who popularized and shaped a conservative ideological movement to both elevate and entrench woman's place in the domestic sphere of American culture.
town, northeastern Victoria, Australia, at the foot of the Victorian Alps. The original settlement (c. 1839), called Mayday Hills, was renamed for a place in England. During the mid-19th century it was a centre of the Ovens Valley goldfields; it ...
adventurer, trader, explorer, and as British consul (1849-54) for the Bights of Benin and Biafra (the coastal area from present-day Benin to Cameroon), a forerunner of British imperial expansion in West Africa, both in his personal enthusiasm and in his ...
flesh of mature cattle, as distinguished from veal, the flesh of calves. The best beef is obtained from early maturing, special beef breeds. High-quality beef has firm, velvety, fine-grained lean, bright red in colour and well-marbled. The fat is smooth, ...
primitive type of residence designed by enlarging a simple stone hemisphere, constructed out of individual blocks, to provide greater height at the centre; the form resembles a straw beehive, hence, its name. The beehive house is typical of Celtic dwellings ...
artists' settlement on the outskirts of the Montparnasse section of Paris, which in the early 20th century was the centre of much avant-garde activity. The Beehive housed the ramshackle living quarters and studios of many painters and sculptors, among them ...
care and management of colonies of honeybees. They are kept for their honey and other products or their services as pollinators of fruit and vegetable blossoms or as a hobby. The practice is widespread: honeybees are kept in large cities ...
in the Bible, the prince of the devils. In the Old Testament, in the form Baalzebub, it is the name given to the god of the Philistine city of Ekron (II Kings 1:1-18). Neither name is found elsewhere in the ...
alcoholic beverage produced by extracting raw materials with water, boiling (usually with hops), and fermenting. In some countries, beer is defined by law-as in Germany, where the standard ingredients, besides water, are malt (kiln-dried germinated barley), hops, and yeast.
Adolf Hitler's attempt to start an insurrection in Germany against the Weimar Republic on Nov. 8-9, 1923. Hitler and his small Nazi Party associated themselves with General Erich Ludendorff, a right-wing German military leader of World War I. Forcing their ...
German banker and amateur astronomer who (with Johann Heinrich von Madler) constructed the most complete map of the Moon of his time, Mappa Selenographica (1836). The first lunar map to be divided into quadrants, it contained a detailed representation of ...
English caricaturist, writer, dandy, and wit whose sophisticated drawings and parodies were unique in capturing, usually without malice, whatever was pretentious, affected, or absurd in his famous and fashionable contemporaries. He was called by G.B. Shaw "the incomparable Max."
urban area, Broxtowe borough, administrative and historic county of Nottinghamshire, England. The community developed during the 19th century as a result of its proximity to the coal measures of western Nottinghamshire and the railways they attracted, in addition to the ...
commercially useful animal wax secreted by the worker bee to make the cell walls of the honeycomb. Beeswax ranges from yellow to almost black in colour, depending on such factors as the age and diet of the bees, and it ...
cultivated form of the plant Beta vulgaris of the goosefoot family (Chenopodiaceae), one of the most important vegetables. Four distinct types are cultivated for four different purposes: (1) the garden beet, or beetroot, or table beet, as a garden vegetable; ...
(order Coleoptera), any of at least 250,000 species of insects (the largest order in the animal kingdom), principally characterized by their special forewings, which are modified into hardened wing covers (elytra) that cover a second pair of functional wings. The ...
in Italian tradition, the old woman who fills children's stockings with gifts on Epiphany (Twelfth Night). Too busy to see the Three Wise Men on their journey to adore the Saviour, she said she would see them on their return. ...
town of the South Coast region, New South Wales, Australia, where the Bemboka and Brogo rivers unite to form the short Bega River. Settled in 1839 and gazetted a town in 1851, its name is derived from an Aboriginal word ...
Zionist leader who was prime minister of Israel from 1977 to 1983. Begin was the co-recipient, with Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat, of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Peace for their achievement of a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt that ...
