board game, sometimes called the national game of India. Four players in opposing partnerships of two attempt to move pieces around a cross-shaped track. Moves are determined by throws of cowrie shells or dice. Each player has four pieces, which ...
Russian pianist known for his performances of the music of Frederic Chopin. Pachmann studied in Vienna and made his debut in 1869 in Odessa. Though his early concerts were successful, he was extremely self-critical and withdrew for long periods of ...
capital city, Hidalgo estado ("state"), east-central Mexico. It was one of the first settlements in New Spain and lies in a rich mining district in the Sierra Madre Oriental, 7,959 feet (2,426 m) above sea level. Its first silver mine ...
genus of large and unusual dinosaurs found as fossils in deposits of North America dating to the Late Cretaceous Epoch (97.5 to 66.4 million years ago). Pachycephalosaurus,which grew to be about 5 m (16 feet) long, was a biped with ...
region, western North America, possessing two unifying geologic and geographic properties-the Pacific Ocean, which constitutes a natural western border, and the coastal mountain ranges that form the eastern border of the region. The most commonly accepted definition of the Pacific ...
organization founded in 1947 by the governments of Australia, France, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Great Britain, and the United States to advise them on economic, social, and health matters affecting the South Pacific island territories they administered. It is the ...
wilderness footpath and equestrian trail in the western United States. It extends from north to southeast some 2,650 miles (4,265 km), from the border of Canada near Castle Peak, northern Washington, to the border of Mexico near Campo, California. The ...
resort and residential city, Monterey county, western California, U.S. It lies along Monterey Bay and adjoins the city of Monterey. Founded in 1875 by Methodists as a summer religious retreat, the city remains a centre for conferences of religious and ...
geographic region of the Pacific Ocean. The term is commonly accepted as including all of those islands in the Pacific that are collectively referred to as Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, also sometimes known as Oceania. This usage rules out the ...
organization established in 1971 to provide a setting for heads of government to discuss common issues and problems facing the independent and self-governing states of the South Pacific. Headquartered in Suva, Fiji, the Forum includes Australia, the Cook Islands, the ...
former United Nations strategic-area trusteeship that was administered by the United States from 1947 to 1986. The territory consisted of more than 2,000 islands scattered over about 3,000,000 square miles (7,770,000 square km) of the tropical western Pacific Ocean, north ...
one of the two leagues of professional baseball teams in Japan (the other being the Central League). The Pacific League was founded in 1950. It has six teams, some of whose names and hometown designations have changed over the years. ...
series of mountain ranges that stretches along the Pacific coast of North America from northern British Columbia (Canada) to northwestern Mexico. They run for some 4,500 miles (7,250 kilometres) in the United States and extend northward into Canada for another ...
body of saltwater extending from the Antarctic region in the south to the Arctic in the north and lying between the continents of Asia and Australia on the west and North and South America on the east.
(1862, 1864), two measures that provided federal subsidies in land and loans for the construction of a transcontinental railroad across the United States.
(1872-73), charges of corruption against Canadian prime minister John Macdonald in awarding the contract for a transcontinental railroad; the incident resulted in the downfall of Macdonald's Conservative administration.
private coeducational institution of higher education in Stockton, California, U.S. The university includes the College of the Pacific (arts and sciences) and schools of education, music, business, engineering and computer science, international studies, pharmacy and health sciences, and graduate studies. ...
(1879-83), conflict involving Chile, Bolivia, and Peru, which resulted in Chilean annexation of valuable disputed territory on the Pacific coast. It grew out of a dispute between Chile and Bolivia over control of a part of the Atacama Desert that ...
West Coast American collegiate athletic association that grew out of several earlier versions, the first of which, the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC), was founded in 1915. The original members were the University of California (Berkeley), the University of Washington, the ...
the opposition to war and violence as a means of settling disputes. Pacifism may entail the belief that the waging of war by a state and the participation in war by an individual are absolutely wrong, under any circumstances.
floating mass of ice formed from seawater in the Earth's polar regions. Pack ice expands during winter to cover about 5 percent of the northern oceans and 8 percent of the southern oceans. When melting occurs in spring and summer, ...
American electrical engineer and entrepreneur who cofounded the Hewlett-Packard Company, a manufacturer of computers, computer printers, and analytic and measuring equipment.
in mathematics, a type of problem in combinatorial geometry that involves placement of figures of a given size or shape within another given figure-with greatest economy or subject to some other restriction. The problem of placement of a given number ...
king of Parthia (reigned AD 78-c. 115/116). Little is known of his reign, which seems to have been filled with rebellions and the rule of counterkings (Artabanus IV, Osroes, and Vologases II).
kotamadya (municipality) and kabupaten (regency), capital of Sumatera Barat provinsi ("province"), Indonesia. Padang is the chief port on Sumatra's western coast and is now the main city of the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra. It was the site of Dutch ...
region near the western coast of the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. It is part of the Barisan Mountains of Sumatera Barat provinsi ("province"). The highest among several volcanoes in the highlands is Mount Merapi (9,485 feet [2,891 m]). A favourite ...
any of several species of tropical trees of the genus Pterocarpus. Padauks of the Indo-Malaysia region have a tendency to be larger than related species elsewhere. They are highly prized as shade trees and for their red or reddish brown ...
area in the borough of Westminster, London. Formerly (until 1965) a metropolitan borough, it is located west of St. Marylebone and north of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. Its southern section includes the neighbourhood of Bayswater, and in its northern ...
small-scale form of tennis similar to a British shipboard game of the 1890s. Frank P. Beal, a New York City official, introduced paddle tennis on New York playgrounds in the early 1920s. He had invented it as a child in ...
method of ship propulsion that was once widely employed but is now almost entirely superseded by the screw propeller. Early experiments with steam-driven paddles acting as oars led several inventors, including Robert Fulton, to mount the paddles in a wheel ...
either of two species of archaic freshwater fish with a paddle-like snout, wide mouth, smooth skin, and cartilaginous skeleton. A relative of the sturgeon, the paddlefish is of the family Polyodontidae and the order Acipenseriformes. It feeds with mouth gaping ...
American sprinter, world-record holder for the 100-metre dash (1921-30) and the 200-metre dash (1921-26). He also held the world record for the 100-yard dash (1921, 1924-26) and the 220-yard dash (1921-26). In addition, he was a member of a world-record-holding ...
small, level, flooded field used to cultivate rice in southern and eastern Asia. Wet-rice cultivation is the most prevalent method of farming in the Far East, where it utilizes a small fraction of the total land yet feeds the majority ...
city, North Rhine-Westphalia Land (state), central Germany. It lies on the Pader River, a small affluent of the Lippe formed from rain seepage on the slope of the Egge Mountains (Eggegebirge) and emerging from below the cathedral ...
aristocratic Spanish military leader of the Castilian Comunidades (Comuneros) in their unsuccessful revolt (1520-21) against the government of the Habsburg emperor Charles V (King Charles I of Spain).
