famous golden throne stolen from India by the Persians in 1739. Thereafter lost, it (and its reproductions) remained the symbol of the Persian, or Iranian, monarchy.
(Sabella), any of a genus of segmented marine worms of the class Polychaeta (phylum Annelida). This type of fanworm lives in a tube about 30 to 40 centimetres (12 to 16 inches) long that is open at one end and ...
English author who satirized the intellectual tendencies of his day in novels in which conversation predominates over character or plot. His best verse is interspersed in his novels.
hill area in the county of Derbyshire, England, forming the southern end of the Pennines, the upland "spine" of England. The northern half is dominated by high gritstone moorlands, rising to Kinder Scout 2,088 ft (636 m). The limestone central ...
fertile region of northeast central Queensland, Australia, comprising rolling scrub- and grass-covered country studded with peaks of volcanic rock. Bounded by the Rivers Belyando (west) and Nogoa (east) and drained by the Mackenzie River system, the Downs were once the ...
English novelist, poet, painter, playwright, and illustrator, best known for the bizarre Titus Groan trilogy of novels and for his illustrations of his novels and of children's stories.
American painters, known for their portraiture, who were among the first women to achieve professional recognition and success as artists in the United States.
American painter best remembered for his portraits of the leading figures of the American Revolution and as the founder of the first major museum in the United States.
Italian mathematician and a founder of symbolic logic whose interests centred on the foundations of mathematics and on the development of a formal logical language.
the pod, or legume, of Arachis hypogaea (family Fabaceae), which has the peculiar habit of ripening underground. (Despite its several common names, it is not a true nut.) It is a concentrated food; pound for pound, peanuts have more protein, ...
any member of the invertebrate phylum Sipuncula, a group of elongated, often spindle-shaped, unsegmented marine worms. The head usually has one or more rings of tentacles. Peanutworms vary in length from a few to 500 millimetres (1.6 feet) or more ...
any of several species of the genus Pyrus, especially Pyrus communis, of the rose family (Rosaceae), which is one of the most important fruit trees of the world and is cultivated in all temperate-zone countries of both hemispheres.
a branch of the Mon-Khmer family of languages, which is itself a part of the Austroasiatic stock. The Pearic languages include Chong, Samre (Eastern Pear), Samrai (Western Pear), Chung (Sa-och), Song of Trat, Song of Kampong Speu, and Pear of ...
concretion formed by a mollusk consisting of the same material (called nacre, or mother-of-pearl) as the mollusk's shell. It is a highly valued gemstone.
naval base and headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Honolulu county, southern Oahu Island, Hawaii, U.S. In U.S. history the name recalls the Japanese surprise air attack on Dec. 7, 1941, that temporarily crippled the U.S. Fleet and resulted in ...
(December 7, 1941), surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island, Hawaii, by the Japanese that precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II. The attack climaxed a decade of worsening ...
archipelago, in the Gulf of Panama, about 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Panama City, Panama, consisting of 183 islands, of which 39 are sizable. The most important islands include the mountainous del Rey Island on which the principal town, ...
American band that helped popularize grunge music in the early 1990s. The original members were Eddie Vedder (original name Edward Louis Severson III; b. December 23, 1964, Chicago, Illinois, U.S., ), Stone Gossard (b. July 20, 1966, Seattle, Washington, ), ...
river in the southern United States, rising in east-central Mississippi and flowing southwestward, through Jackson, the capital of the state, then generally southward into Louisiana, past Bogalusa, and emptying into Mississippi Sound on the Gulf of Mexico. West of Picayune, ...
extensive low-lying area formed by the junction of the Hsi, Pei, Tung, and Pearl (Chu) rivers in south Kwangtung province, China. It covers an area of 2,900 square miles (7,500 square km) and stretches from the city of Canton (north) ...
any of about 27 species of slim, eel-shaped marine fishes of the family Carapidae noted for living in the bodies of sea cucumbers, pearl oysters, starfishes, and other invertebrates. Pearlfishes are primarily tropical and are found around the world, mainly ...
British tenor, a singer of outstanding skill and subtlety who was closely associated with the works of Sir Benjamin Britten. He received a knighthood in 1977.
leader of Irish nationalism and Irish poet and educator. He was the first president of the provisional government of the Irish Republic proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, and was commander in chief of the Irish forces ...
politician, diplomat, and prime minister of Canada (1963-68), who was prominent as a mediator in international disputes. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1957.
region, northern Greenland, extending about 200 miles (320 km) east and west along the Arctic Ocean, between Victoria Fjord and the Greenland Sea. One of the northernmost land regions of the world, ending at Cape Morris Jesup, it is Greenland's ...
any member of a class of persons who till the soil as small landowners or as agricultural labourers. The term peasant originally referred to small-scale agriculturalists in Europe in historic times, but many other societies, both past and present, have ...
(1381), first great popular rebellion in English history. Its immediate cause was the imposition of the unpopular poll tax of 1381, which brought to a head the economic discontent that had been growing since the middle of the century. The ...
organic fuel consisting of a light, spongy material formed in temperate humid environments by the accumulation and partial decomposition of vegetable remains under conditions of deficient drainage. Vast beds occur in Europe, North America, and northern Asia but are worked ...
any of more than 160 species of plants of the subclass Sphagnidae, of the order Sphagnales, comprising the family Sphagnaceae, which contains one genus, Sphagnum. The pale green to deep red plants, up to 30 cm (about 12 inches) tall, ...
device for collecting uncontaminated samples of sediment from various kinds of deposits containing fossil pollen and other organic remains. Several instruments have been developed to retrieve controlled samples, and, although they are termed peat samplers, they are used to study ...
primordial cutting tool, the oldest type of tool made by forerunners of modern humans. The tool consists of a rounded stone struck a number of blows with a similar stone used as a pounder, which created a serrated crest that ...
type of mosaic work that uses natural pebbles arranged to form decorative or pictorial patterns. It was used only for pavements and was the earliest type of mosaic in all areas of the eastern Mediterranean, appearing in Asia Minor in ...
town, western Kosovo region, republic of Serbia, Serbia and Montenegro. It lies on a small tributary of the Beli Drim River, between the North Albanian Alps (Prokletije) and the Mokra Mountain Range. It is populated largely by Albanians, who are ...
(Carya illinoinensis, or illinoensis), nut and tree of the walnut family (Juglandaceae), native to temperate North America. The tree occasionally reaches a height of about 50 m (160 feet) and a trunk diameter of 2 m. It has a deeply ...
any of the three species of piglike mammal found in the southern deserts of the United States southward through the Amazon Basin to Patagonian South America (see Patagonia). Closely resembling the wild pig (see boar), the peccary has dark, coarse ...
nomadic Turkic people who occupied the steppes north of the Black Sea (6th-12th century) and by the 10th century were in control of the lands between the Don and lower Danube rivers (after having driven the Hungarians out); they thus ...
town, Murmansk oblast (province), northwestern Russia. It lies at the head of Pechenga Bay on the Barents Sea coast. Dating from the 16th century, the town was in northern Finland between 1919 and 1940 and was the terminus of the ...
French state-owned, multinational holding company formed in December 1971 as Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann SA after the merger of Pechiney SA, an aluminum producer established in 1855, and Societe Ugine Kuhlmann, an aluminum maker and chemical company established in 1889. In ...
river in Russia, having a course of 1,124 miles (1,809 km). Rising in the northern Urals near Mount Koyp, it flows south in a narrow, deep valley, then west and north across an extensive, level basin to enter the Barents ...
sea lying to the north of European Russia, between Kolguyev Island to the west and the Yugorsky Peninsula to the east. To the north is Novaya Zemlya. The Pechora Sea is, in effect, a southeastern extension of the Barents Sea. ...
painter and printmaker, who was a leading member of the group of German Expressionist artists known as Die Brucke ("The Bridge"). He is best known for his paintings of nudes and landscapes.
unit of capacity in the U.S. Customary and the British Imperial Systems of measurement. In the United States the peck is used only for dry measure and is equal to 8 dry quarts, or 537.6 cubic inches (8.810 litres). In ...
American mountain climber whose numerous ascents-often record-setting and some at an advanced age-made her a remarkable figure in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
