Italian merchant and politician who succeeded in gaining supreme power over Siena. Although an absolute and tyrannical ruler, he did a great deal to augment the artistic splendour of his native city.
French churchman, philosopher, and critical thinker, called Doctor facundus ("eloquent teacher"), who was important as a forerunner to William of Ockham.
Vietnamese scholar whose literary works served as a bridge between his civilization and that of the West. He helped popularize the romanized script of the Vietnamese language, Quoc-ngu.
Italian historian of religions and educator, a founder and president (1950-59) of the International Association for the Study of History of Religions. His original comparative method is shown in many works, among them his studies Dio, formazione e sviluppo del ...
in modern usage, an underskirt worn by women. The petycote (probably derived from the Old French petite cote, "little coat") appeared in literature in the 15th century in reference to a kind of padded waistcoat, or undercoat, worn for warmth ...
American professional basketball player, first to score 20,000 points in the National Basketball Association (NBA). A clumsy player in high school, Pettit turned himself into a graceful 6-ft 9-in (2.06 m) athlete, considered to be the first really agile player ...
American settlement worker, remembered for her extensive work among the mountain people of Kentucky to improve health and living conditions and educational opportunities.
American stock-car racer who was the most successful driver in the history of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). Petty won 200 NASCAR races in his career and collected 7 Winston Cups (known as the Grand National ...
English political economist and statistician whose main contribution to political economy, Treatise of Taxes and Contributions (1662), examined the role of the state in the economy and touched on the labour theory of value.
American singer and songwriter whose roots-oriented guitar rock arose from the new-wave movement of the late 1970s and resulted in a string of hit singles and albums.
flowering plant whose showy, trumpet-shaped flowers make it immensely popular for summer beds and window boxes. It is a genus of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), originating in South America, and it is related to the deadly nightshade, potato, and tobacco ...
town ("parish"), Chichester district, administrative county of West Sussex, historic county of Sussex, England. The parish adjoins the great park of Petworth House (now owned by the National Trust). The mansion itself was largely rebuilt (1688-96) by Charles Seymour, the ...
Austrian mathematician and astronomer instrumental in the European revival of the technical understanding of the astronomical ideas of Ptolemy (fl. c. AD 140) and the early use of sines in Europe.
copy of a Roman map, made in 1265 by a monk of Colmar (Alsace) on 12 sheets of parchment. Eleven of the sheets are now in the Nationalbibliothek in Vienna. The dimensions are 268 by 13 13 inches (6.82 by ...
locality, Wealden district, administrative county of East Sussex, historic county of Sussex, England. Once an English Channel port, it now lies a mile inland along a narrow waterway; from the 13th century on, silting of the waterway brought about Pevensey's ...
originally a raised and enclosed place in a church designed for an ecclesiastical dignitary or officer; the meaning was later extended to include special seating in the body of the church for distinguished laity and, finally, to include all church ...
American industrialist brothers who expanded the Sun Oil Company (which their father had founded) by introducing new refining, marketing, and distribution techniques.
any of eight species of birds of the genus Contopus (family Tyrannidae); it is named for its call, which is monotonously repeated from an open perch. In North America a sad, clear "pee-oo-wee" announces the presence of the eastern wood ...
any of the nodules of lymphatic cells that aggregate to form bundles or patches and occur usually only in the lowest portion (ileum) of the small intestine; they are named for the 17th-century Swiss anatomist Hans Conrad Peyer.
German controversialist-a Christianized Jew-and opponent of Jewish literature, whose dispute with the Humanist and Hebraist Johannes Reuchlin (q.v.) was a European cause celebre in the early 16th century.
city, Baden-Wurttemberg Land (state), southwestern Germany. It lies on the northern edge of the Black Forest (Schwarzwald), where the Nagold and Wurm rivers join the Enz, northwest of Stuttgart. Originally the site of a Roman settlement (Porta ...
Swiss military leader, spokesman for Roman Catholic interests in the cantons, and probably the most important Swiss political figure in the latter half of the 16th century.
quantitative measure of the acidity or basicity of aqueous or other liquid solutions. The term, widely used in chemistry, biology, and agronomy, translates the values of the concentration of the hydrogen ion-which ordinarily ranges between about 1 and 10-14 gram-equivalents ...
genus of about 200 species of white to blue or purple-flowering annual herbs, native to North America and Andean South America and including several species of garden flowers. It belongs to the family Hydrophyllaceae. Phacelia campanularia, native to dry slopes ...
genus of trilobites (an extinct group of aquatic arthropods) found as fossils in Silurian and Devonian rocks (between 345,000,000 and 430,000,000 years old) in Europe and North America. Phacops is a common and easily recognizable form, with its rounded rather ...
Roman fabulist, the first writer to Latinize whole books of fables, producing free versions in iambic metre of Greek prose fables then circulating under the name of Aesop.
one of the 30 soil groups in the classification system of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Phaeozems are characterized by a humus-rich surface layer covered in the natural state with abundant grass or deciduous forest vegetation. They are highly ...
ancient city on the western end of the southern plain of Crete, about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) from the sea. The site was occupied from the 4th millennium BC, and its importance grew in the Early and Middle Bronze ages ...
(Greek: "Shining," or "Radiant"), in Greek mythology, the son of Helios, the sun god, and a woman or nymph variously identified as Clymene, Prote, or Rhode. Taunted with illegitimacy, Phaethon appealed to his father, who swore to prove his paternity ...
open, four-wheeled, doorless carriage, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. It contained one or two seats, usually had a folding, or falling, top, and was owner-driven (i.e., it had no outside driver's seat). The most spectacular phaeton was the ...
Tibetan family that in the 14th century liberated Tibet from Mongol control. The Phag-mo-gru had begun to extend its power over the surrounding countryside in the 13th century at a time when the country was being governed by a series ...
process by which certain living cells called phagocytes ingest or engulf other cells or particles. The phagocyte may be a free-living one-celled organism, such as an amoeba, or one of the body cells, such as a leukocyte (white blood cell). ...
(Sanskrit: "fruit"), in Indian philosophy, the fruit or consequence of a particular action (karma). The almost universally held conviction among Indian philosophers that this life is but one in a chain of lives and that social class and personal character ...
mining town, Northern province, South Africa, located east of the Drakensberg mountains and north of the Olifants River near Kruger National Park. It is built on top of an old black African mining centre of iron and copper ore; traces ...
in military science, tactical formation consisting of a block of heavily armed infantry standing shoulder to shoulder in files several ranks deep. Fully developed by the ancient Greeks, it survived in modified form into the gunpowder era and is viewed ...
tyrant of Acragas (modern Agrigento), Sicily, notorious for his cruelty. He is alleged to have roasted his victims alive in a bronze bull, their shrieks representing the animal's bellowing. A statue of a bull of some kind seems to have ...
(Greek: "coot-foot"), any of three species of shorebirds that are part of the family Scolopacidae (order Charadriiformes). They are lightly built, slim-necked birds, about 15 to 25 cm (6 to 10 inches) long, and have lobed toes, adapted to swimming. ...
worship of the generative principle as symbolized by the sexual organs or the act of sexual intercourse. Although religious activities that involve sexuality or the symbolism of the male or female sexual organs are sometimes called phallic cults, there is ...
city, Rajasthan state, northwestern India. Located in the Great Indian (Thar) Desert, Phalodi is an old caravan centre, believed to have been founded in the 15th century. Architectural monuments include a fort and palaces. The city is connected by road ...
Vietnamese politician who served briefly as prime minister (1987-88) and was the first southern Vietnamese to reach the highest level of the Communist Party Central Committee, the Politburo.
