city, seat (1836) of Winnebago county, northern Illinois, U.S. It lies on the Rock River, about 90 miles (145 km) northwest of Chicago. Rockford was founded by New Englanders in 1834 as separate settlements (commonly known as Kentville and Haightville, ...
either of the two species of western African birds, genus Picathartes, constituting the subfamily Picathartinae, of uncertain family relationships in the order Passeriformes. Both species, with virtually no feathering on the head, have drab, grayish plumage and are thin-necked, hump-backed, ...
city and commercial centre for a large part of central Queensland, Australia, at the head of ocean navigation on the Fitzroy River, 38 mi (60 km) upstream from its mouth on Keppel Bay. The town was laid out in 1858 ...
county, extreme southeastern New Hampshire, U.S. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and Maine and Little and Great bays to the northeast; the Piscataqua River constitutes the boundary with Maine. The county ...
English earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain made at Swinton, Yorkshire, in a factory on the estate of the Marquess of Rockingham. The pottery was started in 1745, but it was not until 1826 that it assumed the name Rockingham. It continued ...
prime minister of Great Britain from July 1765 to July 1766 and from March to July 1782. He led the parliamentary group known as Rockingham Whigs, which opposed Britain's war (1775-83) against its colonists in North America.
city, seat (1860) of Knox county, southern Maine, U.S., on the western shore of Penobscot Bay 81 miles (130 km) northeast of Portland. The site, settled about 1719, was originally part of Thomaston; it was separately incorporated in 1848 as ...
county, southeastern New York state, U.S., consisting of a hilly region bordered by the Hudson River to the east and New Jersey to the southwest. Sandstone bluffs known as the Palisades border the Hudson where it narrows below the Tappan ...
American gridiron football coach who built the University of Notre Dame in Indiana into a major power in college football and became the intercollegiate sport's first true celebrity coach.
city, seat (1776) of Montgomery county, west-central Maryland, U.S., a northwestern suburb of Washington, D.C. The settlement originated during the Revolutionary period around Hungerford's tavern and was known first as Montgomery Court House and later as Williamsburg. Designated a town ...
diversified American corporation that was formerly one of the country's leading aerospace contractors, making launch vehicles and spacecraft for the U.S. space program.
city, Nash and Edgecombe counties, east-central North Carolina, U.S., about 50 miles (80 km) east-northeast of Raleigh. The area was settled in the mid-1700s by Virginians after the war (1711-13) with the Tuscarora Indians. The name Rocky Mount, first used ...
spectacular mountainous region of north-central Colorado, U.S. It lies just west of the town of Estes Park and adjoins Arapaho National Recreation Area, which surrounds two lakes formed by the impounding of the Colorado River, to the southwest; the eastern ...
form of tick-borne typhus first described in the Rocky Mountain section of the United States, caused by a specific microorganism (Rickettsia rickettsii). Discovery of the microbe of Rocky Mountain spotted fever in 1906 by H.T. Ricketts led to the understanding ...
geological depression extending north-northwest for about 900 miles (1,400 km) from western Montana, U.S., south of Flathead Lake, through British Columbia, Can., to the headwaters of the Yukon River. The trench parallels the steep western face of the Rockies, separating ...
mountain range forming the cordilleran backbone of the great upland system that dominates the western North American continent. Generally, the ranges included in the Rockies stretch from northern Alberta and British Columbia southward to New Mexico, a distance of some ...
style in interior design, the decorative arts, painting, architecture, and sculpture that originated in Paris in the early 18th century but was soon adopted throughout France and later in other countries, principally Germany and Austria. It is characterized by lightness, ...
ancient fortress town, Ardennes departement, Champagne-Ardennes region, northeastern France. It lies 4 miles (6 km) from the Belgian frontier. The great bastions surrounding the small town in the form of a pentagon have been preserved intact and offer an excellent ...
(May 19, 1643), a military engagement of the Thirty Years' War in which a French army of 22,000 men, under the Duke d'Enghien (later known as the Great Conde), annihilated a Spanish army of 26,000 men under Don Francisco de ...
type of photoreceptive cell in the retina of the eye in vertebrate animals. Rod cells function as specialized neurons in the conversion of visual stimuli in the form of photons (particles of light) into electrical stimuli that can be processed ...
old English measure of distance equal to 16.5 feet (5.029 metres), with variations from 9 to 28 feet (2.743 to 8.534 metres) also being used. It was also called a perch or pole. The word rod derives from Old English ...
American biochemist who was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery in the 1960s of natural signal transducers called G-proteins that help cells in the body communicate with each other. He shared the prize with ...
economist who, because of his conservative interpretation of social reform, was instrumental in shaping the Prussian government's regulation of its economy.
American writer and television and film producer, creator and executive producer of the popular science-fiction television series Star Trek (1966-69), which spawned other television series and a string of motion pictures.
Flemish poet who helped to inspire the late 1870s revival in Flemish literature that was intended to counteract the growing French influence on Belgian cultural life.
any of more than 2,050 living species of mammals characterized by upper and lower pairs of ever-growing rootless incisor teeth. Rodents are the largest group of mammals, constituting almost half the class Mammalia's approximately 4,660 species. They are indigenous to ...
any substance that is used to kill rats, mice, and other rodent pests. Warfarin, 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate), ANTU (legal label for alpha-naphthylthiourea), and red squill are commonly used rodenticides. These substances kill by preventing normal blood clotting and causing internal ...
sport involving a series of contests and exhibitions derived from riding, roping, and related skills developed by cowboys during the era of the range cattle industry in northern Mexico and the western United States (1867-87).
town, capital of Aveyron departement, Midi-Pyrenees region, and, until 1789, capital of the old district of Rouergue, southern France; it lies at the confluence of the Auterne and Aveyron rivers, overlooking the green undulating country of the Plateau de Segala. ...
American singer and guitarist, one of the principal figures in the emergence of the country and western style of popular music. He was known throughout his musical career as the "Singing Brakeman."
one of the dominant composers of American musical comedy, known especially for his works in collaboration with the librettists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II.
French sculptor of sumptuous bronze and marble figures, considered by some critics to be the greatest portraitist in the history of sculpture. His La Porte de l'Enfer (The Gates of Hell; see ), commissioned ...
U.S. inventor of prismatic and perforated-cake gunpowder that burned evenly, providing controlled expansion of gases in a gun rather than a sudden shock that might burst the barrel. He also invented a system of casting cannon around a hollow core ...
mountain massif, the highest part of the Eastern Carpathians in Romania, reaching a height of 7,556 ft (2,303 m) at Pietrosu in the northern part of the country. Active glaciers are no longer present, but extensive glaciation of the crystalline ...
Soviet figure skater who, with her partners, first Alexey Ulanov and later Aleksandr Zaytsev, won 10 successive world championships (1969-78) and three successive Olympic gold medals.
Uruguayan philosopher, educator, and essayist, considered by many to have been Spanish America's greatest philosopher, whose vision of a unified Spanish America inspired his continent. His credo, reformarse es vivir ("to reform oneself is to live"), and his devotion to ...
island dependency of the western Indian Ocean state of Mauritius. It lies 344 miles (553 km) east of the island of Mauritius. Of volcanic origin, Rodrigues Island has an area of 40 square miles (104 square km). The island was ...
