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Albury-Wodonga ... Aleandro, Girolamo

Albury-Wodonga: urban centre comprising twin cities on opposite sides of the Murray River and the New South Wales-Victoria border, Australia. By rail the region is about 398 miles (640 km) southwest ...
Alcaeus: Greek lyric poet. His work was highly esteemed in the ancient world. A collection of Alcaeus' surviving poems in 10 books (now lost) was made in the 2nd century BC, ...
alcaic: classical Greek poetic stanza composed of four lines of varied metrical feet, with five long syllables in the first two lines, four in the third and fourth lines, and an ...
Alcala de Guadaira: town, Sevilla provincia, in the Andalusia comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), southwestern Spain. It is just southeast of Sevilla city, on the Guadaira River. The ...
Alcala de Henares: city, Madrid provincia and comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), central Spain. Known under the Romans as Complutum, the city was destroyed in 1000 and rebuilt ...
Alcala Zamora, Niceto: Spanish statesman, prime minister, and president of the Second Republic (1931-36), whose attempts to moderate the policies of the various factions led eventually to his deposition and exile.
Alcala, Calle de: one of the main thoroughfares of Madrid. It originates at the eastern edge of the Puerta del Sol (the focal point and principal square of the city) and runs northeast ...
alcalde: (from Arabic al-qadi, "judge"), the administrative and judicial head of a town or village in Spain or in areas under Spanish control or influence. The title was applied to local ...
Alcamenes: sculptor and younger contemporary of Phidias, noted for the delicacy and finish of his works, among which a Hephaestus and an "Aphrodite of the Gardens" are noteworthy. A copy of ...
Alcamo: town, Trapani provincia, northwestern Sicily, Italy, 23 miles (37 km) west-southwest of Palermo. The name comes from that of the nearby Saracen fortress, Alqamah, on Mount Bonifato. ...
Alcan Aluminium Limited: Canadian multinational company incorporated in 1928 (as Aluminium Limited) and now the largest Canadian industrial enterprise, operating in more than 100 countries. It has mining and refining operations for bauxite; ...
Alcantara: town, Caceres provincia, in the Extremadura comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), western Spain, on a rock above the southern bank of the Tagus (Tajo) River ...
Alcantara, Order of: major military and religious order in Spain. It was founded in 1156 or 1166 by Don Suero Fernandez Barrientos and was recognized in 1177 by Pope Alexander III in a ...
Alcaraz carpet: floor covering handwoven in 15th- and 16th-century Spain at Alcaraz in Murcia. These carpets use the Spanish knot on one warp. A number of 15th-century examples imitate contemporary Turkish types ...
Alcatraz Island: rocky island in San Francisco Bay, California, U.S. The island occupies an area of 22 acres (9 hectares) and is located 1.5 miles (2 km) offshore.
alcazar: any of a class of fortified structures built in the 14th and 15th centuries in Spain. (The term is derived from the Arabic word al-qasr, meaning "castle," ...
Alcazar de San Juan: town, Ciudad Real provincia, in the comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community") of Castile-La Mancha, central Spain. It lies on the high Meseta Central at 2,135 feet (650 m) above sea level. ...
alchemy: a form of speculative thought that, among other aims, tried to transform base metals such as lead or copper into silver or gold and to discover a cure for disease ...
Alchevsk: city, Luhansk oblast (province), eastern Ukraine. It lies along the railway from Luhansk to Debaltsevo. Alchevsk was founded in 1895 with the establishment of the Donetsko-Yuryevsky ironworks. The plant has ...
Alchian, Armen A.: American economist whose teachings countered some of the popular economic theories of the late 20th century, such as those regarding labour costs or the implications of property ownership.
Alcibiades: brilliant but unscrupulous Athenian politician and military commander who provoked the sharp political antagonisms at Athens that were the main causes of Athens' defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War ...
Alcidae: bird family, order Charadriiformes, which includes the birds known as auk, auklet, dovekie, guillemot, murre, murrelet, and puffin (qq.v.).
Alcidamas: prominent Sophist and rhetorician who taught in Athens. He was a pupil of Gorgias and a rival of Isocrates. His only extant work, Peri sophiston ("Concerning Sophists"), stresses the superiority ...
Alcinous: in Greek mythology, king of the Phaeacians (on the legendary island of Scheria), son of Nausithous, and grandson of the god Poseidon. In the Odyssey he entertained Odysseus, who had ...
Alciphron: rhetorician who wrote a collection of fictitious letters, a form of literature popular in his day. More than 100 of the letters have survived. The background of them all is ...
alclad: laminated metal produced in sheets composed of a Duralumin (q.v.) core and outer layers of aluminum.
Alcmaeon: Greek philosopher and physiologist of the academy at Croton (now Crotone, southern Italy), the first person recorded to have practiced dissection of human bodies for research purposes. He may also ...
Alcmaeon: in Greek legend, the son of the seer Amphiaraus and his wife Eriphyle. When Amphiaraus set out with the expedition of the Seven Against Thebes, which he knew would be ...
Alcmaeonid Family: a powerful Athenian family, claiming descent from the legendary Alcmaeon, that was important in 5th- and 6th-century-BC politics. During the archonship of one of its members, Megacles (632? BC), a ...
Alcman: Greek poet, the first known writer of Dorian choral lyrics.
Alcoa: city, Blount county, eastern Tennessee, U.S., about 15 miles (25 km) south of Knoxville and adjacent to Maryville. The city is a gateway to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which ...
Alcobaca: town and concelho (township), Leiria distrito ("district"), west-central Portugal. It lies at the confluence of the Alcoa and Baca rivers, just south-southwest of the city of Leiria. Alcobaca is notable ...
Alcock, John: architect, bishop, and statesman who founded Jesus College, Cambridge, and who was regarded as one of the most eminent pre-Reformation English divines.
Alcock, Sir John William: aviator who, with his fellow British aviator Arthur Brown, made the first nonstop transatlantic flight.
alcohol: any of a class of organic compounds characterized by one or more hydroxyl (OH) groups attached to a carbon atom of an alkyl group (hydrocarbon chain). Alcohols may be considered ...
alcohol consumption: the drinking of beverages containing ethyl alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are consumed largely for their physiological and psychological effects, but they are often consumed within specific ...
alcoholic beverage: any fermented liquor, such as wine, beer, or distilled liquor (qq.v.), that contains ethyl alcohol, or ethanol (CH₃CH₂OH), as an intoxicating agent.
Alcoholics Anonymous: voluntary fellowship of alcoholic persons who seek to get sober and remain sober through self-help and the help of other recovered alcoholics. Although general conventions meet periodically and Alcoholics Anonymous ...
alcoholism: excessive and repetitive drinking of alcoholic beverages to the extent that the drinker repeatedly is harmed or harms others. The harm may be physical or mental; it may also be ...
Alcor: star with apparent magnitude of 4.03. The ability to see the dim star Alcor with the unaided eye may have been regarded by the Arabs (and others) as a test ...
Alcorn State University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning near Lorman, Mississippi, U.S. It is a land-grant university consisting of schools of Arts and Sciences, Business, Education and Psychology, Nursing, and Agriculture and ...
Alcott, Bronson: American philosopher, teacher, reformer, and member of the New England Transcendentalist group.
Alcott, Louisa May: American author known for her children's books, especially the classic Little Women.
alcove: recess opening off a room or other space enclosed by walls or hedges. In medieval architecture it was commonly used as a sleeping space off the main body of a ...
Alcoy: town, Alicante provincia, in the comunidad autonoma (autonomous community) of Valencia, southeastern Spain. It lies in rugged foothills at the confluence of the two headstreams of the Serpis River, north ...
Alcuin: Anglo-Latin poet, educator, and cleric who, as head of the Palatine school established by Charlemagne at Aachen, introduced the traditions of Anglo-Saxon humanism into western Europe. He was the foremost ...
Aldabra Islands: atoll, one of the world's largest, in the Indian Ocean about 600 miles (1,000 km) southwest of the Seychelles group, and part of the Republic of the Seychelles. The Aldabras, ...
Aldan River: river in eastern Siberia, Russia. It rises in the Stanovoy Range and flows northwestward in a huge curve to join the Lena River at Batamay. The Aldan River is 1,412 ...
Aldanov, Mark: Russian emigre writer best known for work bitterly critical of the Soviet system.
Aldebaran: reddish giant star in the constellation Taurus. Aldebaran is one of the 15 brightest stars, with an apparent visual magnitude of 0.86. Its diameter is approximately 50 times that of ...
Aldecoa, Ignacio: Spanish novelist whose work is noted for its local colour and careful composition.
aldehyde: any of a class of organic compounds characterized by the presence of a carbonyl group, in which at least one of the two remaining bonds to the carbon atom is ...
Alden, Cynthia May Westover: American social worker and journalist whose energies in the latter half of her life focused on securing the welfare of blind infants and children.
Alden, Isabella Macdonald: American children's author whose books achieved great popularity for the wholesome interest and variety of their situations and characters and the clearly moral but not sombre lessons of their plots.
Alden, John; and Alden, Priscilla: Pilgrims who in 1620 immigrated to America on the Mayflower and took part in the founding of the Plymouth Colony, the first permanent English colony in New England.
alder: any of about 30 species of ornamental shrubs and trees constituting the genus Alnus, in the birch family (Betulaceae), distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere and western South America on cool, ...
alder buckthorn: woody shrub or small tree, of the buckthorn family (Rhamnaceae), native to western Asia, Europe, and northern Africa. It has been introduced into North America and other regions, where it ...
Alder, Kurt: German chemist who was the corecipient, with Otto Diels, of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1950 for their development of the Diels-Alder reaction, or diene synthesis, a widely used ...
alderfly: any insect of the megalopteran family Sialidae, characterized by long, filamentous antennae and two pairs of large wings (anterior wing length 20 to 50 mm [ 34 inch to 2 ...
alderman: member of the legislative body of a municipal corporation in England and the United States. In Anglo-Saxon England, ealdormen, or aldermen, were high-ranking officials of the crown who exercised judicial, ...
Alderney: one of the Channel Islands, in the English Channel, with an area of 3 square miles (8 square km), separated from the Normandy coast (Cap de la Hague) by the ...
Aldfrith: king of Northumbria (685-704) and patron of literature. An illegitimate son of Oswiu, he succeeded to the throne when his brother Ecgfrith was killed at the Battle of Nechtansmere. Educated ...
Aldhelm: (c. 639-709), West Saxon abbot of Malmesbury, the most learned teacher of 7th-century Wessex, a pioneer in the art of Latin verse among the Anglo-Saxons, and the author of numerous ...
Aldington, Richard: poet, novelist, critic, and biographer who wrote searingly and sometimes irascibly of what he considered to be hypocrisy in modern industrialized civilization.
Aldiss, Brian W.: prolific English author of science-fiction short stories and novels that display great range in style and approach.
aldosterone: a steroid hormone secreted by the adrenal gland. It serves as the principal regulator of the salt and water balance of the body (a mineralocorticoid) and has a small effect ...
Aldrich, Bess Genevra Streeter: American author whose prolific output of novels and short stories evoked the American Plains and the people who settled them.
Aldrich, Nelson W.: U.S. senator and financier whose work on the Aldrich-Vreeland Currency Act of 1908 and chairmanship of the National Monetary Commission (1908-12) helped prepare the way for the Federal Reserve Act ...
Aldrich, Robert: American motion-picture director who earned his reputation with early realistic and socially conscious films.
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey: poet, short-story writer, and editor whose use of the surprise ending influenced the development of the short story. He drew upon his childhood experiences in New Hampshire in his popular ...
Aldridge, Ira Frederick: black tragedian, considered one of the greatest interpreters of his day.
aldrin: one of the several isomers (compounds with the same composition but different structures) of hexachlorohexahydrodimethanonaphthalene, a chlorinated hydrocarbon used as an insecticide. Aldrin was first prepared in the late 1940s ...
Aldrin, Edwin Eugene, Jr.: astronaut who set a record for extravehicular activity and was the second man to set foot on the Moon.
Aldrovandi, Ulisse: Renaissance naturalist and physician noted for his systematic and accurate observations of animals, plants, and minerals.
ale: fermented malt beverage, full-bodied and somewhat bitter, with strong flavour and aroma of hops. Popular in England, where the term is now synonymous with beer, ale was until the late ...
Aleandro, Girolamo: cardinal and Humanist who was an important opponent of the Lutheran Reformation.