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Barber, Red ... Baringo, Lake
Barber, Red
American baseball broadcaster, who was the homespun radio and television announcer for the Cincinnati Reds (1934-39), Brooklyn Dodgers (1939-53), and New York Yankees (1954-66) professional baseball teams.
Barber, Samuel
composer who is considered one of the most expressive representatives of the lyric and romantic trends in musical composition in the United States.
Barberi, Domenico, Blessed
mystic and Passionist who worked as a missionary in England.
Barberini Family
an aristocratic Roman family, originally of Barberino in the Else valley; they later settled first in Florence and then in Rome, where they became wealthy and powerful.
barberry
any of almost 500 species of thorny evergreen or deciduous shrubs constituting the genus Berberis of the family Berberidaceae, mostly native to the North Temperate Zone, particularly Asia. Species of ...
barbershop quartet singing
form of popular choral music consisting of unaccompanied male singing, with three voices harmonizing to the melody of a fourth voice. The voice parts are tenor, lead, baritone, and bass, ...
Barberton
city, Summit county, northeastern Ohio, U.S., just south of Akron, on the Tuscarawas River, there dammed to form the Portage Lakes. It was founded in 1891 by Ohio C. Barber ...
barbet
any of about 75 species of tropical birds constituting the family Capitonidae (order Piciformes). Barbets are named for the bristles at the bases of their stout, sharp bills. They are ...
Barbey d'Aurevilly, Jules-Amedee
French novelist and influential critic; he was an arbiter, in his day, of social fashion and literary taste. A member of the minor nobility of Normandy, he remained throughout his ...
Barbeya
genus of dicotyledonous flowering tree, the sole species of which is B. oleoides. It grows in Ethiopia and Somalia and on the Arabian Peninsula. Barbeya has the general aspect of ...
Barbican
area in the City of London containing residential towers and Barbican Centre, a complex of theatres, halls, and cultural facilities. The London Symphony Orchestra is resident in the arts complex, ...
Barbie
an 11-inch- (29-cm-) tall plastic doll with the figure of an adult woman that was introduced in 1959 by Mattel, Inc., a southern California toy company. Ruth Handler, who cofounded ...
Barbie, Klaus
Nazi leader, head of the Gestapo in Lyon from 1942 to 1944, who was held responsible for the death of some 4,000 persons and the deportation of some 7,500 others.
Barbier, Antoine-Alexandre
French librarian and bibliographer who compiled a standard reference directory of anonymous writings and who helped in preserving scholarly books and manuscripts during and after the French Revolution.
Barbirolli, Sir John
English conductor and cellist.
barbiturate
any of a class of organic compounds used in medicine as sedatives (to produce a calming effect), as hypnotics (to produce sleep), or as an adjunct in anesthesia. The barbiturates ...
barbituric acid
an organic compound of the pyrimidine family, a class of compounds with a characteristic six-membered ring structure composed of four carbon atoms and two nitrogen atoms, that is regarded as ...
Barbizon school
mid-19th-century French school of painting, part of a larger European movement toward naturalism in art, that made a significant contribution to the establishment of Realism in French landscape painting. Inspired ...
Barbon, Nicholas
English economist, widely considered the founder of fire insurance.
Barbon, Praise-God
English sectarian preacher from whom the Cromwellian Barebones Parliament derived its nickname.
barbooth
dice game of Middle Eastern origin, used for gambling; in the United States it is played chiefly by persons of Greek or Jewish ancestry. The shooter casts two dice (traditionally ...
Barbosa, Jorge
African poet who expressed in Portuguese the cultural isolation and the tragic nature of life on the drought-stricken Cape Verdean islands. In delicately phrased verse that became a model for ...
Barbotine ware
pottery decorated with a clay slip applied by means of a technique first employed on Rhenish pottery prior to the 3rd century AD. The slip was applied by piping, in ...
Barbour, John
author of a Scottish national epic known as The Bruce, the first major work of Scottish literature.
Barbour, Philip P
associate justice of the United States Supreme Court (1836-41) and political figure known for his advocacy of states' rights and strict construction of the U.S. Constitution.
Barbourville
city, seat of Knox county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S. It lies on the Cumberland River, in the Cumberland Mountains, and is a gateway to Daniel Boone National Forest. It was founded ...
Barbusse, Henri
novelist, author of Le Feu (1916; Under Fire, 1917), a firsthand witness of the life of French soldiers in World War I. Barbusse belongs to an important lineage of French ...
barcarole
(from Italian barcarola, "boatman," or "gondolier"), originally a Venetian gondolier's song typified by gently rocking rhythms in 68 or 128 time. In the 18th and 19th centuries the barcarole inspired ...
Barcelo, Gertrudis
Mexican-born businesswoman who built her fortune through casinos and trade ventures in the early American Southwest.
Barcelona
city, capital of Anzoategui estado ("state"), northeastern Venezuela. On the west bank of the Neveri River, 3 miles (5 km) inland from the Caribbean Sea and about 200 miles (320 ...
Barcelona
city, seaport, and capital of Barcelona province and of the Catalonia autonomous community of Spain. Located in the northeastern part of the country, 90 miles (150 km) south of the ...
Barcelona
province, in the autonomous community (region) of Catalonia, northeastern Spain, formed in 1833 from a number of districts stretching between the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean coast. Its area is 2,986 ...
Barcelona chair
one of the finest and most elegant chairs of the 20th century. It was designed by Mies van der Rohe for the German Pavilion, which he also designed, at the ...
Barcelona, Archaeological Museum of
institution in Barcelona, Spain, notable for its collection of prehistoric objects and for its collection of ancient Greek and Roman art and examples illustrating Iberian archaeology. Exhibits include a scale ...
barchan
crescent-shaped sand dune produced by the action of wind predominately from one direction. One of the commonest types of dunes, it occurs in sandy deserts all over the world.
Barclay de Tolly, Mikhail Bogdanovich, Knyaz
Russian field marshal who was prominent in the Napoleonic Wars.
Barclay, Alexander
poet who won contemporary fame chiefly for his adaptation of a popular German satire, Das Narrenschiff, by Sebastian Brant, which he called The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde (first ...
Barclay, John
Scottish satirist and Latin poet whose Argenis (1621), a long poem of romantic adventure, had great influence on the development of the romance in the 17th century.
Barclay, Robert
Quaker leader whose Apology for the True Christian Divinity (1678) became a standard statement of Quaker doctrines. His friendship with James II, then duke of York, helped obtain the patent ...
Barclays PLC
British banking and trust firm registered July 20, 1896, under the name Barclay & Co. Ltd. and assuming the name Barclays Bank Ltd. in 1917. It was converted into a ...
bard
a poet, especially one who writes impassioned, lyrical, or epic verse. Bards were originally Celtic composers of eulogy and satire; the word came to mean more generally a tribal poet-singer ...
Bard College
private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, U.S. It is affiliated with the Episcopal church. A liberal arts college, it includes divisions of social studies, languages and ...
Bardeen, John
American physicist who was cowinner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in both 1956 and 1972. He shared the 1956 prize with William B. Shockley and Walter H. Brattain for ...
Bardesanes
a leading representative of Syrian Gnosticism. Bardesanes was a pioneer of the Christian faith in Syria who embarked on missionary work after his conversion in 179.
Bardi Family
an aristocratic Florentine family that successfully developed its financial and banking company to become one of the most influential European business powers between 1250 and 1345.
Bardi, Giovanni, Conte Di Vernio
musician, writer, and scientist, influential in the evolution of opera. In about 1580 he founded the Florentine Camerata, a group that sought to revive ancient Greek music and drama and ...
Bardiya
(6th century BC), king of Persia in 522-521 BC.
Bardo, Treaty of
(1881), agreement that established France's protectorate over Tunisia. A French expeditionary force of 36,000 men was sent to Tunisia in 1881 at the urging of the French foreign minister, Jules ...
Bardot, Brigitte
French motion-picture actress who became an international sex symbol in the 1950s and '60s.
Bardsey Island
small island, with an area of 0.7 square mile (1.8 square km), off the tip of the Lleyn Peninsula, Gwynedd county, historic county of Caernavonshire (Sir Gaernarfon), Wales. It is ...
Bardstown
city, seat (1784) of Nelson county, in the outer Bluegrass region of central Kentucky, U.S., 39 miles (63 km) southeast of Louisville. Founded as Salem in 1778, it was later ...
bareback bronc-riding
rodeo event in which a cowboy attempts to ride a bucking horse (bronco) for a specified time (usually eight seconds). The horse is equipped only with a surcingle-a rope belt ...
Barebones Parliament
(July 4-Dec. 12, 1653), a hand-picked legislative group of "godly" men convened by Oliver Cromwell following the Puritan victory in the English Civil Wars. Its name was derived from one ...
Bareilly
city, central Uttar Pradesh state, northern India, on the Ramganga River. Founded in 1537, the city was built largely by the Mughal governor Makrand Ray. It later became the capital ...
Baren
Chinese prose writer and critic who was the first Chinese literary theorist to promote the Marxist point of view.
Barenboim, Daniel
Israeli pianist and conductor.
Barents Sea
outlying portion of the Arctic Ocean 800 miles (1,300 km) long and 650 miles (1,050 km) wide and covering 542,000 square miles (1,405,000 square km). Its average depth is 750 ...
Barents, Willem
Dutch navigator who searched for a northeast passage from Europe to Asia and for whom the Barents Sea was named. Because of his extensive voyages, accurate charting, and the valuable ...
Barere, Bertrand
a leading member of the Committee of Public Safety that ruled Revolutionary France during the period of the Jacobin dictatorship (1793-94); his stringent policies against those suspected of royalist tendencies ...
bargeboard
exposed board or false rafter running underneath the slopes of a projecting gable roof. Such a board is often richly decorated with carved, cut-out, or painted designs and patterns, particularly ...
Bargello Museum
art museum housed in the Palazzo del Bargello (or del Podesta), Florence, Italy, which dates from the 13th and 14th centuries. The museum was established in 1865 and is especially ...
bargello work
kind of embroidery exemplified in the upholstery of a set of 17th-century Italian chairs at the Bargello Museum in Florence and practiced from the 17th century until modern times. It ...
Barghash
sultan of Zanzibar (1870-88), a shrewd and ambitious ruler, who, for most of his reign, looked to Britain for protection and assistance but eventually saw his domains divided between Germany ...
Barghawatah
Berber tribal confederation that created a religio-political state in Morocco (8th-12th century). The Barghawatah, members of the Masmudah family inhabiting the plain between the Moyen Atlas and the Atlantic, had ...
Barghest
in folklore of northern England (especially Yorkshire), a monstrous, goblin dog, with huge teeth and claws, that appears only at night. It was believed that those who saw one clearly ...
Barguzinsky Nature Reserve
natural area set aside for research in the natural sciences, extending from the northeastern shore of Lake Baikal to the western slopes of the Barguzinsky Mountains, southeastern Russia. The reserve ...
Bari
city, capital of Bari provincia and of Puglia (Apulia) regione, southeastern Italy. It is a port on the Adriatic Sea, northwest of Brindisi. The site may have been inhabited since ...
Bari
people living near Juba in the southern Sudan. They speak an Eastern Sudanic language of the Nilo-Saharan language family. They live in small villages scattered across the hot, dry, flat ...
Bari, Siege of
(1068-71), three-year blockade by Norman forces under Robert Guiscard that resulted (April 1071) in the surrender of the last important Byzantine stronghold in southern Italy. It brought an end to ...
Barid Shahi Dynasty
the rulers of the small state of Bidar (now in Karnataka in southwestern India) from about 1487 until 1619. The Barid family were ministers of the Muslim Bahmani sultans of ...
Barinas
estado ("state"), western Venezuela. It is bounded on the north by Trujillo, Portuguesa, and Cojedes states, east by Guarico, south by Apure, and west by Tachira and Merida. It lies ...
Barinas
city, capital of Barinas estado ("state"), western Venezuela. The city lies along the Santo Domingo River and is situated on the Llanos (plains) at the foot of the Cordillera de ...
Barind
geographic region in parts of northwestern Bangladesh and north-central West Bengal state, India. It lies northwest of the confluence of the Ganges (Padma) and Brahmaputra (Jamuna) rivers and is bordered ...
Baring Family
British family whose banking and commercial house played a principal role in British overseas lending for two centuries.
Baring, Maurice
man of letters, scion of a family long prominent in the financial ventures of the British Empire, who was representative of the social culture that flourished in England before World ...
Baringo, Lake
lake in west-central Kenya. It is situated 3,200 feet (975 m) above sea level in the Great Rift Valley, east of the Kamasia (Ilkamasya) Hills. The lake has an area ...