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Baro ... Barry, Philip

Baro: town and river port, Niger State, west central Nigeria, on the Niger River, 400 miles (650 km) from the sea. Originally a small village of the Nupe people, it was ...
Barocci, Federico: leading painter of the central Italian school in the last decades of the 16th century and an important precursor of the Baroque style.
Baroja, Pio: Basque writer who is considered to be the foremost Spanish novelist of his generation.
barometer: device used to measure atmospheric pressure. Because atmospheric pressure changes with distance above or below sea level, a barometer can also be used to measure altitude. There are two main ...
barometric light: luminous glow appearing in the vacuum above the mercury in a barometer tube when the tube is shaken, first noticed in 1675 by a French astronomer, Jean Picard. The electrical ...
baron: title of nobility, ranking below a viscount (or below a count in countries without viscounts). In the feudal system of Europe, a baron was a "man" who pledged his loyalty ...
Baron, Michel: actor, from 1670 until his retirement in 1691 the undisputed master of the French stage.
Baron, Salo Wittmayer: Austrian-born American historian who spent much of his life compiling the multivolume magnum opus A Social and Religious History of the Jews (1937), originally published in three volumes but later ...
Barone, Enrico: Italian mathematical economist who expanded on the concepts of general equilibrium previously formulated by French economist Leon Walras.
baronet: British hereditary dignity, first created by King James I of England in May 1611. The baronetage is not part of the peerage, nor is it an order of knighthood. A ...
Baronius, Caesar: ecclesiastical historian and apologist for the Roman Catholic Church.
Barons' War: (1264-67), in English history, the civil war caused by baronial opposition to the costly and inept policies of Henry III. The barons in 1258 had attempted to achieve reform by ...
baroque pearl: pearl that is irregularly or oddly shaped. Pearl formation does not always occur in soft-tissue areas, where the expanding pearl sac grows regularly because it encounters no appreciable resistance. Pearl ...
Baroque period: era in the history of the Western arts roughly coinciding with the 17th century. Its earliest manifestations, which occurred in Italy, date from the latter decades of the 16th century, ...
Barossa Valley: important wine-producing region of South Australia, located 30 miles (48 km) northeast of Adelaide in the Mount Lofty Ranges. The valley, drained by the North Para River, is about 19 ...
barotrauma: any of several disorders arising from changes in pressure upon the body. Man is adapted to live at an atmospheric pressure of 760 millimetres (the pressure at sea level). When ...
Barquisimeto: city, capital of Lara estado ("state"), northwestern Venezuela. Situated on a wide terrace of the Turbio River at 1,856 feet (566 m) above sea level, Barquisimeto is swept by the ...
Barra: Atlantic island of the Outer Hebrides group, Western Isles council area, historic county of Inverness-shire, Scotland, about 5 miles (8 km) southwest of the neighbouring island of South Uist. Formed ...
Barra do Pirai: city, western Rio de Janeiro estado ("state"), eastern Brazil. It lies at the confluence of the Pirai and Paraiba do Sul rivers, 20 miles (32 km) east ...
Barra Mansa: city, western Rio de Janeiro estado ("state"), eastern Brazil. It lies along the Paraiba do Sul River, at an elevation of 1,234 feet (376 metres) above sea ...
Barracco Museum of Antique Sculpture: in Rome, museum devoted to ancient sculpture and comprising the collection formed by Giovanni Barracco (1829-1914). The collection was given to Rome in 1902. There are fine examples of Egyptian, ...
Barrackpore: town, southeastern West Bengal state, northeastern India. It lies just east of the Hooghly River and is part of the Calcutta urban agglomeration, lying 15 miles (24 km) north of ...
Barrackpore Mutiny: (Nov. 2, 1824), incident during the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-26), generally regarded as a dress rehearsal for the Indian Mutiny of 1857 because of its similar combination of Indian grievances ...
barracuda: any of about 20 species of predacious fishes of the family Sphyraenidae (order Perciformes). Barracudas are found in all warm and tropical regions; some also range into more temperate areas. ...
barracudina: any of about 50 species of marine fishes of the family Paralepididae, found almost worldwide in deep waters. Barracudinas are long-bodied, slender fishes with large eyes, pointed snouts, and large ...
Barragan, Luis: Mexican engineer and architect, whose serene and evocative houses, gardens, plazas, and fountains won him the Pritzker Prize in 1980.
Barrancabermeja: city, Santander departamento, north-central Colombia, on the Magdalena River. In 1536 a Spanish conquistador, Gonzalo Jimenez de Quezada, discovered the wooden-stockaded Indian settlement of La Tora. The ...
Barranco: city and distrito ("district"), in the southern portion of the Lima-Callao metropolitan area, Peru. It lies along the Pacific coast at an elevation of 213 feet (65 m) above sea ...
Barrande, Joachim: geologist and paleontologist whose studies of the fossil strata of Bohemia revealed the abundance and rich variety of life in the Early Paleozoic era (the Paleozoic lasted from 540 million ...
Barranquilla: capital of Atlantico departamento, northwestern Colombia. It is situated in the Caribbean lowlands, 15 miles (24 km) upstream from the mouth of the Magdalena River, and is ...
Barras, Paul-Francois-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de: one of the most powerful members of the Directory during the French Revolution.
Barrault, Jean-Louis: French actor, director, and producer whose work with both avant-garde and classic plays helped revive French theatre after World War II.
barre: in ballet, the horizontal handrail, usually wooden, that is fixed to the walls of a ballet studio approximately 3.5 feet (1 m) from the floor. It is used by dancers ...
Barre: city, Washington county, central Vermont, U.S. It lies just southeast of Montpelier, the state capital. The area, settled about 1788, was organized as a town (township) in 1793 under the ...
barrel: unit of both liquid and dry measure in the British Imperial and United States Customary systems, ranging from 31.5 to 42 gallons for liquids and fixed at 7,056 cubic inches ...
barrel: large, bulging cylindrical container of sturdy construction traditionally made from wooden staves and wooden or metal hoops. The term is also a unit of volume measure, specifically 31 gallons of ...
barrel cactus: name for a group of more or less barrel-shaped cacti, family Cactaceae, native to North and South America. It is most often used for two large-stemmed North American genera, Ferocactus ...
barrel organ: musical instrument in which a pinned barrel turned by a handle raises levers, admitting wind to one or more ranks of organ pipes; the handle simultaneously actuates the bellows. Ten ...
barrel piano: stringed musical instrument (chordophone) in which a simple pianoforte action is worked by a pinned barrel turned with a crank, rather than by a keyboard mechanism. It is associated primarily ...
barrel vault: ceiling or roof consisting of a series of semicylindrical arches. See vault.
Barrell, Joseph: geologist who proposed that sedimentary rocks were produced by the action of rivers, winds, and ice, as well as by marine sedimentation.
Barremian Stage: the fourth of six main divisions (in ascending order) in the Lower Cretaceous Series, representing all those rocks deposited worldwide during the Barremian Age (124 to 119 million years ago).
Barren Grounds: vast sub-Arctic prairie (tundra) region of northern mainland Canada lying principally in the territory of Nunavut but also including the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories. It extends westward from ...
Barres, Maurice: French writer and politician, influential through his individualism and fervent nationalism.
Barreto, Francisco: Portuguese soldier and explorer.
Barretos: city, north-central Sao Paulo estado ("state"), Brazil. It lies near the Pardo River at 1,713 feet (522 m) above sea level. Known at various times as Amaral dos Barretos, Espirito ...
Barrett, Janie Porter: American welfare worker and educator who developed a school to rehabilitate previously incarcerated African-American girls by improving their self-reliance and discipline.
Barrett, Kate Harwood Waller: American physician who directed the rescue-home movement for unwed mothers in the United States.
Barrett, Lawrence: one of the leading American actors of the 19th century, especially noted for his Shakespearean interpretations.
Barrie: city, seat (1837) of Simcoe county, southeastern Ontario, Canada. It lies along Kempenfelt Bay, an arm of Lake Simcoe, 55 miles (90 km) north-northwest of Toronto. In 1812 a storehouse ...
Barrie, Sir James, Baronet: dramatist and novelist who is best known as the creator of Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up.
barrier reef: a coral reef (q.v.) roughly parallel to a shore and separated from it by a lagoon or other body of water. A barrier reef is usually pierced by several channels ...
Barrington: town (township), Bristol county, eastern Rhode Island, U.S. The town lies on the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay just southeast of East Providence and occupies two peninsulas separated by the ...
Barrington, George: Irish adventurer notorious for his activities as a pickpocket in England in the 1770s and '80s; he was allegedly the author of several histories of Australia.
Barrio Obrero Industrial: community of San Martin de Porres distrito ("district"), in the Lima-Callao metropolitan area, Peru. It lies on the north bank of the Rimac River. Among the oldest and best developed ...
Barrios, Eduardo: Chilean writer best known for his psychological novels.
Barrios, Justo Rufino: president of Guatemala from 1873, who carried out liberal domestic policies by dictatorial means and persistently advocated Central American unity, to be imposed by force if diplomacy proved inadequate.
barrister: one of the two types of practicing lawyers in England, the other being the solicitor. In general, barristers engage in advocacy (trial work) and solicitors in office work, but there ...
Barrois: ancient county, then duchy, on the western frontier of Lorraine, a territory of the Holy Roman Empire, of which Barrois was long a fiefdom or holding before being absorbed piecemeal ...
Barron River: river in northeastern Queensland, Australia, rising near Herberton in the Hugh Nelson Range of the Eastern Highlands and flowing north across the Atherton Plateau past Mareeba and then east and ...
Barron, Clarence W: financial editor and publisher who founded Barron's Financial Weekly.
Barros Arana, Diego: Chilean historian, educator, and diplomat best known for his Historia general de Chile, 16 vol. (1884-1902; "General History of Chile").
Barros, Joao de: Portuguese historian and civil servant who wrote Decadas da Asia, 4 vol. (1552-1615), one of the first great accounts of European overseas exploration and colonization.
Barrot, Odilon: prominent liberal monarchist under the July Monarchy in France (1830-48) and a leader of the electoral reform movement of 1847.
barrow: in England, ancient burial place covered with a large mound of earth. In Scotland, Ireland, and Wales the equivalent term is cairn. Barrows were constructed in England from Neolithic (c. ...
Barrow Island: Australian island in the Indian Ocean, 30 miles (50 km) off the northwest coast of Western Australia and 10 miles (16 km) southwest of the Monte Bello Islands. Measuring 12 ...
Barrow, Henry: lawyer and early Congregationalist martyr who challenged the established Anglican church by supporting the formation of separate and independent churches in England.
Barrow, Isaac: English classical scholar, theologian, and mathematician who was the teacher of Isaac Newton. He developed a method of determining tangents that closely approached the methods of calculus, and he first ...
Barrow, River: river rising in the Slieve Bloom mountain range in the centre of Ireland and flowing for about 120 miles (190 km) to Waterford harbour in the southeast, where it joins ...
Barrow-in-Furness: port town and borough (district), administrative county of Cumbria, historic county of Lancashire, England. It lies on the seaward side of the Furness peninsula between the estuary of the River ...
Barry: Bristol Channel port town, Vale of Glamorgan county, historic county of Glamorgan (Morgannwg), Wales. Barry has associations with Baruch, a 7th-century Celtic monk, and with the Normans, who built a ...
Barry, James: Irish-born artist whose major work, "The Progress of Human Culture," is a series of six monumental paintings of historical and allegorical subjects done for the Great Room of the Royal ...
Barry, Jeanne Becu, comtesse du: last of the mistresses of the French king Louis XV (reigned 1715-74). Although she exercised little political influence at the French court, her unpopularity contributed to the decline of the ...
Barry, John: American naval officer who won significant maritime victories during the American Revolution (1775-83). Because he trained so many young officers who later became celebrated in the nation's history, he was ...
Barry, Marion: American civil rights activist and politician who served four terms as mayor of Washington, D.C. Barry received a bachelor's degree from LeMoyne College (1958) and a master's degree from Fisk ...
Barry, Philip: U.S. dramatist best known for his comedies of life and manners among the socially privileged.