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Basque Country ... Bataysk

Basque Country: cultural region within the departement of Pyrenees-Atlantiques, extreme southwestern France, bordering the western Pyrenees Mountains where they adjoin the Basque provincias of Spain, along ...
Basque language: language isolate, the only remnant of the languages spoken in southwestern Europe before the region was Romanized. The Basque language is currently used in a narrow area of approximately 10,000 ...
Basque Nationalist Party: Basque political party that supports greater autonomy for the Basque Country (including Navarre) within Spain.
Basra: city, southeastern Iraq. It is the principal port of Iraq. Basra is situated on the western bank of the Shatt Al-Arab (the waterway formed by the union of the Tigris ...
bass: in music, the lowest part in a multi-voiced musical texture. In polyphony of the sort that flourished during the Renaissance, the bass formed one of several relatively independent or contrapuntal ...
bass: in zoology, any of a large number of fishes, many of them valued for food or sport. The name bass covers a range of fishes, but most are placed in ...
bass drum: percussion instrument, the largest and deepest-sounding member of the drum family, usually played with a pair of large felt-headed sticks, or beaters. In modern popular-music bands the bass drum is ...
Bass Strait: channel separating Victoria, Australia, from the island of Tasmania on the south. Its maximum width is 150 miles (240 km), its depth is 180-240 feet (50-70 m). King Island and ...
Bass, Charlotta Spears: American editor and civil rights activist whose long career was devoted to aggressively publicizing and combating racial inequality.
Bass, George: surgeon and sailor who was important in the early coastal survey of Australia.
Bass, Sam: American Western outlaw who was finally gunned down by the Texas Rangers.
Bass, Saul: American motion-picture designer-director, especially noted for imaginative, animated titles, prologues, and epilogues.
Bassani, Giorgio: Italian author and editor noted for his novels and stories examining individual lives played out against the background of modern history. The author's Jewish heritage and the life of the ...
Bassano del Grappa: town, Vicenza provincia, Veneto regione, northern Italy, on the Brenta River at the foot of Monte Grappa, north of Padua. Between 1036 and 1259 ...
Bassano, Jacopo: late Renaissance painter of the Venetian school, known for his religious paintings, lush landscapes, and scenes of everyday life. The son of a provincial artist, Francesco da Ponte, who adopted ...
Bassar: town, north-central Togo. The town lies in a major cotton growing area about 30 miles (50 km) northwest of Sokode, Togo's second largest town. Bassar serves as an important centre ...
basse danse: (French: "low dance"), courtly dance for couples, originating in 14th-century Italy and fashionable in many varieties for two centuries. Its name is attributed both to its possible origin as a ...
Basse Santa Su: town and port, eastern Gambia, on the south bank of the Gambia River. The town is a branch banking centre; a market centre for peanuts (groundnuts), rice, and cattle among ...
Basse-Normandie: region of France encompassing the northwestern departements of Orne, Calvados, and Manche. It is bounded by the regions of Haute-Normandie to ...
basse-taille: (French: "low-cut"), an enameling technique in which a metal surface, usually gold or silver, is engraved or carved in low relief and then covered with translucent vitreous enamel. This technique ...
Basse-Terre: one of the two major islands of Guadeloupe (q.v.).
Basse-Terre: administrative capital of Guadeloupe (an overseas departement of France), on the Caribbean island of Basse-Terre. The town, dating from 1643, is situated on the southwestern coast of ...
Bassein: town, western Maharashtra state, western India, on the Arabian Sea coast, north of Bombay. Part of the territory of the Hindu Devagiri Yadavas until 1317, it later became a seaport ...
Bassein, Treaty of: (Dec. 31, 1802), pact between Baji Rao II, the Maratha peshwa of Pune (Poona) in India, and the British. It was a decisive step in the breakup of the Maratha ...
Bassermann, Albert: stage and screen actor known as one of the finest German interpreters of Henrik Ibsen.
Bassermann, Ernst: German politician, leader of the National Liberal Party through the last years of imperial Germany.
basset horn: clarinet pitched a fourth lower than the ordinary B♭ clarinet, probably invented in about 1770 by A. and M. Mayrhofer of Passau, Bavaria. The name derives from its basset ("small ...
basset hound: breed of dog developed centuries ago in France and long maintained, chiefly in France and Belgium, as a hunting dog of the aristocracy. Originally used to trail hares, rabbits, and ...
Basseterre: chief town of St. Kitts (St. Christopher) island and capital of St. Kitts and Nevis, a parliamentary federated state located in the eastern Caribbean. It lies on the island's southwestern ...
Bassetlaw: district, administrative and historic county of Nottinghamshire, England. The district occupies the northern quarter of the county. The name Bassetlaw previously applied to the parliamentary constituency that covers much the ...
Bassett, John Spencer: American historian and founder of the South Atlantic Quarterly, influential in the development of historiography in the American South.
Bassey, Dame Shirley: glamorous Welsh singer. Renowned for her strident, sultry voice, sequined gowns, and lavish jewelry, she was a forerunner of the score of pop music divas who emerged in the last ...
Bassi, Agostino: pioneer Italian bacteriologist, who anticipated the work of Louis Pasteur by 10 years in discovering that numerous diseases are caused by microorganisms.
Bassi, Ugo: Italian priest and patriot, who was a follower of Giuseppe Garibaldi in his fight for Italian independence.
basso continuo: in music, a system of partially improvised accompaniment played on a bass line, usually on a keyboard instrument. The use of basso continuo was customary during the 17th and 18th ...
Bassompierre, Francois de: French soldier and diplomat who left an influential autobiography, Le Journal de ma vie (1665; The Journal of My Life).
bassoon: the principal tenor and bass instrument of the orchestral woodwind family. The bassoon's reed is made by bending double a shaped strip of cane. Its narrow conical bore leads from ...
Bassville, Nicolas-Jean Hugou de: French journalist and diplomat whose death in Rome at the hands of a mob was exploited by the French Revolutionary governments as a grievance against the papacy.
basswood: any of certain species of linden (q.v.) common to North America, especially Tilia americana, which is found in a vast area of eastern North America but centred in the Great ...
bast fibre: soft, woody fibre obtained from stems of dicotyledonous plants (flowering plants with net-veined leaves) and used for textiles and cordage. Such fibres, usually characterized by fineness and flexibility, are also ...
Bastam: small historic town, northern Iran. It lies just south of the Elburz Mountains in a well-watered plain. Clustered around the tomb of the poet and mystic Abu Yazid al-Bistami (d. ...
bastard toadflax: any of several small annual or perennial herbs of the sandalwood family (Santalaceae) that have narrow leaves resembling those of true toadflax (Linaria). In North America, bastard toadflax refers to ...
Bastarnae: in Hellenistic and Roman times, large tribe settled in Europe east of the Carpathian Mountains from the upper valley of the Dniester River to the Danube River delta. The Bastarnae ...
Baster: (from baster, "bastard," or "half-breed"), member of an ethnically mixed group in Namibia and northwestern South Africa, most of whom are descendants of 18th-century Dutch and French ...
Bastet: ancient Egyptian goddess worshiped in the form of a lioness, and later a cat. Bastet was an ancient deity whose nature changed after the domestication of the cat around 1500 ...
Basti: city, southeastern Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. It lies east of Faizabad on the Kuwana River. Located on a national highway and a major rail line, it is an agricultural ...
Bastia: city, capital of Haute-Corse departement, Corse region, France. It lies on the northeastern coast of Corsica, 22 miles (35 km) south of the island's northernmost point, the tip of Cape ...
Bastian, Adolf: ethnologist who theorized that there is a general psychic unity of humankind that is responsible for certain elementary ideas common to all peoples. Bastian proposed that cultural traits, folklore, myths, ...
Bastiat, Frederic: French economist, best known for his journalistic writing in favour of free trade and the economics of Adam Smith.
bastide: type of village or town built largely in the 13th and 14th centuries in England and Gascony and laid out according to a definite geometric plan. It is thought by ...
Bastien-Lepage, Jules: French painter of rustic outdoor genre scenes widely imitated in France and England.
Bastille: medieval fortress on the east side of Paris that became, in the 17th and 18th centuries, a French state prison and a place of detention for important persons charged with ...
Bastille Day: in France and its overseas departements and territories, holiday marking the anniversary of the fall on July 14, 1789, of the Bastille in Paris. Originally built as ...
bastnaesite: a cerium fluoride carbonate, CeCO₃(OH,F), found in contact metamorphic zones and pegmatites; cerium is commonly substituted by light rare earths, lanthanum, yttrium, and thorium. It ranges in colour from wax-yellow ...
Bastrop: city, Morehouse parish, northeastern Louisiana, U.S., 24 miles (38 km) northeast of Monroe. Settlement of the area began after a Dutch nobleman, Baron de Bastrop, was given a large land ...
Bastwick, John: English religious zealot who opposed Roman Catholic ceremonial in the years before the outbreak of the English Civil War.
bat: any member of the only group of mammals capable of flight. This ability, coupled with the ability to navigate at night by using a system of acoustic orientation (echolocation), has ...
bat bug: any blood-sucking insect of the family Polyctenidae (order Heteroptera), which numbers at least 18 species. Bat bugs are external parasites found in the fur of tropical bats. The adult (between ...
bat fly: any insect belonging to the two families Nycteribiidae and Streblidae (order Diptera). Members of the family Nycteribiidae are wingless, spiderlike insects with long legs and a small head that folds ...
Bat Yam: city, west-central Israel, on the Plain of Sharon and the Mediterranean coast just south of Tel Aviv-Yafo. Founded in 1926 as a suburban development called Bayit ve-Gan (Hebrew: "House and ...
bat-eared fox: (species Otocyon megalotis), large-eared fox, belonging to the dog family (Canidae), found in open, arid areas of eastern and southern Africa. It has 48 teeth, 6 more than any other ...
Bataan Death March: forced march of 70,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese in the Philippines in the early stages of World War II. Starting out from Mariveles, on ...
Bataan Peninsula: peninsula in central Luzon, Philippines, sheltering Manila Bay (east) from the South China Sea. It is about 30 miles (50 km) long and 15 miles (25 km) wide and occupies ...
Batabano, Gulf of: inlet of the Caribbean Sea, indenting southwestern Cuba. The gulf stretches from the shore of eastern Pinar del Rio province approximately 80 miles (130 km) to the southwestern coast of ...
Bataille, Georges: French librarian and writer whose essays, novels, and poetry expressed his fascination with eroticism, mysticism, and the irrational. He viewed excess as a way to gain personal "sovereignty."
Bataille, Henry: French dramatist whose luxuriant plays of passionate love and stifling social conventions were extremely popular at the beginning of the 20th century.
Batak: several closely related ethnic groups of central Sumatra, Indonesia. They possess a written language of their own, consisting of several diverse dialects, belonging to the Austronesian family. The Batak are ...
Batak Protestant Christian Church: church in northern Sumatra, Indon., organized as an independent church in 1930 and constituting the largest Lutheran church in Asia. It developed from the work of missionaries of the Rhenish ...
Batala: city, Punjab state, northwestern India. Located northeast of Amritsar, Batala is an agricultural marketplace and industrial centre. Cotton ginning, weaving, sugar refining, and manufacturing are the principal industries. Batala has ...
Batalha: town, west-central Portugal, just south of Leiria city. The town is dominated by the great Dominican abbey of Santa Maria da Vitoria, also known simply as Batalha ("Battle"). In the ...
Batan Islands: chain of 14 islands in the Philippines, about 190 miles (310 km) north of Luzon in the Luzon Strait. Their total area is 81 square miles (209 square km). The ...
Batangas: city, southern Luzon, Philippines. It lies in a small plain on the west bank of the Calumpang River about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the coast of Batangas Bay, which ...
Batavi: ancient Germanic tribe from whom Batavia, a poetic name for The Netherlands, is derived. The Batavi inhabited what is now the Betuwe district of The Netherlands, around Lugdunum Batavorum (Leiden), ...
Batavia: city, seat (1802) of Genesee county, northwestern New York, U.S. It lies along Tonawanda Creek, midway between Buffalo (west) and Rochester (northeast). Batavia is a distribution point and trade centre ...
Batavian Republic: republic of the Netherlands, established after it was conquered by the French during the campaign of 1794-95. Set up in April 1798, it possessed a government patterned after that of ...
Bataysk: city, Rostov oblast (province), southwestern Russia, just south of Rostov-na-Donu. It is a transport centre in the northern Caucasus and a main rail junction, with railway shops and freight yards: ...