elector of Brandenburg (1640-88), who restored the Hohenzollern dominions after the devastations of the Thirty Years' War-centralizing the political administration, reorganizing the state finances, rebuilding towns and cities, developing a ...
elector of Hesse-Kassel from 1847 after 16 years' co-regency with his father; he was noted for his reactionary stand against liberalizing trends manifested during the revolutionary events of 1848. In ...
second Prussian king who transformed his country from a second-rate power into the efficient and prosperous state that his son and successor, Frederick II the Great, made a major military ...
king of Prussia from August 17, 1786, under whom, despite his lack of exceptional military and political gifts, Prussia achieved considerable expansion.
king of Prussia from 1797, the son of Frederick William II. Neglected by his father, he never mastered his resultant inferiority complex, but the influence of his wife, Louisa of ...
king of Prussia from 1840 until 1861, whose conservative policies helped spark the Revolution of 1848. In the aftermath of the failed revolution, Frederick William followed a reactionary course. In ...
city, administratively independent of, but located in, Spotsylvania county, northeastern Virginia, U.S., at the head of navigation of the Rappahannock River. The site, settled in 1671, was laid out in ...
(December 13, 1862), bloody engagement of the American Civil War fought at Fredericksburg, Virginia; its outcome-a crushing Union defeat-immeasurably strengthened the Confederate cause. General A.E. Burnside, newly appointed commander of ...
city, capital (since 1785) of New Brunswick, Canada, and seat of York county, on the Saint John River, 84 miles (135 km) from its mouth in the south-central part of ...
independent municipality in Greater Copenhagen, eastern Denmark. It was founded in 1651 by Frederick III as a settlement for Dutch peasants brought to nearby Amager Island. Chartered in 1857, it ...
amtskommune (county), northeastern Sjaelland (Zealand), Denmark, between the Isefjord and The Sound (Oresund). Its undulating surface of glacial sands and clays is lake strewn and well wooded, and the fertile ...
town, southwestern Greenland, on the Atlantic coast at the mouth of 30-mi- (48-km-) long Kvanefjord and south-southeast of Frederikshabs Isblink (ice field), a navigation landmark. It was founded in 1742. ...
city and port, Nordjylland amtskommune (county), northern Jutland, Denmark, on the Kattegat (strait), east of Hjorring. A fishing village in the 16th and 17th centuries, it was fortified (Fladstrand Citadel) ...
town on the west coast of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, 17 miles (27 km) southwest of Christiansted. Historically, the town was a mercantile centre for the sugar-based economy of ...
village in the town (township) of Pomfret, Chautauqua county, western New York, U.S. It lies on Canadaway Creek, near Lake Erie, immediately south of Dunkirk. Settled in 1804, its pseudo-Latin ...
Swedish kayaker, who dominated the sport between 1948 and 1960, winning seven world championships in kayaking events and eight Olympic medals, including six gold.
town, Ostfold fylke (county), south of Oslo, southeastern Norway. Located on the eastern shore of Oslofjorden at the mouth of the Glomma (Glama) River, it was founded in 1567 by ...
a major Polish playwright, poet, and author of memoirs whose work is remarkable for its brilliant characterization, ingenious construction, and skillful handling of verse metres.
generally, any Protestant religious body that exists in or originates in a land having a state church but that is itself free of governmental or external ecclesiastical control. Examples of ...
organization of free churches (not part of the Church of England) of England and Wales, including Methodist, Baptist, the United Reformed Church in England and Wales (a Presbyterian-Congregational merger), and ...
church organized in 1843 by dissenting members of the Church of Scotland. The disruption was the result of tensions that had existed within the Church of Scotland, primarily because of ...
centrist German political party that advocates individualism, capitalism, and social reform. Although it has captured only a small percentage of the votes in national elections, its support has been pivotal ...
in thermodynamics, energylike property or state function of a system in thermodynamic equilibrium-it has the dimensions of energy and its value is determined by the state of the system and ...
in World War II (1939-45), members of a movement for the continuation of warfare against Germany after the military collapse of Metropolitan France in the summer of 1940. Led by ...
an approach to jazz improvisation that emerged during the late 1950s, reached its height in the '60s, and remained a major development in jazz thereafter.
Holiness church in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition that emphasizes the doctrine of sanctification, a postconversion process of spiritual and moral growth through prayer, Bible study, interaction with fellow believers, and simplicity ...
area within which goods may be landed, handled, manufactured, and reshipped without the intervention of the customs authorities. It is now more commonly known as a free-trade zone.
school in which the teaching system is based on an environment structured to encourage the child to become actively involved in the learning process. The free school stresses individualized rather ...
in late 19th-century American history, advocacy of unlimited coinage of silver. The movement was precipitated by an act of Congress in 1873 that omitted the silver dollar from the list ...
province, east-central Republic of South Africa. Under the name Orange Free State, it was originally a Boer state and then (from 1910) one of the traditional provinces of South Africa; ...
a policy by which a government does not discriminate against imports or interfere with exports by applying tariffs (to imports) or subsidies (to exports). A free-trade policy does not necessarily ...
poetry organized to the cadences of speech and image patterns rather than according to a regular metrical scheme. It is "free" only in a relative sense. It does not have ...
in humans, the power or capacity to choose among alternatives or to act in certain situations independently of natural, social, or divine restraints. Free will is denied by those who ...
in solid-state physics, representation of a metallic solid as a container filled with a gas composed of free electrons (i.e., those responsible for high electrical and thermal conductivity) that move ...
in mechanics, state of a body that moves freely in any manner in the presence of gravity. The planets, for example, are in free-fall in the gravitational field of the ...
(1848-54), minor but influential political party in the pre-Civil War period of American history that opposed the extension of slavery into the western territories. Fearful of expanding slave power within ...
any of 100 species of bats, so called for the way in which part of the tail extends somewhat beyond the membrane connecting the hind legs. Some free-tailed bats are ...
an area within which goods may be landed, handled, manufactured or reconfigured, and reexported without the intervention of the customs authorities. Only when the goods are moved to consumers within ...
distance from the waterline to the freeboard deck of a fully loaded ship; it is measured amidships at the side of the hull. The freeboard deck is the deck below ...
former slave set free. In ancient Athens, former slaves bore no stigma, and some rose to positions of political or economic power. During the later Hellenistic period, however, some Greek ...
(1865-72), during the Reconstruction period after the American Civil War, popular name for the U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, established by Congress to provide practical aid to ...
in mathematics, any of the number of independent quantities necessary to express the values of all the variable properties of a system. A system composed of a point moving without ...
in English law, ownership of a substantial interest in land held for an indefinite period of time. The term originally designated the owner of an estate held in free tenure, ...
American actor whose emotional depth and versatility made him one of the most respected performers of his generation. Over a career that included numerous memorable performances on stage, screen, and ...
English civil engineer whose Sydney Harbour Bridge (1932), New South Wales, with a main arch span of 1,650 feet (500 m), is one of the longest steel-arch bridges in the ...
the teachings and practices of the secret fraternal order of Free and Accepted Masons, the largest worldwide secret society. Spread by the advance of the British Empire, Freemasonry remains most ...
city, seat (1838) of Stephenson county, northwestern Illinois, U.S. It lies on the Pecatonica River, about 25 miles (40 km) west of Rockford. Pennsylvania Germans began arriving in the area ...
town, southwestern shore of Grand Bahama island, The Bahamas. In 1955 the colonial Bahamian government entered into the so-called Hawksbill Creek Agreement with the newly created Grand Bahama Port Authority ...
city, Brazoria county, southeastern Texas, U.S., at the mouth of the Brazos River, on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, 60 miles (97 km) south of Houston. Settled in 1898 but officially ...
museum in Washington, D.C., endowed and built by the Detroit industrialist Charles Lang Freer to house the distinguished collection of Oriental art that he gave to the United States government ...
genus of about 20 species of South African plants of the iris family (Iridaceae), with bulblike structures (corms), grassy foliage, and wiry spikes of bell-like, lemon-scented flowers in white, yellow, ...
winter sport that combines skiing and acrobatics. The sport has experimented with a range of events, but there are two that have been constant through the course of the sport's ...
one of three styles of wrestling used in international amateur competition (the others are Greco-Roman wrestling and sambo) under supervision of the Federation Internationale de Lutte Amateur (International Amateur Wrestling ...
capital, chief port, and largest city of Sierra Leone, on the rocky Sierra Leone Peninsula, at the seaward tip of a range of wooded hills, which were named Serra Leoa ...
in food processing, method of preserving food by lowering the temperature to inhibit microorganism growth. The method has been used for centuries in cold regions, and a patent was issued ...
any particle that, when present in a mass of supercooled water, will induce growth of an ice crystal about itself; most ice crystals in the atmosphere are thought to form ...
temperature at which a liquid becomes a solid. As with the melting point, increased pressure usually raises the freezing point. The freezing point is lower than the melting point in ...
German mathematician and logician, who founded modern mathematical logic. Working on the borderline between philosophy and mathematics-viz., in the philosophy of mathematics and mathematical logic (in which no intellectual precedents ...
procedure used in the diagnosis of lymphogranuloma venereum, a venereal disease caused by a virus. The yolk of a chick embryo is infected with the virus, which is then inactivated ...
city, Saxony Land (state), eastern Germany. It lies on the Freiberger Mulde River, at the northeastern foot of the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge), southwest of Dresden. It was ...
city, Baden-Wurttemberg Land (state), southwestern Germany. It is picturesquely situated on the western slopes of the Black Forest, where the Dreisam River flows into the Rhine valley. ...
academically autonomous coeducational institution of higher learning at Freiburg im Breisgau, Ger., financially supported by the state of Baden-Wurttemberg. Founded in 1457 by Archduke Albrecht of Austria and confirmed by ...
