original name Jason Gould American railroad executive, financier, and speculator, an important railroad developer who was one of the most unscrupulous "robber barons" of 19th-century American capitalism.
any of several of the freshwater, tropical labyrinth fishes (order Perciformes), especially Osphronemus goramy, an East Indian fish that is caught or raised for food; it has been introduced elsewhere. ...
French soldier and historian who accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte into exile at St. Helena and wrote important historical and biographical works about Napoleon.
novelist, poet, playwright, and philosopher who was one of the most intelligent contemporary critics of the French Symbolist movement. His prolific writings, many of which were translated into English, disseminated ...
hereditary metabolic disorder that is characterized by recurrent acute attacks of severe inflammation in one or more of the joints of the extremities. Gout results from the deposition, in and ...
French soldier and statesman who distinguished himself in the Napoleonic Wars (1800-15). As minister of war in 1817-19 he was responsible for reorganizing recruitment procedures in the French army.
a noted Mughal painter born into imperial service, the son of a Hindu painter, Bhavani Das. His work spanned the reigns of the emperors Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan. Several ...
peninsula extending from the northeastern corner of Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia, into the Arafura Sea. An estimated 200 million tons of bauxite were discovered there in 1952. A consortium ...
island, the largest island (12 square miles [31 square km]) in Guanabara Bay, southeastern Brazil. Linked to the mainland and Rio de Janeiro by bridge, it is the site of ...
forecast by a government of its expenditures and revenues for a specific period of time. In national finance, the period covered by a budget is usually a year, known as ...
measures by which a government attempts to influence the economy. The national budget generally reflects the economic policy of a government, and it is partly through the budget that the ...
succession of measures passed by the British Parliament between 1773 and 1935 to regulate the government of India. The first several acts-passed in 1773, 1780, 1784, 1786, 1793, and 1830-were ...
the document that established the English Protectorate and under which Great Britain was governed from December 1653 to May 1657. The first detailed written constitution adopted by a modern state, ...
in technology, device that automatically maintains the rotary speed of an engine or other prime mover within reasonably close limits regardless of the load. A typical governor regulates an engine's ...
island in Upper New York Bay, New York, New York, U.S., situated off the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Its area is 172 acres (70 hectares). Known as Pagganck to ...
peninsula in Swansea city and county, historic county of Glamorgan (Morgannwg), Wales, extending southwest into the Bristol Channel. The old Welsh province of Gwyr, from which the name is derived, ...
medieval English poet in the tradition of courtly love and moral allegory, whose reputation once matched that of his contemporary and friend Geoffrey Chaucer, and who strongly influenced the writing ...
alleged Scottish conspirator, one of the principals in the mysterious "Gowrie Conspiracy" of 1600, slain in the presence of James VI (afterward James I of Great Britain).
consummately Spanish artist whose multifarious paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters. The series of etchings Los desastres de ...
Spanish novelist, short-story writer, and essayist whose early Neorealist work evolved into avant-garde fiction using structuralist and formalist techniques.
second largest of the Maltese islands (after the island of Malta), in the Mediterranean Sea, 3 14 mi (5 14 km) northwest of the nearest point of Malta. It is ...
(Count) poet, prose writer, and dramatist, a fierce and skillful defender of the traditional Italian commedia dell'arte form against the dramatic innovations of Pietro Chiari and Carlo Goldoni. Admired in ...
(conte) Italian poet, prose writer, journalist, and critic. He is remembered for a satire that revived interest in Dante and for his two periodicals, which brought the journalistic style of ...
early Italian Renaissance painter whose masterpiece, a fresco cycle in the chapel of the Medici-Riccardi Palace, Florence, reveals a new interest in nature (a careful study of realistic detail in ...
space-based radio-navigation system that broadcasts highly accurate navigation pulses to users on or near the Earth. In the United States' Navstar GPS system, 24 main satellites in 6 orbits circle ...
poet, philologist, and journalist, a dominant literary figure among 19th-century Bantu writers, whose poetry reflects the effects of missionaries and education on the Bantu people.
mausoleum of the 14th-century Mongol conqueror Timur, or Tamerlane, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Though it has suffered from time and earthquakes, the monument is still sumptuous. Completed in 1404, it was ...
Dutch physician who discovered the follicles of the ovary (known as Graafian follicles), in which the individual egg cells are formed. He was also important for his studies on the ...
Dutch statesman who, as colonial minister (1919-25), reorganized the administration of the Dutch East Indies and had the Indies' constitution revised so conservatively that it aroused nationalist fervour there.
town, Eastern province, South Africa. It lies along the Sundays River, in the arid upland plateau area called the Great Karoo. Founded in 1786 by one of the last governors ...
American film actress and dancer who was one of the leading box office draws of the 1940s. She starred primarily in musicals with formulaic plots that embraced her wholesome, good-natured ...
Brazilian novelist and diplomat, best remembered for his novel Canaa (1902; Canaan, 1920), in which he explored the conflicts of the Brazilian ethnic melting pot through the varied perspectives and ...
Roman tribune (123-122 BC), who reenacted the agrarian reforms of his brother, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, and who proposed other measures to lessen the power of the senatorial nobility.
Roman tribune (133 BC) who sponsored agrarian reforms to restore the class of small independent farmers and who was assassinated in a riot sparked by his senatorial opponents. His brother ...
in Greek religion, one of a group of goddesses of fertility. The name refers to the "pleasing" or "charming" appearance of a fertile field or garden. The number of Graces ...
in Christian theology, the spontaneous, unmerited gift of the divine favour in the salvation of sinners, and the divine influence operating in man for his regeneration and sanctification. The English ...
greatest cricketer in Victorian England, whose dominating physical presence, gusto, and inexhaustible energy made him a national figure. He evolved the modern principles of batting and achieved many notable performances ...
American shipowner and founder of W.R. Grace & Co., a corporation that was for many years a dominant influence on the economy of South America's west coast and, under the ...
philosopher and writer known as the leading Spanish exponent of conceptism (conceptismo), a style of dealing with ideas that involves the use of terse and subtle displays of exaggerated wit.
city, southwestern Honduras. It lies in the valley of the Mejocote River, at the foot of Las Minas Hill in the Celaque Mountains. Founded in 1536, it is one of ...
volcanic island, northernmost of the central Azores, east-central Atlantic Ocean. The 23-square-mile (60-square-kilometre) island reaches a height of 1,338 feet (408 m) at the summit of Enxofre Caldera, a volcanic ...
any of several species of birds belonging to the family Icteridae (order Passeriformes) that have iridescent black plumage and long tails. Grackles use their stout, pointed bills to snap up ...
in sedimentology, division of a continuous range of particle sizes into a series of discrete groups, called grades. Several such scales have been devised for the purpose of standardizing terms ...
Yiddish poet, short-story writer, and novelist who was one of the last surviving secularized Yiddish writers to have been educated in a European yeshiva (rabbinical seminary). His fiction reflects an ...
an elementary or secondary school in which the instructional program is divided into school years, known as grades or forms. At the end of each academic year, pupils move from ...
in excavation, precision finishing vehicle for final shaping of surfaces on which pavement will be placed. Between its front and rear wheels a grader carries a broad mechanically or hydraulically ...
hypothetical wind that accounts for air flow along a curved trajectory. It is an extension of the concept of geostrophic wind-i.e., the wind assumed to move along straight and parallel ...
a dictionary of Greek or Latin prosody and poetic phrases used as an aid in the writing of verse in Greek or Latin. The term is derived from the Gradus ...
American journalist and orator who helped bring about industrial development in the South, especially through Northern investments, after the Reconstruction period (1865-77).
German organic chemist who, assisted by Carl Liebermann, synthesized (1868) the orange-red dye alizarin, which quickly supplanted the natural dye madder in the textile industry.
German ethnologist who advanced the theory of the Kulturkreise, or culture complex, which postulated diffusions of primitive culture spheres derived from a single archaic type. His scheme launched the culture-historical ...
German pocket battleship of 10,000 tons launched in 1936. The Graf Spee was more heavily gunned than any cruiser and had a top speed of 25 knots and an endurance ...
German regional novelist and poet known for novels and sketches of Bavarian peasant life, such as Kalender-Geschichten, 2 vol. (1929, rev. 1957; "Calendar Histories"). Graf's writing is marked by frank ...
