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Heyerdahl, Thor ... highboy

Heyerdahl, Thor: Norwegian ethnologist and adventurer who organized and led the famous Kon-Tiki (1947) and Ra (1969-70) transoceanic scientific expeditions. Both expeditions were intended to prove ...
Heymans, Corneille: Belgian physiologist who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1938 for his discovery of the regulatory effect on respiration of sensory organs associated with the carotid artery ...
Heyn, Piet: admiral and director of the Dutch West India Company who captured a Spanish treasure fleet (1628) with 4,000,000 ducats of gold and silver (12,000,000 gulden, or florins). That great naval ...
Heyrovsky, Jaroslav: Czech chemist who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1959 for his discovery and development of polarography.
Heyse, Paul Johann Ludwig von: German writer and prominent member of the traditionalist Munich school who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1910.
Heyward, DuBose: American novelist, dramatist, and poet whose first novel, Porgy (1925), was the basis for a highly successful play, an opera, and a motion picture.
Heywood, Jasper: Jesuit priest and poet whose translations of the works of the Roman playwright Seneca, including Troades (1559), Thyestes (1560), Hercules furens (1561), and other plays issued as Seneca His Tenne ...
Heywood, John: playwright whose short dramatic interludes helped put English drama on the road to the fully developed stage comedy of the Elizabethans. He replaced biblical allegory and the instruction of the ...
Heywood, Thomas: English actor-playwright whose career spans the peak periods of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama.
Hezbollah: militia group and political party that first emerged as a faction in Lebanon following the Israeli invasion of that country in 1982.
Hezekiah: son of Ahaz, and the 13th successor of David as king of Judah at Jerusalem. The dates of his reign are often given as about 715 to about 686 BC, ...
Hialeah: city, Miami-Dade county, southeastern Florida, U.S. It lies on the Miami Canal, just northwest of Miami. The area was originally inhabited by Tequesta and later by Seminole Indians. Settled in ...
hiatus: in prosody, a break in sound between two vowels that occur together without an intervening consonant, both vowels being clearly enunciated. The two vowels may be either within one word, ...
Hiawatha: (Ojibwa: "He Makes Rivers"), a legendary chief (c. 1450) of the Onondaga tribe of North American Indians, to whom Indian tradition attributes the formation of what became known as the ...
Hibbing: city, St. Louis county, northeastern Minnesota, U.S. It lies on the Mesabi Range, in a forest and lake region, about 70 miles (115 km) northwest of Duluth. Settled in 1892 ...
hibernation: a state of greatly reduced metabolic activity and lowered body temperature adopted by certain mammals as an adaptation to adverse winter conditions.
Hiberno-Saxon style: in Western visual arts, the decorative vocabulary that resulted from the interaction of the Irish, or Hibernians, and the Anglo-Saxons of southern England during the 7th century.
hibiscus: any of about 250 species of herbs, shrubs, and trees constituting the genus Hibiscus, in the mallow family (Malvaceae), and native to warm temperate and tropical regions. Several are cultivated ...
hiccup: spasmodic contraction of the diaphragm (the muscular partition separating the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity) which causes a sudden intake of breath that is involuntarily cut off by closure ...
hichiriki: a Japanese short, double-reed aerophone (wind instrument) used in ancient court music and surviving in the gagaku, or courtly music, tradition. It is derived from earlier continental Asian models. The ...
Hickok, Wild Bill: American frontiersman, army scout, and lawman, who helped bring order to the frontier West. His reputation as a marksman gave rise to legends and tales about his life.
hickory: any of about 18 species of deciduous timber and nut-producing trees that constitute the genus Carya of the walnut family (Juglandaceae). About 15 species of hickory are native to eastern ...
Hickory: city, Catawba county, west-central North Carolina, U.S. It lies near the Catawba River (there dammed to form Lake Hickory) just east of the Appalachian foothills and about 60 miles (100 ...
Hicks Beach, Sir Michael Edward, 9th Baronet, 1st Earl St. Aldwyn Of Coln, Viscount Quenington Of Quenington, Viscount St. Aldwyn Of Coln: British Conservative statesman who was chancellor of the Exchequer (1885-86, 1895-1902).
Hicks, Edward: American primitive, or folk, painter known for his naive depictions of the farms and landscape of Pennsylvania and New York, and especially for his many versions (about 25 extant, perhaps ...
Hicks, Elias: early advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States and a liberal Quaker preacher whose followers became known as Hicksites, one of two factions created by the schism ...
Hicks, Granville: critic, novelist, and teacher who was one of the foremost practitioners of Marxist criticism in American literature.
Hicks, Sir John R.: English economist who made pioneering contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and, in 1972, shared (with Kenneth J. Arrow) the Nobel Prize for Economics. He was knighted in 1964.
Hida Range: mountain group in the Chubu chiho (region) of central Honshu, Japan. The range stretches from north to south along the borders of Toyama, Niigata, Nagano, and Gifu ken (prefectures). With ...
Hidaka Range: mountain range, southernmost portion of the Shiribeshi Mountain system, on Hokkaido, Japan, projecting into the Pacific Ocean at Cape Erimo. The mountains are west of the Tokachi Plain. The seaward ...
hidalgo: in Spain, a hereditary noble or, in the later Middle Ages and the modern era, a knight or member of the gentry.
Hidalgo: estado ("state"), east-central Mexico, bounded by the states of San Luis Potosi and Veracruz (north), Puebla (east), Mexico and Tlaxcala (south), and Queretaro (west). It was part of the state ...
Hidalgo: county, southwestern New Mexico, U.S.; it is bordered by Arizona on the west and Mexico on the south and east. The county's northwestern area, featuring alkali flats and crossed by ...
Hidalgo del Parral: city, south-central Chihuahua estado ("state"), north-central Mexico. The city, renamed in honour of the patriot Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, lies on the Parral River 5,449 feet (1,661 m) above sea ...
Hidalgo y Costilla, Miguel: Catholic priest who is called the father of Mexican independence.
Hidatsa: American Plains Indian people of Siouan stock who lived on the upper Missouri River between the Heart and the Little Missouri rivers in semipermanent villages. The Hidatsa were a sedentary ...
hiddenite: green, semiprecious variety of the silicate mineral spodumene (q.v.).
hide: in early English history, the land necessary to support a free peasant family. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the hide commonly appeared as 120 acres (50 hectares) of arable ...
hide: the pelt taken from a cow, steer, or bull of the bovine species, from the pelt of a horse, or from the integument of some other large adult animal. The ...
hide-and-seek: old and popular children's game in which one player closes his or her eyes for a brief period (often counting to 100) while the other players hide. The seeker then ...
Hielm, Jonas Anton: political leader who defended Norway's position within the Swedish-Norwegian union and led an early attempt to form a national reform party with peasant and liberal urban support.
Hien Vuong: also called Chua Hien, Nguyen Phuoc Tan, or Thai Ton member of the Nguyen family (q.v.) who ruled in southern Vietnam in 1648-87. He persecuted European Christian missionaries, expanded the ...
Hierakonpolis: prehistoric royal residence of the kings of Upper Egypt and most important site of the beginning of Egypt's historical period, located in Aswan muhafazah (governorate). Hierakonpolis, then called Nekhen, enjoyed ...
Hierapolis: ancient Syrian city, now partly occupied by Manbij (Membij), about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Aleppo. The place first appears in Greek as Bambyce, but its Syrian name was ...
Hierapolis: ancient Phrygian city in southwestern Turkey, about 6 miles (10 km) north of the ruins of Laodicea. Situated on the Coruh River, a tributary of the Buyuk Menderes (Maeander) River, ...
hieratic script: ancient Egyptian cursive writing, used from the 1st dynasty (c. 2925-c. 2775 BC) until about 200 BC. Derived from the earlier, pictorial hieroglyphic writing used in carved or painted inscriptions, ...
Hierocles Of Alexandria: Neoplatonist philosopher who, after studying under the Greek philosopher Plutarch of Athens and visiting Constantinople, spent the rest of his life in Alexandria, where he won a reputation as a ...
hieroglyph: a character used in a system of pictorial writing, particularly that form used on ancient Egyptian monuments. Hieroglyphic symbols may represent the objects that they depict but usually stand for ...
hieroglyphic writing: a system that employs characters in the form of pictures. These individual signs, called hieroglyphs, may be read either as pictures, as symbols for pictures, or as symbols for sounds.
Hieron I: brother of the tyrant Gelon and tyrant of Syracuse, Sicily, from 478 to 467/466 BC.
Hieron II: tyrant of Syracuse, Sicily, from about 270 to 216/215 BC, who struggled against the Mamertini and eventually allied his city with Rome.
hierophant: ("displayer of holy things"), in ancient Greece, chief of the Eleusinian cult, the best-known of the mystery religions of ancient Greece. His principal job was to chant demonstrations of sacred ...
hieros gamos: (Greek: "sacred marriage"), sexual relations of fertility deities in myths and rituals, characteristic of societies based on cereal agriculture, especially in the Middle East. At least once a year, divine ...
Hierta, Lars Johan: journalist and politician who became a leading agitator for Swedish political and social reform.
Higashi-Murayama: city, Tokyo to (metropolis), Honshu, Japan, east of Lake Sayama. The town of Kumegawa, now the city centre, was a post station in the 8th century and an important local ...
Higashi-Osaka: (Japanese: "East Osaka"), city, Osaka fu (urban prefecture), Honshu, Japan. It lies to the east of Osaka and was formed in 1967 by the merger of the three towns of ...
Higashikuni Naruhiko: Japanese imperial prince and army commander who was Japan's first prime minister after the country's surrender in World War II (August 17-October 6, 1945). He was the only member of ...
Higden, Ranulf: English monk and chronicler remembered for his Polychronicon, a compilation of much of the knowledge of his age.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth: American reformer who was dedicated to the abolition movement before the American Civil War.
Higgs particle: hypothetical particle that is postulated to be the carrier particle, or boson, of the Higgs field, a theoretical field that permeates space and endows all elementary subatomic particles with mass ...
High Commission, Court of: English ecclesiastical court instituted by the crown in the 16th century as a means to enforce the laws of the Reformation settlement and exercise control over the church. In its ...
High Court of Admiralty: in England, formerly the court presided over by the deputy of the admiral of the fleet. The Black Book of the Admiralty says it was founded in the reign of ...
High Court of Justice: in England and Wales, court system centred in London and comprising three divisions of both original and appellate jurisdiction, mostly in civil matters and only occasionally in criminal cases. The ...
High God: in anthropology and the history of religion, a type of supreme deity found among many nonliterate peoples of North and South America, Africa, northern Asia, and Australia. The adjective high ...
high jump: sport in athletics (track and field) in which the athlete takes a running jump to attain height. The sport's venue (see ) includes a level, semicircular runway allowing an approach ...
High Peak: borough (district), northwestern part of the administrative county of Derbyshire, north-central England. Most of the borough is part of the historic county of Derbyshire, but its northern edge includes Tintwhistle ...
high place: Israelite or Canaanite open-air shrine usually erected on an elevated site. Prior to the conquest of Canaan (Palestine) by the Israelites in the 12th-11th century BC, the high places served ...
High Plains: region in the United States, comprising the southern portion of the Great Plains, or, in its most specific sense, the northern portion of the Llano Estacado ("Staked Plain"). In the ...
High Point: city, Guilford county, north-central North Carolina, U.S. It lies about 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Winston-Salem and 15 miles (25 km) southwest of Greensboro and with them forms a ...
high priest: in Judaism, the chief religious functionary in the Temple of Jerusalem, whose unique privilege was to enter the Holy of Holies (inner sanctum) once a year on Yom Kippur, the ...
high school: in most school systems in the United States, any three- to six-year secondary school serving students approximately 13 (or 14 or 15) through 18 years of age. Often in four-year ...
high seas: in maritime law, all parts of the mass of saltwater surrounding the globe that are not part of the territorial sea or internal waters of a state. For several centuries ...
High Wycombe: town, Wycombe district, administrative and historic county of Buckinghamshire, England. It lies along the River Wye, at the edge of the Chiltern Hills and on the fringe of the London ...
high-pressure phenomena: changes in physical, chemical, and structural characteristics that matter undergoes when subjected to high pressure. Pressure thus serves as a versatile tool in materials research, and it is especially important ...
high-rise building: a multistory building tall enough to require the use of a system of mechanical vertical transportation such as elevators. The skyscraper (q.v.) is a very tall high-rise building.
highboy: a high or double chest of drawers. The name is derived from a corruption of the French bois ("wood") and became common in English in the late 1600s.