American novelist and short-story writer who established his reputation with the novel The World According to Garp (1978; filmed 1982). Characteristic of his other works, it is ...
one of the most famous of English actors, the first of his profession to be knighted (1895) for services to the stage. He was also a celebrated theatre manager and ...
township (town), Essex county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S., bordering Newark to the east. Settled in 1666 as part of a land grant from Sir George Carteret, proprietor of New Jersey, ...
American astronaut, pilot of the Lunar Module on the Apollo 15 mission (July 26-Aug. 7, 1971), in which he and the mission commander, David R. Scott, spent almost three days ...
in the Old Testament (Genesis), second of the patriarchs of Israel, the only son of Abraham and Sarah, and father of Esau and Jacob. Although Sarah was past the age ...
medieval codifier of Jewish law (Halakha) whose vast compilation, Or Zaru'a ("Light Is Sown"), was widely quoted in later Halakhic works. Or Zaru'a is also valued by historians for its ...
Byzantine emperor, who, although incapable of stemming administrative abuses, partly succeeded, by his defeat of the Serbians in 1190, in retrieving imperial fortunes in the Balkans.
Syrian writer, probably a priest of an independent Syrian Christian church and author of a wealth of theological literature and historical verse describing events in Rome and Asia Minor.
monk, philosopher, and theologian, a leading thinker in 12th-century Christian humanism and proponent of a synthesis of Neoplatonic and Aristotelian philosophies.
Armenian Sahak celebrated catholicos, or spiritual head, of the Armenian Apostolic (Orthodox) Church, principal advocate of Armenian cultural and ecclesiastical independence and collaborator in the first translation of the Bible ...
Colombian poet and novelist whose best work, Maria (1867; Maria: A South American Romance, 1977), was one of the most famous Latin-American novels of the 19th century.
province, northeastern Luzon, Philippines. It has an area of 4,118 sq mi (10,665 sq km). Its eastern section comprises the rugged, sparsely populated Sierra Madre Mountains, which extend to the ...
largest of the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. It lies in the eastern Pacific Ocean 600 miles (965 km) west of Ecuador and has an area of 2,249 square miles (5,825 square ...
infanta of Spain who became the instrument of her father's claims to the thrones of England and France; as archduchess of Austria, she ruled the Spanish Netherlands with her husband, ...
queen consort of Philip V of Spain (reigned 1700-46), whose ambitions to secure Italian possessions for her children embroiled Spain in wars and intrigues for three decades. Her capability in ...
queen of Castile (1474-1504) and of Aragon (1479-1504), ruling the two kingdoms jointly from 1479 with her husband, Ferdinand II of Aragon (Ferdinand V of Castile). Their rule effected the ...
queen of Spain (1833-68) whose troubled reign was marked by political instability and the rule of military politicians. Isabella's failure to respond to growing demands for a more progressive regime, ...
queen consort of Charles VI of France, who frequently was regent because of her husband's periodic insanity. Her gravest political act was the signing of the Treaty of Troyes (May ...
vigorous, inventive, and cosmopolitan architectural style created during the joint reign of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, which in turn formed the basis for the Plateresque style. The ...
gifted French painter and printmaker, specializing in portraits and miniatures. He enjoyed official favour from the time of Louis XVI until his death. His portrait Napoleon at ...
professional speech writer at Athens specializing in testamentary law, whose lucidity and logical method were a landmark in the development of forensic oratory.
town, northwestern Iceland, on Vestfjarda Peninsula, overlooking Isa Fjord (Isafjordhur). It is a regional market centre and is the principal fishing port of northwestern Iceland. In addition to fishing and ...
city, Nagasaki ken (prefecture), Kyushu, Japan, at the neck of the three peninsulas of Shimabara, Nagasaki, and Nishisonoki. The city has been an important commercial centre for the surrounding agricultural ...
prophet after whom the biblical Book of Isaiah is named (only some of the first 39 chapters are attributed to him), a significant contributor to Jewish and Christian traditions. His ...
pseudepigraphal work surviving intact only in a 5th-7th-century-AD Ethiopic edition. Fragments exist in Greek, Coptic, Latin, and Old Slavonic. Three separate works comprise the total book, the final version by ...
one of the major prophetical writings of the Old Testament. The superscription identifies Isaiah as the son of Amoz and his book as "the vision of Isaiah . . . ...
chief of the Maukhari family of northern India, originally a feudatory of the Gupta Empire, who by the middle of the 6th century had declared his independence from the Guptas ...
(Jan. 22-23, 1879), the major battles of the Zulu War, in South Africa. At Isandhlwana, the British failure to defend their encampment led to the obliteration of an imperial force ...
river, Bavaria Land (state), southern Germany. Rising at an elevation of 5,741 feet (1,750 m) in the Karwendelgebirge, just northeast of Innsbruck, Austria, the Isar runs west and then north ...
ancient inland district of south central Anatolia. Its inhabitants, a mountain people described by Greco-Roman authors as warlike and uncivilized, were conquered by the Roman general Servilius "Isauricus" early in ...
island at the northwest entrance to the Bay of Naples, opposite Capo (cape) Miseno, Napoli province, Campania region, southern Italy, just west-southwest of Naples. Oblong in shape, with a circumference ...
city, Mie ken (prefecture), southern Honshu, Japan, on Ise Bay (Ise-wan) of the Pacific Ocean. The city contains several major Shinto shrines. Central among these is the ...
school of Shinto established by priests of the Watarai family who served at the Outer Shrine of the Ise Shrine (Ise-jingu). Ise Shinto establishes purity and honesty as the highest ...
national park on the Shima Peninsula, central Honshu, Japan. Its two main cities are Ise, famous for its Shinto shrines, and Toba, a seaport that guards the southern entrance to ...
American oceanographer who, as director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (1940-50; 1956-57) in Massachusetts, expanded its facilities 10-fold and made it one of the largest research establishments of its ...
greedy and dull-witted wolf who is a prominent character in many medieval European beast epics. Often cast as a worldly and corrupt churchman, he appears first as a character in ...
meteorological map that shows the moisture distribution and flow of air along a surface of constant entropy, which is also a surface of constant potential temperature (the temperature a parcel ...
lake in Lombardia (Lombardy) region, northern Italy, between Bergamo and Brescia provinces, at the southern foot of the Alps at an altitude of 610 feet (186 m). The lake is ...
river, southwestern France, originating in the Savoy Alps on the Italian frontier and flowing 180 miles (290 km) to its confluence with the Rhone above Valence, draining a basin of ...
city, North Rhine-Westphalia Land (state), western Germany. It lies at the entrance to the hilly, wooded Sauerland region, southeast of Dortmund. First mentioned in the 11th century, ...
capital of Isernia province (formed 1970), Molise region, south central Italy, between the Carpino and Sordo rivers, west of Campobasso. It originated as Aesernia, a town of the Samnites (an ...
city, Gumma Prefecture (ken), Honshu, Japan, on the Ryomo Line (railway) between Takasaki and Oyama. Isesaki prospered as a market town around a castle built in the early Tokugawa period ...
town, Oyo State, southwestern Nigeria, at the intersection of roads from Oyo to Iwere and from Abeokuta to Okaka. In the early 1860s, the Yoruba Mission opened an Anglican church ...
American collector of rare manuscripts who discovered the long-missing manuscripts of James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson and other Boswell papers and letters.
in the Old Testament (II Samuel 2:8-4:12), fourth son of King Saul and the last representative of his family to be king over Israel (the northern kingdom, as opposed to ...
Japanese scholar who originated the moral-education movement called Shingaku ("Heart Learning"), which sought to popularize ethics among the common people.
(Viscount) Japanese statesman and diplomat who effectively championed a cautious expansion of Japan and cooperation with the West in the decades immediately before and after World War I.
(Japanese: Ishikari River), river, in Hokkaido, Japan, rising near the centre of the Kitami-sammyaku (Kitami Mountains). It flows for 120 mi (200 km) southwest in a broad arc, draining the ...
prefecture (ken), western Honshu, Japan, facing the Sea of Japan. Its area of 1,620 sq mi (4,196 sq km) includes the western stretch of the Japanese Alps (southeast). Although snowfall ...
Japanese poet, a master of tanka, a traditional Japanese verse form, whose works enjoyed immediate popularity for their freshness and startling imagery.
river in Kazakstan and Tyumen and Omsk oblasti (provinces) of south-central Russia. A left-bank tributary of the Irtysh (Ertis), it rises in the Niyaz Hills in the north of the ...
city, Bashkiriya republic, western Russia. Ishimbay lies along the Belaya (White) River. It was the earliest centre of the oil industry in the Volga-Urals oil field, which was first exploited ...
city, Miyagi Prefecture (ken), Honshu, Japan, on the estuary of the Kitakami-gawa (Kitakami River). The city was founded in the 4th century and was a prosperous rice-shipping port during the ...
in Mesopotamian religion, Sumerian god of the rain and thunderstorms of spring. He was the city god of Bit Khakhuru (perhaps to be identified with modern Al-Jidr) in the central ...
Jewish tanna (Talmudic teacher) and sage who left an enduring imprint on Talmudic literature and on Judaism. He is generally referred to simply as Rabbi Ishmael.
city, Marquette county, northwestern Upper Peninsula of Michigan, U.S., in the Marquette Iron Range, 12 mi (19 km) southwest of Marquette. Founded in 1844 as a centre for iron-mining activities, ...
