Russian-born German poet and dramatist of the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) period, who is considered an important forerunner of 19th-century Naturalism and of 20th-century Expressionistic theatre.
(Latin: Lion), in astronomy, zodiacal constellation lying between Cancer and Virgo, at about 10 hours 30 minutes right ascension (the coordinate of the celestial sphere analogous to longitude on the ...
pope from 440 to 461, master exponent of papal supremacy. His pontificate-which saw the disintegration of the Roman Empire in the West and the formation in the East of theological ...
Roman emperor of the East, grandson of Leo I, and son of Zeno. His grandfather, growing ill, felt compelled to name a successor but, deciding that his son Zeno, an ...
Byzantine emperor (717-741), who founded the Isaurian, or Syrian, dynasty, successfully resisted Arab invasions, and engendered a century of conflict within the empire by banning the use of religious images ...
original name Bruno, Graf (count) Von Egisheim Und Dagsburg head of the medieval Latin Church (1049-54), during whose reign the papacy became the focal point of western Europe, and the ...
pope from July to September 903. Elected while a priest to succeed Pope Benedict IV, Leo assumed the pontificate in a dark period of papal history. He was deposed and ...
pope from May to December 928. He was Pope John VIII's prime minister and later a cardinal priest when elected by the senatrix Marozia, then head of the powerful Roman ...
pope from 936 to 939. Leo was probably a Benedictine monk when he succeeded John XI, who had been imprisoned by Duke Alberic II of Spoleto. In 936 he invited ...
one of the leading Renaissance popes (reigned 1513-21). He made Rome a cultural centre and a political power, but he depleted the papal treasury, and, by failing to take the ...
original name Alessandro Ottaviano De' Medici pope from April 1-27, 1605. Pope Gregory XIII made him bishop of Pistoia, Italy, in 1573, archbishop of Florence in 1574, and cardinal in ...
original name Vincenzo Gioacchino Pecci head of the Roman Catholic Church (1878-1903) who brought a new spirit to the papacy, manifested in more conciliatory positions toward civil governments, by care ...
town, Bundesland (federal state) Steiermark, southeast-central Austria, on the Mur River, northwest of Graz. An ancient settlement, it was reestablished as a town by Ottokar II of ...
Greek sculptor to whom the "Apollo Belvedere" (Roman copy, Vatican Museum) is often attributed. About 353-c. 350 BC Leochares worked with Scopas on the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the ...
Anglo-Saxon earl of Mercia (from some date prior to 1032), one of the three great earls of 11th-century England, who took a leading part in public affairs. On the death ...
city, Worcester county, north-central Massachusetts, U.S. It lies on the Nashua River, just southeast of Fitchburg and about 40 miles (64 km) northwest of Boston. The site, purchased from the ...
town ("parish"), unitary authority and historic county of Herefordshire, England, situated on the River Lugg, a tributary of the Wye. A religious house was founded on the site in 660, ...
provincia, in the Castile-Leon comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), northwestern Spain, consisting of the northern part of the former Kingdom of Leon. It has an area of 5,972 square miles (15,468 ...
city, northwestern Guanajuato estado ("state"), central Mexico. It stands in a fertile plain on the Turbio River, 6,182 feet (1,884 metres) above sea level. Although Leon was ...
city situated in western Nicaragua. The city of Leon was founded on the edge of Lake Managua in 1524, but after an earthquake it was moved in 1610 to the ...
city, capital of Leon provincia, in the Castile-Leon (Castilla y Leon) comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), northwestern Spain. It lies on the northwestern part of the Meseta Central (plateau), at the ...
medieval Spanish kingdom. Leon proper included the cities of Leon, Salamanca, and Zamora-the adjacent areas of Vallodolid and Palencia being disputed with Castile, originally its eastern frontier. The kings of ...
American world lightweight (135-lb [61.2-kg]) boxing champion from May 28, 1917, when he knocked out Freddy Welsh in nine rounds in New York City, until Jan. 15, 1925, when he ...
American baseball player who was considered one of the best first basemen in the Negro leagues. He was among the first Negro leaguers to receive election into the Baseball Hall ...
American boxer, known for his agility and finesse, who won 36 of 39 professional matches and several national titles. As an amateur, he took an Olympic gold medal in the ...
Italian geologist and prehistorian, known for his research on the stratigraphy and paleontology of the Triassic invertebrates (from 190,000,000 to 225,000,000 years ago) and the Permian vertebrates (from 225,000,000 to ...
post-Wolfcampian time of deposition of the Lower Permian Series of rock strata in the United States, especially well-developed in the Southwest (the Permian Period began about 280,000,000 years ago and ...
Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495-98) and ...
in Milan, museum devoted to the evolution of science since the 15th century, including transport, metallurgy, physics, and navigation. It is housed in the old Olivetan convent of San Vittore, ...
Neapolitan opera composer whose fame rests on the opera Pagliacci, which, with Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana (1890), represented a reaction against Richard Wagner and against Romantic Italian opera; both works ...
Spartan king whose stand against the invading Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae in central Greece is one of the enduring tales of Greek heroism, invoked throughout Western history ...
Latin or French verse in which the last word in the line rhymes with the word just before the caesura (as in "gloria factorum temere conceditus horum"). Such rhymes were ...
Russian novelist and playwright who was admired for the intricate structure of his best narratives and for his ability to convey the complex moral and spiritual dilemmas faced by his ...
nee Crawford British writer and governess employed by King Mongkut (Rama IV) of Siam for the instruction of his children, including his son and successor, Prince Chulalongkorn.
Russian-born American economist who has been called the father of input-output analysis in econometrics and who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1973.
ancient Greek town of southeastern Sicily, 22 miles northwest of Syracuse. Originally held by the Sicels (Siculi), its command of the fertile plain on the north made it an attractive ...
Byzantine monk and theologian who provided a breakthrough of terminology in the 6th-century Christological controversy over the mode of union of Christ's human nature with his divinity. He did so ...
(Felis bengalensis), forest-dwelling cat, family Felidae, found in India and Southeast Asia and noted for its leopard-like colouring. The coat of the leopard cat is usually yellowish or reddish brown ...
(Rana pipiens), North American frog (family Ranidae) often used in laboratories and, for teaching purposes, in schools. It is a common frog found in the United States and Canada, and ...
any member of the species Gambelia (or Crotaphytus) wislizeni in the lizard family Iguanidae. These large, spotted lizards are inhabitants of arid and semi-arid areas in the southwestern United States ...
(Hydrurga leptonyx), generally solitary, earless seal (family Phocidae) that inhabits Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions. The only seal that feeds on penguins, young seals, and other warm-blooded prey, the leopard seal ...
(Triakis semifasciata), small shark of the family Triakidae found in shallow water along the Pacific coast of the United States. A slim, narrow-headed shark with small, three-cusped teeth, it grows ...
any plant of the genus Doronicum of the family Asteraceae, consisting of about 20 to 30 species of perennial herbs native to Eurasia. They have large flower heads with yellow ...
Italian poet, scholar, and philosopher whose outstanding scholarly and philosophical works and superb lyric poetry place him among the great writers of the 19th century.
prince of Anhalt-Dessau, Prussian field marshal and reformer, inventor of the iron ramrod and responsible for the introduction of the modern bayonet; he founded the old Prussian military system that, ...
first king of the Belgians (1831-65), who helped strengthen the nation's new parliamentary system and, as a leading figure in European diplomacy, scrupulously maintained Belgian neutrality.
Holy Roman emperor during whose lengthy reign (1658-1705) Austria emerged from a series of struggles with the Turks and the French to become a great European power, in which monarchical ...
king of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909; he led the first European efforts to develop the Congo River basin, making possible the formation of the Congo Free State in ...
