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Maccabees, The Books of the ... Macia, Francesc
Maccabees, The Books of the
four books, none of which is in the Hebrew Bible but all of which appear in some manuscripts of the Septuagint. The first two books only are part of canonical ...
Maccabeus, Jonathan
Jewish general, a son of the priest Mattathias, who took over the leadership of the Maccabean revolt after the death of his elder brother Judas. A brilliant diplomat, if not ...
Maccabeus, Judas
Jewish guerrilla leader who defended his country from invasion by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, preventing the imposition of Hellenism upon Judaea, and preserving the Jewish religion.
Maccabiah Games
international games held in Palestine (later Israel) from 1932, sponsored by the World Maccabi Union, an international Jewish sports organization founded in 1921. Events held are such Olympic events as ...
MacCaig, Norman
one of the most important Scottish poets of the 20th century.
MacCarthy Island
island, in the Gambia River, 176 miles (283 km) upstream from Banjul, central Gambia. It was ceded in 1823 to Captain Alexander Grant of the African Corps, who was acting ...
MacCarthy, Sir Desmond
English journalist who, as a weekly columnist for the New Statesman known as the "Affable Hawk," gained a reputation for erudition, sensitive judgment, and literary excellence.
Macchiaioli
group of 19th-century Florentine and Neopolitan painters who reacted against the rule-bound Italian academies of art and looked to nature for instruction. The Macchiaioli felt that patches (Italian:
Macclesfield
town and borough (district), administrative and historic county of Cheshire, England. The borough includes a narrow strip of the Pennines in the east that is part of the Peak District ...
MacColl, Ewan
British singer, songwriter, and playwright.
MacCready, Paul Beattie
American aerodynamicist who headed a team that designed and built both the first man-powered aircraft and the first solar-powered aircraft capable of sustained flights.
MacDiarmid, Alan G.
New Zealand-born American chemist who, with Alan J. Heeger and Shirakawa Hideki, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000 for their discovery that certain plastics can be chemically ...
MacDiarmid, Hugh
preeminent Scottish poet of the first half of the 20th century and leader of the Scottish literary renaissance.
MacDonagh, Donagh
poet, playwright, and balladeer, prominent representative of lively Irish entertainment in the mid-20th century.
Macdonald, Cynthia
American poet who employed a sardonic, often flippant tone and used grotesque imagery to comment on the mundane.
Macdonald, Flora
Scottish Jacobite heroine who helped Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, the Stuart claimant to the British throne, to escape from Scotland after his defeat in the Jacobite rebellion of 1745-46. ...
Macdonald, George
novelist of Scottish life, poet, and writer of Christian allegories of man's pilgrimage back to God, who is remembered chiefly, however, for his allegorical fairy stories, which have continued to ...
Macdonald, Jacques, duc de Tarente
French general who was appointed marshal of the empire by Napoleon.
MacDonald, John D.
American fiction writer whose mystery and science-fiction works were published in more than 70 books. He is best remembered for his series of 24 crime novels featuring private investigator Travis ...
Macdonald, John Sandfield
prime minister of the province of Canada from 1862 to 1864 and first premier of Ontario from 1867 to 1871.
MacDonald, Ramsay
first Labour Party prime minister of Great Britain, in the Labour governments of 1924 and 1929-31 and in the national coalition government of 1931-35.
Macdonald, Ross
American mystery writer who is credited with elevating the detective novel to the level of literature with his compactly written tales of murder and despair.
Macdonald, Sir James Ronald Leslie
British soldier, engineer, and explorer who carried out a geographical exploration of British East Africa (now Kenya and Uganda) while surveying for a railroad and later mapped the previously untravelled ...
Macdonald, Sir John
the first prime minister of the Dominion of Canada (1867-73, 1878-91), who led Canada through its period of early growth. Though accused of devious and unscrupulous methods, he is remembered ...
Macdonald-Wright, Stanton
painter and teacher who, with Morgan Russell, founded the movement known as Synchromism about 1912. Synchromism proclaimed colour to be the basis of expression in painting, and, although the movement ...
MacDonnell Ranges
mountain system in south central Northern Territory, Australia, a series of bare quartzite and sandstone parallel ridges that rise from a plateau 2,000 ft (600 m) above sea level and ...
MacDonnell, Sorley Boy
Irish Somhairle Buidhe MacDonnell Scots-Irish chieftain of Ulster, foe and captive of the celebrated Shane O'Neill.
Macdonough, Thomas
U.S. naval officer who won one of the most important victories in the War of 1812 at the Battle of Plattsburg (or Lake Champlain) against the British.
MacDowell Colony
retreat for artists, the oldest and among the largest artist colonies in the United States. It was founded in 1907 by pianist Marian Nevins MacDowell (1857-1956) and her husband, composer ...
MacDowell, Edward
U.S. composer known especially for his piano pieces in smaller forms. As one of the first to incorporate native materials into his works, he helped establish an independent American musical ...
mace
spice consisting of the dried aril, or lacy covering, of the nutmeg fruit of Myristica fragrans, a tropical evergreen tree. Mace has a slightly warm taste and a fragrance similar ...
Mace, James
professional boxer and English heavyweight champion who is considered by some authorities to have been world champion. He was the first fighter of consequence to show interest in the Marquess ...
Macedo, Jose Agostinho de
Portuguese didactic poet, critic, and pamphleteer notable for his acerbity.
Macedonia
, traditional region of Greece, comprising the northern and northeastern portions of that country. Greek Macedonia has an area of about 13,200 square miles (34,200 square km). It is bounded ...
Macedonia
ancient kingdom centred on the plain in the northeastern corner of the Greek peninsula, at the head of the Gulf of Thermai. In the 4th century BC it achieved hegemony ...
Macedonia
country of the southern Balkans. It is bordered to the north by the Serbian portion of Serbia and Montenegro, to the east by Bulgaria, to the south by Greece, and ...
Macedonia
region in the south-central part of the Balkan Peninsula that comprises northern and northeastern Greece, the southwestern corner of Bulgaria, and the independent Republic of Macedonia.
Macedonian language
South Slavic language that is most closely related to Bulgarian and is written in the Cyrillic alphabet. Macedonian is the official language of the Republic of Macedonia, where it is ...
Macedonian literature
literature written in the South Slavic Macedonian language.
Macedonian question
a dispute that occurred during the 19th and 20th centuries among the Balkan powers over possession of the territory of Macedonia. An attempt by Bulgaria to seize the area from ...
Macedonian Wars
(3rd and 2nd centuries BC), four conflicts between the ancient Roman Republic and the kingdom of Macedonia. They caused increasing involvement by Rome in Greek affairs and helped lead to ...
Macedonianism
a 4th-century Christian heresy that denied the full personality and divinity of the Holy Spirit. According to this heresy, the Holy Spirit was created by the Son and was thus ...
Macedonius
Greek bishop of Constantinople (Istanbul) and a leading moderate Arian theologian in the 4th-century Trinitarian controversy. His teaching concerning the Son, or Logos (Greek: "the Word"), oscillated between attributing to ...
Maceio
capital, Alagoas estado ("state"), northeastern Brazil. It is situated below low bluffs on a level strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Norte (or Mundau) ...
Macenta
town, southeastern Guinea. It is located in the Guinea Highlands (at 2,033 feet [620 m]) on the road from Nzerekore to Gueckedou and is the chief trading centre for the ...
maceral
microscopic organic component of coal consisting of an irregular mixture of different chemical compounds. Macerals are analogous to minerals in inorganic rocks, but they differ from minerals in that they ...
Macerata
city, capital of Macerata provincia, in Marche regione, central Italy. It is situated on a hill between the Potenza and Chienti rivers, south of ...
Macfadden, Bernarr
American physical culturist who, by sometimes eccentric means, spread the gospel of physical fitness and created a popular magazine empire.
Macfarquhar, Colin
Scottish printer, who, with Andrew Bell, founded the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1768.
Macgillycuddy's Reeks
(Irish: "ridge" or "crests"), mountain range on the Iveragh peninsula in County Kerry, southwestern Ireland. Its geological basis is a long anticlinal range of Devonian sandstones that was strongly glaciated, ...
Mach number
in fluid mechanics, ratio of the velocity of a fluid to the velocity of sound in that fluid, named after Ernst Mach (1838-1916), an Austrian physicist and philosopher. In the ...
Mach's principle
in cosmology, hypothesis that the inertial forces experienced by a body in nonuniform motion are determined by the quantity and distribution of matter in the universe. It was so called ...
Mach, Ernst
Austrian physicist and philosopher who established important principles of optics, mechanics, and wave dynamics and who supported the view that all knowledge is a conceptual organization of the data of ...
Macha
in Celtic religion, one of three war goddesses; it is also a collective name for the three, who were also referred to as the three Morrigan. As an individual, Macha ...
Macha, Karel Hynek
literary artist who is considered the greatest poet of Czech Romanticism.
Machado de Assis, Joaquim Maria
Brazilian poet, novelist, and short-story writer, the classic master of Brazilian literature, whose art is rooted in the traditions of European culture and transcends the influence of Brazilian literary schools.
Machado y Morales, Gerardo
hero in the Cuban War of Independence (1895-98) who was later elected president by an overwhelming majority, only to become one of Cuba's most powerful dictators.
Machado, Antonio
outstanding Spanish poet and playwright of Spain's Generation of '98.
Machado, Bernardino Luis
Brazilian-born political leader who was twice president of Portugal (1915-17, 1925-26).
Machado, Manuel
Spanish poet and playwright, brother of Antonio Machado. The son of an Andalusian folklorist, he is best known for his popular poetry inspired by traditional folklore, as in Cante hondo ...
Machala
capital of El Oro province, southwestern Ecuador, in the Pacific coastal lowlands 2 mi (3 km) from the Gulf of Guayaquil. A commercial centre for the surrounding agricultural region, the ...
Machaut, Guillaume de
French poet and musician, greatly admired by contemporaries as a master of French versification and regarded as one of the leading French composers of the Ars Nova (q.v.) musical style ...
Machel, Samora
Mozambican politician, who was the first president of independent Mozambique (1975-86).
Machen, Arthur
Welsh novelist and essayist, a forerunner of 20th-century Gothic science fiction.
Machen, John Gresham
American Presbyterian theologian and fundamentalist leader.
Machias
town, seat (1790) of Washington county, eastern Maine, U.S., near the mouth of the Machias River, at the head of Machias Bay, 84 miles (135 km) east-southeast of Bangor. It ...
Machiavelli, Niccolo
Italian Renaissance political philosopher and statesman, secretary of the Florentine republic, whose most famous work, The Prince (Il Principe), brought him a reputation as an atheist and an immoral cynic.
Machida
city, Tokyo Metropolis (to), Honshu, Japan, on the border of Kanagawa Prefecture (ken). Situated on the southern slopes of the Tama Hills, the city was formed by the amalgamation of ...
machine
device, having a unique purpose, that augments or replaces human or animal effort for the accomplishment of physical tasks. This broad category encompasses such simple devices as the lever, wedge, ...
machine gun
automatic weapon of small calibre that is capable of rapid, sustained fire. Most machine guns are belt-fed weapons that fire from 500 to 1,000 rounds per minute and will continue ...
machine tool
any stationary power-driven machine that is used to shape or form parts made of metal or other materials. The shaping is accomplished in four general ways: (1) by cutting excess ...
machine tool
stationary power-driven machine that is used to shape or form parts made of metal or other materials. See tool.
machine-tractor station
in the Soviet Union, state-owned institution that rented heavy agricultural machinery (e.g., tractors and combines) to a group of neighbouring kolkhozy (collective farms) and supplied skilled personnel to operate and ...
Machray, Robert
Scottish-born archbishop of Rupert's Land in northern and western Canada.
Machu Picchu
site of ancient Inca ruins located about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Cuzco, Peru, in the Cordillera de Vilcabamba of the Andes Mountains. It is perched above the Urubamba ...
Macia, Francesc
Catalan leader and founder of the nationalist party Estat Catala (1922), who played a major role in achieving an autonomous status for Catalonia.