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Tagore, Rabindranath ... Takasaki

Tagore, Rabindranath: Bengali poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright, essayist, and painter who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Tagore introduced new prose and verse forms and the use ...
Tagus River: longest waterway of the Iberian Peninsula. It rises in the Sierra de Albarracin of eastern Spain, at a point about 90 miles (150 km) from the Mediterranean coast, and flows ...
Taha Hussein: outstanding figure of the modernist movement in Egyptian literature. His writings, in Arabic, include novels, stories, criticism, and social and political essays. Outside his own country he is best known ...
tahajjud: (Arabic: "keeping vigil"), in Islamic practice, the recitation of the Qur'an (Islamic scriptures) and prayers during the night. Tahajjud is generally regarded as sunnah (tradition) and not fard (obligation). There ...
Tahan, Mount: highest peak of the Malay Peninsula (7,175 feet [2,187 m]), in the Tahan Range, West Malaysia. Mount Tahan is the central feature of Taman Negara National Park and a destination ...
Taharqa: fourth king (reigned 690-664 BC) of the 25th dynasty of Egypt.
tahini: paste of crushed sesame seeds that is widely used in Middle Eastern cooking. Tahini mixed with garlic, lemon juice, and salt and thinned with water constitutes taratoor, a sauce that ...
Tahirid Dynasty: (AD 821-873), Islamic dynasty of the land of Khorasan (centred in northeastern Persia), which owed nominal allegiance to the 'Abbasid caliph at Baghdad but enjoyed virtual independence. The dynasty was ...
Tahiti: largest island of the Windward Group (Iles du Vent) of the Society Islands, French Polynesia, in the central South Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Moorea, 12 miles (20 km) to ...
Tahlequah: city, seat (1907) of Cherokee county, eastern Oklahoma, U.S., in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, near the Illinois River and Lake Tenkiller. Settled by Cherokee Indians and made capital ...
Tahltan: an Athabascan-speaking Indian tribe living on the upper Stikine River and other nearby streams in what is now northwestern British Columbia, Can. The country, though grassy and rocky with only ...
Tahmasp I: shah of Iran from 1524 whose rule was marked by continuing warfare with the Ottoman Empire and the loss of large amounts of territory.
Tahoe, Lake: freshwater lake occupying a fault basin on the California-Nevada border in the northern Sierra Nevada, U.S. Fed by numerous small streams, it is drained by the Truckee River to Pyramid ...
Tahoua: town, southern Niger. Situated on the boundary between a cultivated zone (peanuts [groundnuts]) and a drier pastoral zone (cattle, goats, and sheep), it is an important trading town. During the ...
tahr: (genus Hemitragus), any of several wary and surefooted wild goats of the family Bovidae (order Artiodactyla). Tahrs live in herds and usually frequent steep, wooded mountainsides. They range in shoulder ...
Tahtawi, Rifa'ah Rafi' at-: teacher and scholar who was one of the first Egyptians to grapple with the question of adjusting to the West and to provide answers in Islamic terms.
Tai: peoples of mainland Southeast Asia, including the Thai, or Siamese (in central and southern Thailand), the Lao (in Laos and northern Thailand), the Shan (in northeast Myanmar [Burma]), the Lu ...
tai chi chuan: ancient and distinctive Chinese form of exercise or attack and defense that is popular throughout the world. As exercise, tai chi chuan is designed to provide relaxation in the process ...
Tai languages: closely related family of languages, of which the Thai (Siamese) language of Thailand is the most important member. Because the word Thai has been designated as the official name of ...
Tai, Parc National de: national park, southwestern Ivory Coast, situated between the Liberian border (along the Cavally River) to the west and the Sassandra River to the east. Formerly a fauna reserve (decreed 1956) ...
Taidu: the city of Peking (q.v.) under the Mongols.
Taieri River: river in southeastern South Island, New Zealand. It rises in the Lammerlaw Range and flows 179 miles (288 km) north and southeast in a great arc-across the Maniototo Plains, around ...
taifa: a faction or party, as applied to the followers of any of the petty kings who appeared in Muslim Spain in a period of great political fragmentation early in the ...
taiga: open coniferous forest growing on swampy ground that is commonly covered with lichen. It is the characteristic vegetation of the subpolar region spanning northern Eurasia, between the colder tundra zone ...
Taihape: town, Manawatu-Wanganui local government region, south-central North Island, New Zealand. It lies along the Hautapu River, 7 miles (11 km) above the latter's confluence with the Rangitikei. It was founded ...
Taiho code: (AD 701), in Japan, administrative and penal code of the Taiho era early in the Nara period, modeled on the codes of the Chinese T'ang dynasty (618-907) and in force ...
Taika era reforms: ("Great Reformation of the Taika Era"), series of political innovations that followed the coup d'etat of AD 645, led by Prince Nakano Oe (later the emperor Tenji; q.v.) and Nakatomi ...
taiko: any of various Japanese forms of barrel-shaped drums with lashed or tacked heads, usually played with sticks (bachi). When the word combines with another for the name of a specific ...
Taiko Josetsu: priest and painter, regarded as the first of the long line of Japanese Zen Buddhist priests who painted in the Chinese-inspired suiboku (monochromatic ink painting) style.
tail: in zoology, prolongation of the backbone beyond the trunk of the body, or any slender projection resembling such a structure. The tail of a vertebrate is composed of flesh and ...
tail rhyme: a verse form in which rhymed lines such as couplets or triplets are followed by a tail-a line of different (usually shorter) length that does not rhyme with the couplet ...
tailed frog: (Ascaphus truei ), the single species of the frog family Ascaphidae (order Anura). It is restricted to cold, clear forest streams of the American Pacific northwest.
taille: the most important direct tax of the pre-Revolutionary monarchy in France. Its unequal distribution, with clergy and nobles exempt, made it one of the hated institutions of the ancien regime.
tailless whip scorpion: any of the 60 species of the order Amblypygi (sometimes Phrynichida) of the arthropod class Arachnida. Body length is 8 to 45 millimetres (0.3 inch to 1.8 inches). The thorny-edged ...
tailorbird: any of the nine species of the genus Orthotomus, of the Old World warbler family Sylviidae, that sew together the edges of one or more leaves to contain the nest. ...
Taine, Hippolyte: French thinker, critic, and historian, one of the most esteemed exponents of 19th-century French Positivism. He attempted to apply the scientific method to the study of the humanities.
Taino: Arawakan Indians who at the time of Christopher Columbus' exploration inhabited the Greater Antilles (comprising Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola [Haiti and the Dominican Republic], and Puerto Rico) in the Caribbean Sea. ...
Tainter, Charles Sumner: American inventor who, with Chichester A. Bell (a cousin of Alexander Graham Bell), greatly improved the phonograph by devising a wax-coated cardboard cylinder and a flexible recording stylus, both superior ...
taipan: (species Oxyuranus scutellatus), largest Australian snake of the cobra family, Elapidae, reaching 3.3 m (nearly 11 feet) in length. It is brown above and yellow below, with a small head ...
Taipei: province-level municipality and capital of Taiwan (Republic of China). It is situated on the Tan-shui River, almost at the northern tip of the island of Taiwan, about 15 miles (25 ...
Taiping: town, northwestern Peninsular (West) Malaysia. The town is situated on a coastal plain just west of the Bintang Range. It originated as a Chinese mining settlement in the Larut district, ...
Taiping Rebellion: (1850-64), radical political and religious upheaval that was probably the most important event in China in the 19th century. It ravaged 17 provinces, took an estimated 20,000,000 lives, and irrevocably ...
Taira Family: Japanese samurai (warrior) clan of great power and influence in the 12th century. The genealogy and history of the family have been traced in detail from 825, when the name ...
Taira Kiyomori: first of the Japanese soldier-dictators, whose victories in the Hogen and Heiji disturbances marked the ascendancy of the provincial warrior class to positions of supreme power.
Taira Masakado: Japanese rebel leader descended from the emperor Kammu (reigned 781-806).
Taira Masamori: warrior responsible for the rise to power of the Taira clan in Japan.
Taira Tadamori: warrior whose military and diplomatic skills made the Taira clan the most powerful family in Japan and laid the groundwork for his son Kiyomori's assumption of virtual control over the ...
tairo: in Japanese history, office of senior minister or chief councillor, the highest administrative post in the shogunate during the Tokugawa period (1603-1867). The office of tairo stood above the other ...
Tairona: Indians of the northern Colombian Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, known only from occasional references in Spanish colonial writings and from archaeological study. The Tairona used stone to build houses, ...
Tairov, Aleksandr Yakovlevich: original name Aleksandr Kornblit founder and producer-director (1914-49) of the Kamerny (Chamber) Theatre in Moscow, which, during the era of the Revolution, rivaled the Moscow Art Theatre in professional competence.
Taisho: the 123rd ruling descendant of the Japanese imperial family, the emperor who reigned from 1912 to 1926 during a period in which Japan continued the modernization of its economy.
Tait, Archibald Campbell: archbishop of Canterbury, remembered primarily for his efforts to moderate tension in the Church of England at the height of the Oxford Movement.
Tait, Peter Guthrie: Scottish physicist and mathematician who helped develop quaternions, an advanced algebra that gave rise to vector analysis and was instrumental in the development of modern mathematical physics.
Taitai Series: lowermost major division of Cretaceous rocks and time in New Zealand (144 to 66.4 million years ago). The Taitai Series underlies rocks of the Clarence Series.
Taiwan: island, located about 100 miles (161 km) off the southeast coast of the China mainland. It is approximately 245 miles (394 km) long (north-south) and 90 miles across at its ...
Taiwan Strait: arm of the Pacific Ocean, 100 miles (160 km) wide at its narrowest point, lying between the coast of China's Fukien province and the island of Taiwan (Formosa). The strait ...
Taiyetos Mountains: mountain range, southern Peloponnese, Greece. The maximum elevation is approximately 7,905 feet (2,371 m) in the range, which imposes a barrier between the regions of Laconia and Messina. Called the ...
Taiyo: Japanese magazine published from 1895 to 1928 and especially known for its literary criticism, Japanese literature, and translations of Western authors.
taj: brimless hat, usually conical or curved on top, worn by men and women in Muslim countries. The taj (from the Persian and Arabic words for crown) developed out of the ...
Taj Mahal: mausoleum complex in Agra, northern India, on the southern bank of the Yamuna (Jumna) River. In its harmonious proportions and its fluid incorporation of decorative elements, the Taj Mahal is ...
Tajik: the original Iranian population of Afghanistan and Turkistan. The Tajiks constitute almost four-fifths of the population of Tajikistan. In the early 21st century there were more than 5,200,000 Tajiks in ...
Tajikistan: country lying in the heart of Central Asia. It is bordered by Kyrgyzstan on the north, China on the east, Afghanistan on the south, and Uzbekistan on the west and ...
Tajimi: city, Gifu ken (prefecture), central Honshu, Japan. It lies along the Toki River, northeast of Nagoya.
Tajong-gyo: modern Korean millenarian sect that originated in the late 19th century. Tajong-gyo was formulated by Na Chul. It worships the Lord, the Light, or the Progenitor of the Heaven. The ...
Tajumulco Volcano: mountain peak in southwestern Guatemala. The highest peak in Central America, Tajumulco rises essentially from sea level to an elevation of 13,845 feet (4,220 m). The peak is part of ...
Takacs, Karoly: Hungarian athlete who twice won Olympic gold medals in rapid-fire pistol shooting despite having his shooting hand maimed by a hand grenade.
Takahama Kyoshi: haiku poet, a major figure in the development of haiku literature in modern Japan.
takahe: (species Notornis mantelli), rare flightless bird of New Zealand that was thought to have become extinct in the late 1800s but that was rediscovered in 1948 in several remote valleys ...
Takakkaw Falls: cataract on the Yoho River, and a major feature in the northern part of Yoho National Park in southeastern British Columbia, Canada. The Takakkaw (Cree Indian for "wonderful") Falls is ...
Takamatsu: city and capital of Kagawa ken (prefecture), Shikoku, Japan, facing the Inland Sea. It was a castle town of the Tokugawa family from 1642 to 1868. A railway ferry was ...
Takamine, Jokichi: biochemist and industrial leader whose most important achievement was the isolation of the chemical adrenalin (now called epinephrine) from the suprarenal gland (1901). This was the first pure hormone to ...
Takamura Koun: given name Nakajima Kozo Japanese sculptor who worked to preserve the art of wood carving.
Takaoka: city, Toyama ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan, on the lower reaches of the Sho River. The city was founded with the construction of Takaoka Castle in 1609. It became a trade ...
Takarazuka: city, Hyogo ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan, on the northeastern slope of Mount Rokko. The city is a hot-springs resort and is renowned for its female opera company. The opera house, ...
Takasago: city, Hyogo ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan, on the Inland Sea. It long served as a collection and distribution centre for the rice that was produced in the hinterland of the ...
Takasaki: city, Gumma ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan. It is situated northwest of Tokyo along the Karasu River, a tributary of the Tone River. A typical castle town, Takasaki became increasingly important ...