Heriz Carpet

Heriz also spelled �Heris, � floor covering handmade in any of a group of villages near the town of Heris, lying east of Tabriz in northwest Iran. Heriz carpets - primarily room-sized, stout, serviceable, and attractive - have found ready markets in Europe and the U.S. They are an offshoot, apparently, of the Tabriz carpets, a country version of city styles. The smooth curves and flowing lines of a sophisticated

Indravarman I

Indravarman probably usurped the throne from his cousin Jayavarman III. During his reign a large reservoir was constructed around the capital city of Roluos (near modern Phumi R�luos). The lake was the first part of a vast system of reservoirs, canals, and irrigation channels eventually

Florida

City, central Camag�ey provincia, east-central Cuba. Lying just north of the Mu�oz River, Florida is a rail junction and manufacturing centre for the surrounding agricultural and pastoral lands. The principal agricultural products of the area are sugarcane and oranges. Cattle also are raised. Large sugar refineries are located on the outskirts of Florida, which

Raymond Vii

After helping to recover lands of which his

Venice

Italian �Venezia� city, major seaport, and capital of both the provincia of Venezia and the regione of Veneto, northern Italy. An island city, it was once the centre of a maritime republic. It was the greatest seaport in late medieval Europe and the continent's commercial and cultural link with Asia. Venice is unique environmentally, architecturally, and historically, and in its days as

Mahal, Taj

Taj Mahal (the name came to him in a dream) grew up in a musical family. His father, of Jamaican background, was a jazz

Syria, The Ayyubids and Mamluks

After Saladin's death his kingdom was split up among members of his family, the Ayyubids, who established principalities in Aleppo, Hamah, Hims, Damascus, Ba'labakk, and Transjordan and ruled them until 1260. The period of Nureddin, Saladin, and their successors was of great importance. Thanks largely to the establishment of Italian trading centres on the coast and better security,

Southern Africa, The annexation of Southern Africa

The first move in the scramble for Southern Africa came with renewed assertions of British supremacy in the interior. After much dispute, Britain annexed Griqualand West as a crown colony in 1871, transferring it to the Cape Colony in 1881. The multiple crises following the diamond discoveries led during the 1870s to failed imperial schemes to confederate the Southern African

Dow Jones Average

Stock price average computed by Dow Jones

Dow Jones Average

Stock price average computed by Dow Jones

Economic Affairs, United States.

The report of the Dunlop Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations became available in January 1995. Though the commission made a number of recommendations, the report was widely viewed as a disappointing document that failed to address a number of problems affecting American labour-management relations. Admittedly, any radical proposals would have

Hawkins, Coleman

At age four Hawkins began to study the piano, at seven

Talented Tenth

(1903), concept espoused by black educator and author W.E.B. Du Bois, emphasizing the necessity for higher education to develop the leadership capacity among the most able 10 percent of black Americans. Du Bois was one of a number of black intellectuals who feared that what they saw as the overemphasis on industrial training (as evidenced, for example, by the plan proposed by

Interior Design, Physical components of design

The foregoing section on aesthetic components stressed the fact that, in design, the whole or total effect is more important than the specific device or element used. The same is true of architectural components, and this should be kept in mind in the following discussion.

Rurik

Rurik was a Viking, or Varangian, prince. His story is told in the The Russian Primary Chronicle (compiled at the beginning of the 12th century) but is not accepted at face value by modern historians. According to the chronicle, the people of Novgorod, tired of political strife, invited the Varangians about AD 862 to

Louis

Louis, who is believed to have played a major role in the murder of Andrew of Hungary, Joan's first husband (September 1345), married Joan in August 1347. When Andrew's brother Louis I of Hungary invaded

Indigirka River

River, Sakha republic (Yakutia), far eastern Russia. It is one of the major rivers of northeastern Siberia. The Indigirka rises in the Verkhoyansk Mountains and flows 1,072 miles (1,726 km) north through the Chersky Range into the broad Indigirka lowland, most of which is in tundra vegetation, to enter the East Siberian Sea through an extensive delta. Its two main tributaries are

Perak War

Birch arrived in Perak

Furniture, Bathroom furniture and fixtures

Bathrooms in large private homes were not unknown in the 18th century, and splendidly equipped marble bathrooms are still preserved in several European palaces and mansions. But not until the 19th century did bathrooms in private homes become more commonplace. Fixtures generally include a toilet, bidet, washbasin, bath, mirror, and shelves. In the 20th century the equipping

Aterian Industry

Stone tool tradition of the Middle and Late Paleolithic, found widespread in the late Pleistocene throughout northern Africa. The Aterian people were among the first to use the bow and arrow. Aterian stone tools are an advanced African form of the European Levalloisian tradition, adapted to desert use. A distinctive Aterian sign is the formation of stems, or tangs,

Baseball

Both Alfred H. Spink's The National Game (1910) and A.G. Spalding's America's National Game (1911), generally regarded as the first attempts at writing a standard history of baseball, cite Casey at the Bat as the best baseball poem ever written. Spalding goes so far as to proclaim that �Love has its sonnets galore; War its epics in heroic verse; Tragedy its sombre story in measured line;

Dawani

Dawani's family claimed descent from Abu Bakr (the first caliph of Islam). He received a traditional Islamic education, first at Dawan, where he studied with his father, who was a qadi (judge), and later in Shiraz. During his career

Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway

Shipping route paralleling the eastern coast of the United States, serving ports from Boston to Key West, Fla. It is part of the Intracoastal Waterway (q.v.).

Aardwolf

(species Proteles cristatus), African carnivore generally placed in the family Hyaenidae but separated by some authorities as the family Protelidae. The aardwolf, whose name in Afrikaans means �earth wolf,� resembles a small striped hyena. It is yellowish with vertical black stripes and a bushy, black-tipped tail, and it bears a long, coarse mane

Asphyxia

Asphyxia can be caused by injury to or obstruction of breathing passageways, as in strangulation or the aspiration of food (choking) or large quantities of fluid (near-drowning or drowning).

Saudi Arabia, Religion

Saudi Arabia is the home of Islam, and its native population is almost entirely Sunnite Muslim (i.e., adhering to the chief branch of Islam, Sunnism [Sunnah], called traditionalist or orthodox). The Wahhabi interpretation of Sunnite Islam is the one officially used. Wahhabism, as it is called in the West, is a puritanical interpretation and is named after Muhammad ibn 'Abd

Belchat�

A major lignite deposit was discovered in 1960 near Belchat