Lear

Legendary British king and central character of William Shakespeare's King Lear. One of the most moving of Shakespeare's tragic figures, Lear grows in self-awareness as he diminishes in authority and loses his illusions. Lear at the outset presents the very picture of foolish egotism and is tricked out of what he has expected to be a carefree retirement by his own

Biochemistry

Study of the chemical substances and processes that occur in plants, animals, and microorganisms and of the changes they undergo during development and life. It deals with the chemistry of life, and as such it draws on the techniques of analytical, organic, and physical chemistry, as well as those of physiologists concerned with the molecular basis of vital processes.

Christian Reformed Church In North America

Protestant denomination that developed in the United States from a group that separated in 1857 from the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church (now the Reformed Church in America) and called itself the True Holland Reformed Church. It was strengthened in 1882 when joined by other dissenters from the Reformed Church in America who believed that the parent church should reject

Dyer, Sir Edward

Educated at the University of Oxford, Dyer went to court under the patronage of the Earl of Leicester. Dyer was a friend of Sir Philip Sidney, on whose death he wrote an elegy

Neo-thomism

Modern revival of the philosophical and theological system known as Thomism (q.v.).

Alcmaeon

Also spelled �Alcmeon, � in Greek legend, the son of the seer Amphiaraus and his wife Eriphyle. When Amphiaraus set out with the expedition of the Seven Against Thebes, which he knew would be fatal to him, he commanded his sons to avenge his death by slaying Eriphyle (who had been bribed by Polyneices with the necklace of Harmonia to persuade her husband to fight) and by undertaking a second expedition

Far Eastern Republic

Also called �Chita Republic, �Russian �Dalnevostochnaya Respublika, or Chitinskaya Respublika,� nominally independent state formed by Soviet Russia in eastern Siberia in 1920 and absorbed into the Soviet Union in 1922. At the time of the Far Eastern Republic's creation, the Bolsheviks controlled Siberia west of Lake Baikal, while Japan held much of the Pacific coast, including Vladivostok. Lenin therefore ordered the creation of the Far Eastern Republic, centring on

Hyde, Sir Nicholas

Sir Nicholas entered Parliament in 1601 and soon became prominent as an opponent of the court of James I, though he does not appear to have distinguished himself in the law. Before long, however, he deserted the popular party, and in 1626 he was employed by George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, in his defense to impeachment

Race, European conquest and the classification of the conquered

As they were constructing their own racial identities internally, western European nations were also colonizing most of what has been called, in recent times, the Third World, in Asia and Africa. Since all of the colonized and subordinated people differed physically from Europeans, the colonizers automatically applied racial categories to them and initiated

Fargue, L�on-paul

Before he reached 20 years of age, Fargue had already published his important poem Tancr�de in the magazine Pan (1895; published in book form in 1911) and had become a member of the Symbolist circle connected with Le Mercure de France. His first collection of verse, Po�mes, was published

Technology, History Of

The development over time of systematic techniques for making and doing things. The term technology, a combination of the Greek techne, �art, craft,� with logos, �word, speech,� meant in Greece a discourse on the arts, both fine and applied. When it first appeared in English in the 17th century, it was used to mean a discussion of the applied arts only, and gradually these �arts� themselves

Technology, History Of

The development over time of systematic techniques for making and doing things. The term technology, a combination of the Greek techne, �art, craft,� with logos, �word, speech,� meant in Greece a discourse on the arts, both fine and applied. When it first appeared in English in the 17th century, it was used to mean a discussion of the applied arts only, and gradually these �arts� themselves

Uruguaiana

Also spelled �Uruguayana, � city, western Rio Grande do Sul estado (�state�), southern Brazil. It lies along the Uruguay River, across the bridge from the town of Paso de los Libres, Arg. Founded in 1839 as Sant' Ana do Uruguai, Uruguaiana was made a town and renamed in 1846; city status was accorded in 1874. Uruguaiana is a livestock (sheep and cattle) centre and processes meat and animal by-products. It is also a river port

Endotoxin

Toxic substance bound to the bacterial cell wall and released when the bacterium ruptures or disintegrates. Endotoxins consist of lipopolysaccharide and lipoprotein complexes. The protein component determines its foreign (antigenic) nature; the polysaccharide component determines the antibody type that can react with the endotoxin molecule to produce

Cataclastite

Any rock produced by dynamic metamorphism during which faulting, granulation, and flowage may occur in previously crystalline parent rocks. When stress exceeds breaking strength, a rock yields by rupture. The rock may break as a unit, or individual minerals may be selectively granulated. The stress is generally not the same in all directions, so that movement in

Adamson, Joy; And Adamson, George

Following an education in Vienna and two divorces, Austrian-born Joy Gessner, living in Kenya from 1939, married George Adamson (1944), a British game warden who had

Smiles, Samuel

One of 11 children left fatherless in 1832, Smiles learned the meaning of self-reliance. Although he qualified in medicine at Edinburgh

Claes, Ernest

Claes treated several subjects. Animals and children were the subject of such works as Floere het fluwijn (1950; �Floere the Polecat�)

Theatrical Production, The modern repertory company

During the rise of the stock company and single-show system, there continued to exist highly refined examples of the repertory ensemble. The Com�die Fran�aise, originally an amalgamation of two Parisian troupes, has existed since 1680. In opera the repertory system remains fundamentally unchanged. Toward the end of the 19th century, however, a widespread transformation

Sayers, Gale

Sayers first gained national attention as a two-time

Kuhn, Adalbert

Kuhn first devoted himself to the study of German stories and legends, but he established

Wagner, Carl

Wagner was educated at the universities of Munich and Leipzig

Karamanlis, Konstantinos

Also spelled �Constantine Caramanlis � Greek statesman who was prime minister from 1955 to 1963 and again from 1974 to 1980. He then served as president from 1980 to 1985 and from 1990 to 1995. Karamanlis gave Greece competent government and political stability while his conservative economic policies stimulated economic growth. In 1974 - 75 he

Muhammad Al-mahdi Al-hujjah

Also called �Muhammad Al-muntazar, Hidden Imam, or Twelfth Imam� (disappeared 878), 12th and last imam, venerated by the Ithna 'Ashariyah, or Twelver sect, the main body of Shi'ite Muslims. It is believed that Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Hujjah has been concealed by God (a doctrine known as ghaybah, or occultation) and that he will reappear in time as the mahdi, or messianic deliverer. See also Ithna 'Ashariyah.

B�ziers

City, H�rault d�partement, Languedoc-Roussillon r�gion, southern France, 9 miles (14 km) from the Mediterranean Sea, on a hilly site overlooking the Orb River where it is intersected by the Canal of the Midi, southwest of Montpellier. There are remains of an arena from the Roman colony Beterrae. In the 12th century it was a stronghold of the viscounts of Carcassonne. In 1209 Simon

Nevado De Toluca National Park

Park in Mexico estado (�state�), central Mexico. It is situated in the municipality of Zinacantepec, on the Mexico - Toluca - Guadalajara highway west of Mexico City. Established in 1936, it has an area of 259 square miles (671 square km). The park lies in the Nevado de Toluca (or Zinantecatl) Mountains, which rise above 15,025 feet (4,580 m). Among the park's chief features are an extinct, snowcapped volcano

Kochno, Boris

Kochno studied at the Imperial Lyc�e in Moscow until the 1917 Russian Revolution, when he and his mother left the country, eventually

Cameroon, History Of

The British trust territory consisted of a strip

Ramanuja

Also called �Ramanujacarya, or Ilaiya Perumal (Tamil: Ageless Perumal [God]) � South Indian Brahman theologian and philosopher, the single most influential thinker of devotional Hinduism. After a long pilgrimage, Ramanuja settled in Srirangam, where he organized temple worship and founded centres to disseminate his doctrine of devotion to the god Vishnu and his consort Sri. He provided an intellectual basis for the practice