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  • Abacha, Sani (Nigerian military leader)
    Nigerian military leader, who served as head of state (1993–98)....
  • abaci (calculating device)
    calculating device, probably of Babylonian origin, that was long important in commerce. It is the ancestor of the modern calculating machine and computer....
  • abacist (mathematics)
    ...in purely rhetorical fashion, it was instrumental in communicating the Hindu-Arabic numerals to a wider audience in the Latin world. Early adopters of the “new” numerals became known as abacists, regardless of whether they used the numerals for calculating and recording transactions or employed an abacus for doing the actual calculations. Soon numerous abacist schools sprang up to...
  • Abaco (island, The Bahamas)
    island, The Bahamas, located about 55 miles (90 km) north of Nassau, the capital, on New Providence Island. Abaco is the largest island of the Abaco and Cays, or Abacos, group; the other main island is Little Abaco, just to the northwest, from which Abaco is separated by a narrow, shallow channel. Abaco Island is shaped like a right angle, with one side of the angle pointing nor...
  • abacus (architecture)
    Two simple forms of the capital are a square wooden block called an abacus, placed on the top of a post, and an oblong block called a billet, set with its greatest dimensions parallel to the beam above. Shaping the ends of such blocks produces a laterally spreading form of capital, which can be elaborated upon by multiplication of parts, addition of moldings, and ornamentation with floral,......
  • abacus (calculating device)
    calculating device, probably of Babylonian origin, that was long important in commerce. It is the ancestor of the modern calculating machine and computer....
  • abacuses (calculating device)
    calculating device, probably of Babylonian origin, that was long important in commerce. It is the ancestor of the modern calculating machine and computer....
  • Ābādān (Iran)
    city, extreme southwestern Iran. The city is situated in Khūzestān, part of the oil-producing region of Iran. Ābādān lies on an island of the same name along the eastern bank of the Shaṭṭ Al-ʿArab (river), 33 miles (53 km) from the Persian Gulf. The city thus lies along Iran’s bo...
  • Ābādān Island (island, Iran)
    city, extreme southwestern Iran. The city is situated in Khūzestān, part of the oil-producing region of Iran. Ābādān lies on an island of the same name along the eastern bank of the Shaṭṭ Al-ʿArab (river), 33 miles (53 km) from the Persian Gulf. The city thus lies along Iran’s border with Iraq. Ābādān Island is bou...
  • “Abaddón el exterminador” (novel by Sábato)
    ...Borges, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The novel Abaddón el exterminador (1974, corrected and revised, 1978; “Abaddón the Exterminator”; Eng. trans. The Angel of Darkness) contains the ironic statements on literature, art, philosophy, and the excesses of rationalism that characterize his work....
  • Abadgaran-e Iran-e Islami (Iranian organization)
    Ahmadinejad helped establish Abadgaran-e Iran-e Islami (Developers of an Islamic Iran), which promoted a populist agenda and sought to unite the country’s conservative factions. The party won the city council elections in Tehrān in February 2003, and in May the council chose Ahmadinejad to serve as mayor. As mayor of Tehrān, Ahmadinejad was credited with solving traffic proble...
  • Abadi, Agha Hasan (Pakistani financier)
    Indian-born Pakistani financier who founded the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (b. May 14, 1922--d. Aug. 5, 1995)....
  • Abadie, Paul (French architect)
    ...paid for by national subscription after the French defeat by the Prussians in 1870, during the Franco-German War. The work began in 1876 but was delayed by the death of the architect, Paul Abadie, who took inspiration from the 12th-century five-domed Romanesque church of Saint-Front in Périgueux, itself inspired by either Venetian or Byzantine churches. Alongside the......
  • Abae (ancient town, Greece)
    ancient town in the northeast corner of Phocis, Greece. The town was famous for its oracle of Apollo, which was one of those consulted by the Lydian king Croesus. Although the Persians sacked and burned the temple in 480 bc, the oracle continued to be consulted—e.g., by the Thebans before the Battle of Leuctra (371 bc...
  • Abaelardus, Petrus (French theologian and poet)
    French theologian and philosopher best known for his solution of the problem of universals and for his original use of dialectics. He is also known for his poetry and for his celebrated love affair with Héloïse....
  • Abaha (people)
    a Bantu-speaking people belonging to the Interlacustrine Bantu ethnolinguistic family who live in western Tanzania bordering on Lake Tanganyika. Their country, which they call Buha, comprises grasslands and open woodlands. Agriculture is their primary economic activity. Sorghum, millet, corn (maize), cassava, yams, peanuts (groundnuts), and other crops were cultivated by hoe techniques until effor...
  • Abahai (Manchurian leader)
    Manchurian tribal leader who in 1636 became emperor of the Manchu, Mongols, and Chinese in Manchuria (Northeast China). In addition, for his family he adopted the name of Qing (“Pure”), which also became the name of the Chinese dynasty (1644–1911/12) ruled by the Manchu....
  • Abai (work by Auez-ulï)
    ...By the 1920s he had begun to study Abay, who had been a major cultural influence on his own family. This study led to the historical novel Abaĭ (1945–47; Eng. trans. Abai). Epic in scope, it depicts the social environment from which Abay emerged. It is both a moving narrative and a unique document of Kazakh life during the period of the Russian conquest.....
  • “Abaĭ” (work by Auez-ulï)
    ...By the 1920s he had begun to study Abay, who had been a major cultural influence on his own family. This study led to the historical novel Abaĭ (1945–47; Eng. trans. Abai). Epic in scope, it depicts the social environment from which Abay emerged. It is both a moving narrative and a unique document of Kazakh life during the period of the Russian conquest.....
  • Abaiang Atoll (atoll, Kiribati)
    coral atoll of the Gilbert Islands, part of Kiribati, in the west-central Pacific Ocean. Comprising six islets in the northern Gilberts, the atoll has a lagoon (16 miles by 5 miles [26 km by 8 km]) that provides sheltered anchorage. The islets of Abaiang are Teirio, Nuotaea, Nanikirata, Twin Tree, Ribona, and Iku. Its European discoverer, Ca...
  • Abailard, Pierre (French theologian and poet)
    French theologian and philosopher best known for his solution of the problem of universals and for his original use of dialectics. He is also known for his poetry and for his celebrated love affair with Héloïse....
  • Abaj Takalik (archaeological site, Guatemala)
    ...(4) such iconographic elements as a U-shaped motif, and (5) a cluttered, baroque, and painterly relief style that emphasizes narrative. An important site pertaining to this Izapan culture is Abaj Takalik, on the Pacific slopes of Guatemala, to the east of Izapa. Three sculptural styles are represented there: Olmec or Olmecoid, Izapan, and Classic Maya. Among the latter is one stela with......
  • Abajo Mountains (mountains, Utah, United States)
    volcanic segment of the Colorado Plateau, in San Juan county, southeastern Utah, U.S. Abajo Peak (11,362 feet [3,463 metres]) is the highest point in the mountains, which comprise eight summits and are embraced by the Manti-LaSal National Forest. The heavily forested range is locally called the Blue Mountains for its appearance. Mining and lumbering are the ma...
  • Abakaliki (Nigeria)
    town, capital of Ebonyi state, southeastern Nigeria. It lies at the intersection of roads from Enugu, Afikpo, and Ogoja. An agricultural trade centre (yams, cassava, rice, and palm oil and kernels) for the Igbo (Ibo) people, the town is located in an area known for its lead, zinc, and limestone deposits. Lead has been mined since precolonial...
  • Abakan (Russia)
    city and administrative centre of the republic of Khakassia, south-central Russia. The city lies on the left bank of the Abakan River near its confluence with the Yenisey River. The starting point of a southern Siberian railway line (opened in 1960), Abakan is connected with Novokuznetsk and thence to Barnaul...
  • Abakan (sculpture)
    ...Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (1954). She began working as an independent artist in 1956 and initially earned success for large, three-dimensional woven sculptures known as Abakans, a derivation of her family name. These monumental, often garmentlike, pieces are ambiguous and compelling. Although initially Abakanowicz was best known for her work with textiles,......
  • Abakan River (river, Russia)
    The largest tributaries of the upper and middle Yenisey are the Khemchik and Abakan rivers from the left and the Tuba River from the right. Fed chiefly by rainwater and melting snow, they begin their spring high water in late April and are swollen by summer rain floods. The Angara, on the other hand, is highly regulated by its source—the huge Lake Baikal—and rarely experiences low......
  • Abakanowicz, Bruno Abdank (Lithuanian mathematician)
    ...plotting the integral of a graphically defined function. Two such instruments were invented independently about 1880 by the British physicist Sir Charles Vernon Boys and the Lithuanian mathematician Bruno Abdank Abakanowicz and were later modified and improved by others. The integraph draws the graph of the integral as the user traces the graph of the given function. ...
  • Abakanowicz, Magdalena (Polish artist)
    Polish artist whose massive series of sculptures earned her international acclaim....
  • Abako Party (political party, Zaire)
    ...was the publication in 1956 of a political manifesto calling for immediate independence. Penned by a group of Bakongo évolués affiliated to the Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO), an association based in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa), the manifesto was the response of ABAKO to the ideas set forth by a young Belgian professor of colonial......
  • abakos (calculating device)
    calculating device, probably of Babylonian origin, that was long important in commerce. It is the ancestor of the modern calculating machine and computer....
  • Abakumov, V. S. (Soviet official)
    ...noted that the charges of treason and conspiracy levied against the victims of the purge had been fabrications. He charged that Lavrenty P. Beria, the late chief of security police, and V.S. Abakumov, minister of state security (1947–51), had been responsible for making up the cases against Zhdanov and his followers and for convincing Stalin of the authenticity of the accusations.......
  • abalone (marine snail)
    any of several marine snails of the subclass Prosobranchia (class Gastropoda) constituting the genus Haliotis and family Haliotidae, in which the shell has a row of holes on its outer surface. Abalones are found in warm seas worldwide. The dishlike shell is perforated near one edge by a single row of small holes that become progressively filled during the animal’s growth; the last fi...
  • Abaluhya (people)
    ethnolinguistic cluster of several acephalous, closely related Bantu-speaking peoples including the Bukusu, Tadjoni, Wanga, Marama, Tsotso, Tiriki, Nyala, Kabras, Hayo, Marachi, Holo, Maragoli, Dakho, Isukha, Kisa, Nyole, and Samia of Western Province, western Kenya. The term Luhya, which is short for Abaluhya (loosely, “those of the same hearth”), was first suggested by a local Afri...
  • abamp (unit of measurement)
    ...1.60217733 × 10-19 coulomb. In the centimetre–gram–second system there are two units of electric charge: the electrostatic unit of charge, esu, or statcoulomb; and the electromagnetic unit of charge, emu, or abcoulomb. One coulomb of electric charge equals about 3,000,000,000 esu, or one-tenth emu....
  • Abancay (Peru)
    city, southern Peru. It is situated on the eastern bank of the Marino River at 7,798 feet (2,377 metres) above sea level, in a cool, dry intermontane basin. The exact date of the founding of Abancay (from the Quechua amankay, the name of a wildflower resembling a white lily) is unknown, but it was a leading commercial centre during the Spa...
  • “Abandoned Museums” (work by Peri Rossi)
    ...much earlier. It is a collection of narratives with female protagonists. She won several literary prizes early in her career for her poetry and short stories. Her award-winning Los museos abandonados (1969; “Abandoned Museums”) is a series of short stories, but some consider it to be a brief novel. (One of the features of her work is disregard for genre......
  • abandonment (property law)
    in Anglo-American property law, the relinquishment of possession of property with an intent to terminate all ownership interests in that property. Abandonment may occur by throwing away the property, by losing it and making no attempt to retrieve it, by vacating the property with no intention of returning to it, or by any other act manifesting a complete disclaimer of ownership...
  • abandonment clause (law)
    If salvaging or rehabilitating a ship or cargo following a marine loss costs more than the goods are worth, the loss is said to be constructively total. Under such conditions, the ocean marine policy permits the insured to abandon the damaged ship or cargo to the insurer and make a claim for the entire value. In this case, the salvage belongs to the insurer, who may dispose of it in any way.......
  • abangan (Javanese Islamic group)
    ...by the late 1930s subsidized by the Dutch colonial government. Based on traditional Javanese concepts, the Taman Siswa schools appealed primarily to those segments of Indonesian society termed abangan, in which the Islāmic faith is less deeply entrenched. Dewantoro continued his leadership of Taman Siswa after the war and upon his death was acclaimed a national hero....
  • Abangoni (people)
    approximately 12 groups of people of the Nguni branch of Bantu-speaking peoples that are scattered throughout eastern Africa. Their dispersal was due to the rise of the Zulu empire early in the 19th century, during which many refugee bands moved away from Zululand. One Ngoni chief, Zwangendaba, led his party to Lake Tanganyika; the descendants of his group, th...
  • Abaoji (emperor of Liao dynasty)
    leader of the nomadic Mongol-speaking Khitan tribes who occupied the northern border of China....
  • Abariringa (atoll, Kiribati)
    largest and northernmost of the Phoenix Islands, a coral group, part of Kiribati, in the west-central Pacific Ocean. Located approximately 1,600 miles (2,600 km) southwest of Hawaii, Kanton’s circular coral reef encloses a lagoon extending 7 miles by 3 miles (11 km by 5 km)....
  • Abaritte (work by Pindemonte)
    ...influence of the contemporary English poets Thomas Gray and Edward Young. A stay in Paris inspired the poem “La Francia” (1789) and a prose satire on political conditions in Europe, Abaritte (1790). Disillusioned by the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, Pindemonte left for London, Berlin, and Vienna. On his return to Italy his Prose campestri, a companion v...
  • Abaroi (people)
    one of a people of undetermined origin and language, who, playing an important role in eastern Europe (6th–9th century), built an empire in the area between the Adriatic and the Baltic Sea and between the Elbe and Dnieper rivers (6th–8th century). Inhabiting an area in the Caucasus region in 558, they intervened in Germanic tribal wars, allied with the Lombards to overthrow the Gepi...
  • Abary River (river, Guyana)
    ...the Essequibo, the Potaro, Mazaruni, and Cuyuni drain the northwest, and the Rupununi drains the southern savanna. The coast is cut by shorter rivers, including the Pomeroon, Mahaica, Mahaicony, and Abary....
  • Abashidze, Aslan (Georgian political leader)
    ...autonomous republic of the U.S.S.R.; following the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., it became part of the newly independent country of Georgia. From 1991 to 2004, the region was under the leadership of Aslan Abashidze, a pro-Russian ruler from a distinguished family of Ajar descent. Following a constitutional amendment passed by the Georgian parliament in April 2000, Ajaria was officially......
  • Abasıyanık, Sait Faik (Turkish author)
    short-story writer, a major figure in modern Turkish literature....
  • Abasto (neighbourhood, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
    Abasto and Once are quintessential working-class neighbourhoods; both are located west of Avenida 9 de Julio. Carlos Gardel, one of Argentina’s renowned tango singers, lived in Abasto. Once is famous for its Art Deco buildings. To the north of Once lies Belgrano, home to a relatively small Chinese community. Belgrano is dominated by high-rise......
  • Abate, Niccolò dell’ (Italian painter)
    painter of the Bolognese school who, along with others, introduced the post-Renaissance Italian style of painting to France and helped to inspire the French classical school of landscape painting....
  • abatement (law)
    in law, the interruption of a legal proceeding upon the pleading by a defendant of a matter that prevents the plaintiff from going forward with the suit at that time or in that form. Pleas in abatement raise such matters as objections to the place, mode, or time of the plaintiff’s claim. At one time, abatement of proceedings in equity differed from abatement in law in tha...
  • Abauzit, Firmin (French theologian)
    scholar who contributed to a French translation of the New Testament....
  • abax (calculating device)
    calculating device, probably of Babylonian origin, that was long important in commerce. It is the ancestor of the modern calculating machine and computer....
  • Abay (novel by Auez-ulï)
    ...never returned, as a result of Joseph Stalin’s purges, which destroyed much of the Kazakh intelligentsia. An early Soviet Kazakh writer, Mukhtar Auez-ulï, won recognition for the long novel Abay, based on the life and poetry of Kūnanbay-ulï, and for his plays, including Änglik-Kebek....
  • Abāy River (river, Africa)
    headstream of the Nile River and source of almost 70 percent of its floodwater at Khartoum. It reputedly rises as the Abāy from a spring 6,000 ft (1,800 m) above sea level, near Lake Tana in northwestern Ethiopia. The river flows into and out of the lake, runs through a series of rapids, and then drops into a gorge. It flows through a deep canyon southeast and west around...
  • abaya (clothing)
    The simple basic garment for both sexes was a loose, long shirt, chemise, or tunic, which often had long sleeves. Over this men wore a robe or mantle of various types. The aba (ʿabāʾ or abaya) was of ancient origin and is mentioned in the Bible as the attire of Hebrew prophets. It was traditionally made of heavy cream-coloured wool......
  • Abaza (people)
    ...dialect, are found around the Bzyb River; the Abzhui Abkhaz, on whose dialect the literary language is based, live near the Kodori River; and the Zamurzakan Abkhaz are found in the southeast. The Abaza people, who speak a similar language, dwell north of the main Caucasus mountain chain around the sources of the Kuban and Zelenchuk rivers in Karachay-Cherkessia, Russia. Abaza and Abkhaz are......
  • Abaza language
    language spoken primarily in the western part of the Caucasus Mountains and in northeastern Turkey. Abaza is related to Abkhaz, Adyghian, Kabardian (Circassian), and Ubykh, which constitute the Abkhazo-Adyghian, or Northwest Caucasian, language group. These languages are noted for the great number of distinctive consonants and the limited number of distinctive vowels in their sound systems. Abaza...
  • Abba (Swedish music group)
    ...broader appeal. Boney M, a foursome from the Caribbean (via Britain and The Netherlands) brought together by German producer Frank Farian, sold 50 million records in 1976–78; the Swedish group Abba had 18 consecutive European Top Ten hits following their 1974 victory in the Eurovision Song Contest (the annual competition sponsored by state-run European television stations to determine th...
  • Abba Arika (Babylonian rabbi)
    Babylonian amora (scholar), head of the important Jewish academy at Nehardea. His teachings, along with those of Rav (Abba Arika, head of the academy at Sura), figure prominently in the Babylonian Talmud....
  • Abba Ewostatewos (emperor of Ethiopia)
    ...benefices. Such power allowed the monasteries at times to intervene in disputes over succession to the Solomonid throne and even openly to fight the reigning monarch. On the other hand, the monk Abba Ewostatewos (c. 1273–1352) preached isolation from corrupting state influences and a return to Biblical teachings—including observance of the Judaic Sabbath on Saturday in......
  • Abba Mari ben Moses ben Joseph (Jewish zealot)
    anti-rationalist Jewish zealot who incited Rabbi Solomon ben Abraham Adret of Barcelona, the most powerful rabbi of his time, to restrict the study of science and philosophy, thereby nearly creating a schism in the Jewish community of Europe....
  • ʿAbbādān (Iran)
    city, extreme southwestern Iran. The city is situated in Khūzestān, part of the oil-producing region of Iran. Ābādān lies on an island of the same name along the eastern bank of the Shaṭṭ Al-ʿArab (river), 33 miles (53 km) from the Persian Gulf. The city thus lies along Iran’s bo...
  • ʿAbbādid dynasty (Muslim dynasty)
    Muslim-Arab dynasty of Andalusia that arose in Sevilla (Seville) in the 11th century, in the period of the factions, or “party kingdoms” (ṭāʾifahs), following the downfall of the caliphate of Córdoba....
  • Abbadie, Antoine-Thomson d’ (French geographer)
    Their parents, a French father and an Irish mother, moved to France in 1818. In 1835 the French Academy sent Antoine on a scientific mission to Brazil. Arnaud spent some time in Algeria before the two brothers started for Ethiopia in 1837, landing at Mitsiwa (now Massawa, Eritrea) in 1838. After collecting much information on the geography and natural history of the country, the brothers......
  • Abbadie, Antoine-Thomson d’; and Abbadie, Arnaud-Michel d’ (French geographers)
    two brothers who, as geographers and travelers, conducted extensive investigations of the geography, geology, archaeology, and natural history of Ethiopia....
  • Abbadie, Arnaud-Michel d’ (French geographer)
    Their parents, a French father and an Irish mother, moved to France in 1818. In 1835 the French Academy sent Antoine on a scientific mission to Brazil. Arnaud spent some time in Algeria before the two brothers started for Ethiopia in 1837, landing at Mitsiwa (now Massawa, Eritrea) in 1838. After collecting much information on the geography and natural history of the country, the brothers......
  • Abbado, Claudio (Italian music director)
    Italian conductor and music director of the Vienna State Opera (1986–91) and principal conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (from 1971), the London Symphony Orchestra (1979–88), and the Berlin Philharmonic (from 1989)....
  • Abbagnano, Nicola (Italian philosopher)
    ...is José Ortega y Gasset; that of Russian Idealistic Existentialism is Nikolay Berdyayev (who, however, lived half of his adult life in France); and that of Italian Existentialism is Nicola Abbagnano. The linguistic differences, however, are not decisive for a determination of philosophical affinities. For example, Marcel and Sartre are farther apart than Heidegger and Sartre;......
  • Abbah Quṣūr (Tunisia)
    ancient city of Numidia in North Africa, on the road constructed by the Roman emperor Hadrian in ad 123, between Carthage and Theveste (Tabassah) in what is now Tunisia. The town, originally an indigenous settlement, obtained municipal rights from Hadrian....
  • Abbahu (rabbinic scholar)
    ...and Samaritans maintained renowned cultural institutions—the Jews too established an academy that was singularly free of patriarchal control. The outstanding rabbinic scholar there, Abbahu (c. 279–320), wielded great influence with the Roman authorities. Because he combined learning with personal wealth and political power, he attracted some of the most gifted......
  • abbas (monk)
    the superior of a monastic community that follows the Benedictine Rule (Benedictines, Cistercians, Camaldolese, Trappists) and of certain other orders (Premonstratensians, canons regular of the Lateran). The word derives from the Aramaic ab (“father”), or aba (“my father”), which in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) and in New Te...
  • Abbas, Abu (Palestinian guerrilla leader)
    Palestinian guerrilla leader (b. 1948/49?, near Haifa?, Palestine/Israel?—d. March 8/9, 2004, near Baghdad, Iraq), was best known as the mastermind behind the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, during which a wheelchair-bound American Jewish man, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot and pushed into the sea; this act brought worldwide condemnation, and Abbas was sentenced ...
  • ʿAbbās, al- (uncle of Muḥammad)
    ...eminent Meccans—including two later major military and political figures, Khālid ibn Walīd and ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ—accepted Islam and that Muhammad’s uncle al-ʿAbbās, then the head of the Banū Hāshim family, is said to have secretly become a Muslim....
  • Abbas, Ferhat (president of Algeria)
    politician and leader of the national independence movement who served as the first president of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic....
  • Abbas, Ferhat Mekki (president of Algeria)
    politician and leader of the national independence movement who served as the first president of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic....
  • ʿAbbās Ḥilmī I (viceroy of Egypt)
    viceroy of Egypt under the Ottomans from 1848 to 1854. Despite his relatively peaceful and prosperous reign as viceroy of Egypt, ʿAbbās was largely vilified as selfish, secretive, cruel, and a reactionary. Nevertheless, some scholars have since noted that ʿAbbās’s much-blackened image may have owed a great deal to exaggerated or fabricated accounts put forth by h...
  • ʿAbbās Ḥilmī II (khedive of Egypt)
    last khedive (viceroy) of Egypt, from 1892 to 1914, when British hegemony was established. His opposition to British power in Egypt made him prominent in the nationalist movement....
  • ʿAbbās I (Ṣafavid shah of Persia)
    shah of Persia from 1588 to 1629, who strengthened the Ṣafavid dynasty by expelling Ottoman and Uzbek troops from Persian soil and by creating a standing army. He also made Eṣfahān the capital of Persia and fostered commerce and the arts, so that Persian artistic achievement reached a high point in his reign....
  • ʿAbbās I (viceroy of Egypt)
    viceroy of Egypt under the Ottomans from 1848 to 1854. Despite his relatively peaceful and prosperous reign as viceroy of Egypt, ʿAbbās was largely vilified as selfish, secretive, cruel, and a reactionary. Nevertheless, some scholars have since noted that ʿAbbās’s much-blackened image may have owed a great deal to exaggerated or fabricated accounts put forth by h...
  • ʿAbbās II (shah of Iran)
    After the death of Shah ʿAbbās I (1629) the Ṣafavid dynasty lasted for about a century, but, except for an interlude during the reign of Shah ʿAbbās II (1642–66), it was a period of decline. Eṣfahān fell to the Ghilzai Afghans of Qandahār in 1722; seven years later Shah Ṭahmāsp II recovered Eṣfahān and ascen...
  • ʿAbbās II (khedive of Egypt)
    last khedive (viceroy) of Egypt, from 1892 to 1914, when British hegemony was established. His opposition to British power in Egypt made him prominent in the nationalist movement....
  • Abbas, Mahmoud (Palestinian leader)
    Palestinian politician, who served briefly as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority in 2003 and was elected its president in 2005 following the death of Yāsir ʿArafāt....
  • ʿAbbās Mīrzā (prince of Iran)
    crown prince of the Qājār dynasty of Iran who introduced European military techniques into his country....
  • Abbas, Muhammad (Palestinian guerrilla leader)
    Palestinian guerrilla leader (b. 1948/49?, near Haifa?, Palestine/Israel?—d. March 8/9, 2004, near Baghdad, Iraq), was best known as the mastermind behind the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, during which a wheelchair-bound American Jewish man, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot and pushed into the sea; this act brought worldwide condemnation, and Abbas was sentenced ...
  • ʿAbbās the Great (Ṣafavid shah of Persia)
    shah of Persia from 1588 to 1629, who strengthened the Ṣafavid dynasty by expelling Ottoman and Uzbek troops from Persian soil and by creating a standing army. He also made Eṣfahān the capital of Persia and fostered commerce and the arts, so that Persian artistic achievement reached a high point in his reign....
  • ʿAbbāsid dynasty
    second of the two great dynasties of the Muslim Empire of the Caliphate. It overthrew the Umayyad caliphate in ad 750 and reigned as the ʿAbbāsid caliphate until destroyed by the Mongol invasion in 1258....
  • ʿAbbāsid Palace (palace, Baghdad, Iraq)
    While no monuments survive from the early ʿAbbāsid period, examples of late ʿAbbāsid architecture include the ʿAbbāsid Palace (late 12th or early 13th century) and the Mustanṣiriyyah madrasah (an Islamic law college built by the caliph al-Mustanṣir in 1233), both restored as museums, and the......
  • ʿAbbāsīyah Canal, Al- (canal, Egypt)
    ...along the Wadi Tumelat, with a southern branch (now called the Al-Suways al-Ḥulwah Canal; the two canals combined were formerly called the Sweet Water Canal) to Suez and a northern one (Al-ʿAbbāsīyah Canal) to Port Said. This supplied drinking water in an otherwise arid area and was completed in 1863....
  • Abbate, Niccolò dell’ (Italian painter)
    painter of the Bolognese school who, along with others, introduced the post-Renaissance Italian style of painting to France and helped to inspire the French classical school of landscape painting....
  • Abbati, Giuseppe (Italian artist)
    ...conscious scenes; Silvestro Lega (1826–95), who combined a clearly articulated handling of colour patches with a poetic feeling for his subject; and Raffaello Sernesi (1838–66) and Giuseppe Abbati (1836–68), both of whom also used colour in a highly original manner....
  • Abbaye (French artists group)
    Vildrac, along with the writer Georges Duhamel (later his brother-in-law) and others, founded the Abbaye, a community of young artists and writers who, from 1906 to 1907, lived together in the Paris suburb of Créteil. During World War II he was active in the French Resistance....
  • Abbazia (Croatia)
    resort town, one of the best-known coastal resorts in Istria, republic of Croatia, situated on the Kvarner (gulf) of the Adriatic Sea. The town’s name derives from the old Benedictine opatija (“abbey”) of San Giacomo al Palo, situated in the main park. Besides remains of medieval walls and the town gate, there are striking villas built by Austrian and...
  • Abbe, Cleveland (American meteorologist)
    meteorologist who pioneered in the foundation and growth of the U.S. Weather Bureau, later renamed the National Weather Service....
  • Abbe de La Tour (Swiss novelist)
    Swiss novelist whose work anticipated early 19th-century emancipated ideas....
  • Abbé Delille (French writer)
    poet and classicist who enjoyed an impressive reputation in his day as the “French Virgil.”...
  • Abbe, Ernst (German physicist)
    physicist whose theoretical and technical innovations in optical theory led to great improvements in microscope design (such as the use of a condenser to provide strong, even illumination, introduced in 1870) and clearer understanding of magnification limits. He discovered the optical formula now called the Abbe sine condition, one of the requirements that a lens must satisfy if it is to form a sh...
  • Abbé Pierre (French priest)
    French Roman Catholic priest and social activist who championed the cause of the homeless in France and throughout the world. The Emmaus movement, which he founded in 1949 with a single centre for the homeless in a Paris suburb, held its first World Assembly in 1969, and by 2007 Emmaus International had more than 100 communities in France as well as in some 40 other countries. Abbé Pierre ...
  • Abbe sine condition (physics)
    ...design (such as the use of a condenser to provide strong, even illumination, introduced in 1870) and clearer understanding of magnification limits. He discovered the optical formula now called the Abbe sine condition, one of the requirements that a lens must satisfy if it is to form a sharp image, free from the blurring or distortion caused by coma and spherical aberration....
  • abbess (religion)
    the title of a superior of certain communities of nuns following the Benedictine Rule, of convents of the Second Order of St. Francis (Poor Clares), and of certain communities of canonesses. The first historical record of the name is on a Roman inscription dated c. 514....
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