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  • B (chemical element)
    chemical element, semimetal of main Group 13 (IIIa, or boron group) of the periodic table, essential to plant growth and of wide industrial application....
  • B (logic)
    ...to T is known as S4; that obtained by adding Mp ⊃ LMp to T is known as S5; and the addition of p ⊃ LMp to T gives the Brouwerian system, here called B for short....
  • B Cassiopeiae (astronomy)
    one of the few recorded supernovae in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe first observed the “new star” on Nov. 11, 1572. Other European observers claimed to have noticed it as early as the preceding August, but Tycho’s precise measurements showed that it was not some relatively nearby phenomenon, such as a comet, but at the distance of t...
  • B cell (biology)
    The two primary types of lymphocytes are B lymphocytes and T lymphocytes, or B cells and T cells. Both originate from stem cells in the bone marrow and are initially similar in appearance. Some lymphocytes migrate to the thymus, where they mature into T cells; others remain in the bone marrow, where—in humans—they develop into B cells. Most lymphocytes are short-lived, with an......
  • B horizon (soil type)
    Below A lies the B horizon. In mature soils this layer is characterized by an accumulation of clay (small particles less than 0.002 mm [0.00008 inch] in diameter) that has either been deposited out of percolating waters or precipitated by chemical processes involving dissolved products of weathering. Clay endows B horizons with an array of diverse structural features (blocks, columns, and......
  • B lymphocyte (biology)
    The two primary types of lymphocytes are B lymphocytes and T lymphocytes, or B cells and T cells. Both originate from stem cells in the bone marrow and are initially similar in appearance. Some lymphocytes migrate to the thymus, where they mature into T cells; others remain in the bone marrow, where—in humans—they develop into B cells. Most lymphocytes are short-lived, with an......
  • B ring (astronomy)
    The B ring is the brightest, thickest, and broadest of the rings. It extends from 1.52 to 1.95 Saturn radii and has optical depths between 0.4 and 2.5, the precise values dependent on both distance from Saturn and wavelength of light. (Saturn’s equatorial radius is 60,268 km [37,449 miles].) It is separated visually from the outer major ring, the A ring, by the Cassini division, the most......
  • B&M (American railway)
    largest of the New England railroads, operating in central and northern Massachusetts, southeastern Maine, and New Hampshire, with a few miles in Vermont and New York. The Boston and Maine’s earliest predecessor was the Andover and Wilmington Railroad, which was chartered in 1833. The railroad’s first section of track, running east from Wilmington, Mass., opened in 1836, and the rai...
  • B&O (American railway)
    first steam-operated railway in the United States to be chartered as a common carrier of freight and passengers (1827). The B&O Railroad Company was established by Baltimore (Md.) merchants to compete with New York merchants and their newly opened Erie Canal for the trade to the west. A driving force in its early years was the Baltimore banker George Brown, who served as treasurer from 1827...
  • B-1 (bomber aircraft)
    U.S. variable-wing strategic bomber that entered service in 1986 as a successor to the B-52 Stratofortress. The B-1 was designed to penetrate radar-guided air defenses by flying at low levels. It was built in two versions by Rockwell International. The B-1A, first flown in 1974, was designed to reach twice the speed of sound at high altitudes and to carry nuclear bombs and short-range attack miss...
  • B-10 (aircraft)
    ...a 50-percent improvement over the biplane bombers then in service, without any reduction in bombload. Within months of its first flight, the B-9 was overshadowed completely by the Martin B-10 of 1932, which brought the biggest single advance in bomber design since the Handley Page night bomber of World War I. To the innovations of the B-9 it added enclosed cockpits and an internal......
  • B-15A (iceberg)
    ...been measured accurately by satellite. In 2000 iceberg B-15 broke off the Ross Ice Shelf with an initial length of 295 km (about 185 miles). Although B-15 broke into two fragments after a few days, B-15A—the larger portion, measuring 120 km (75 miles) long by 20 km (12 miles) wide—obstructed the entrance to McMurdo Sound and prevented the pack ice in the sound from clearing out in...
  • B-17 (aircraft)
    U.S. heavy bomber used during World War II. The B-17 was designed by the Boeing Aircraft Company in response to a 1934 Army Air Corps specification that called for a four-engined bomber at a time when two engines were the norm. The bomber was intended from the outset to attack strategic targets by precision daylight bombing, penetrating deep into enemy territo...
  • B-1B (aircraft)
    ...by Rockwell International. The B-1A, first flown in 1974, was designed to reach twice the speed of sound at high altitudes and to carry nuclear bombs and short-range attack missiles (SRAMs). The B-1B modified the basic airframe with stealth features, such as blended contours and radar-absorbing materials, which lowered the aircraft’s speed but reduced its radar reflectivity to one......
  • B-2 (aircraft)
    ...was effectively undetectable by the air defense radar systems of the time. Late 20th-century efforts to evade increasingly sophisticated radar early-warning systems culminated in the United States’ B-2 Advanced Technology Bomber. This craft used “stealth” materials and shapes to reduce its radar reflectivity, but its enormous cost (and the end of the Cold War) raised anew t...
  • B-24 (aircraft)
    long-range heavy bomber used during World War II by the U.S. and British air forces. It was designed by the Consolidated Aircraft Company (later Consolidated-Vultee) in response to a January 1939 U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) requirement for a four-engined heavy bomber. The B-24 was powered by four air-cooled radial engines and had a spacious boxlike fuselage slung beneath a high ...
  • B-25 (aircraft)
    U.S. medium bomber used during World War II. The B-25 was designed by North American Aviation, Inc., in response to a prewar requirement and was first flown in 1940. A high-wing monoplane with a twin tail and tricycle landing gear, it was powered by two 1,700-horsepower Wright radial engines, had a wingspan of 67 feet 7 inches (20.6 metres), was 53 feet 6 inches (16.3 metres) lo...
  • B-26 Invader (aircraft)
    ...Il-2 Stormovik and the U.S. Douglas A-20 Havoc, which were armed with 20-millimetre cannons and .30- or .50-inch machine guns. Two other American attack aircraft of the 1940s and ’50s were the Douglas B-26 Invader and the Douglas A-1 Skyraider. All of these types were piston-engined, propeller-driven aircraft....
  • B-26 Marauder (aircraft)
    U.S. medium bomber used during World War II. It was designed by the Glenn L. Martin Company Aviation in response to a January 1939 Army Air Forces requirement calling for a fast heavily-armed medium bomber; the result was an exceptionally clean design with a high wing, a torpedo-shaped fuselage, conventional tail surfaces, and tricycle landing gear. The B-26 first flew in Novemb...
  • B-29 (aircraft)
    U.S. heavy bomber used in World War II. It was the type of airplane that was used to firebomb Tokyo and other Japanese cities and that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, respectively....
  • B-47 (aircraft)
    ...War II gained increased speed by jet propulsion, and their nuclear bombloads played a principal role in the superpowers’ strategic thinking during the Cold War. Medium-range bombers such as the U.S. B-47 Stratojet, the British Valiant, Vulcan, and Victor, and the Soviet Tu-16 Badger threatened to annihilate major cities with atomic or thermonuclear bombs in the event of war in Europe....
  • B-47 Stratojet (aircraft)
    ...War II gained increased speed by jet propulsion, and their nuclear bombloads played a principal role in the superpowers’ strategic thinking during the Cold War. Medium-range bombers such as the U.S. B-47 Stratojet, the British Valiant, Vulcan, and Victor, and the Soviet Tu-16 Badger threatened to annihilate major cities with atomic or thermonuclear bombs in the event of war in Europe....
  • B-52 (aircraft)
    U.S. long-range heavy bomber, designed in 1948 and first flown in 1952. Though originally intended to be an atomic-bomb carrier capable of reaching the Soviet Union, it proved adaptable to a number of missions, and some B-52s were thus expected to remain in service for the rest of the 20th century. The B-52 has a wingspan of 185 feet (56 m) and a length of 160 feet 10.9 inches (49 m). It is powere...
  • B-9 (aircraft)
    ...fighters, changing to high-strength metal construction in the late 1920s and to monoplane design, which brought higher speeds, in the early 1930s. In 1931 the Boeing Aircraft Company produced the B-9 bomber. Anticipating all-metal fighters, the B-9 was the first operational combat aircraft with all-metal cantilever monoplane design, semiretractable undercarriage, and variable-pitch......
  • B-class asteroid (astronomy)
    Asteroids of the B, C, F, and G classes have low albedos and spectral reflectances similar to those of carbonaceous chondritic meteorites and their constituent assemblages produced by hydrothermal alteration and/or metamorphism of carbonaceous precursor materials. Some C-class asteroids are known to have......
  • B-DNA (chemical compound)
    The double helical structure of normal DNA takes a right-handed form called the B-helix. The helix makes one complete turn approximately every 10 base pairs. B-DNA has two principal grooves, a wide major groove and a narrow minor groove. Many proteins interact in the space of the major groove, where they make sequence-specific contacts with the bases. In addition, a few proteins are known to......
  • B-film (motion-picture commercial grade)
    cheaply produced, formulaic film initially intended to serve as the second feature on a double bill. During the 1930s and ’40s, a period often called the Golden Age of Hollywood, B-films were usually paired with bigger-budget, more prestigious A-pictures; but two B-films were sometimes used for midweek or Saturday matinee showings. The characteristics of B-films included low budgets, tight ...
  • B-meson (subatomic particle)
    ...that they have different values of momentum. When they annihilate, the net momentum is not zero, as it is with particles of equal and opposite momentum, so new short-lived particles (specifically, B-mesons) are created in motion; this gives them an apparently longer lifetime in the laboratory owing to the effect of time dilation in the theory of special relativity....
  • B-movie (motion-picture commercial grade)
    cheaply produced, formulaic film initially intended to serve as the second feature on a double bill. During the 1930s and ’40s, a period often called the Golden Age of Hollywood, B-films were usually paired with bigger-budget, more prestigious A-pictures; but two B-films were sometimes used for midweek or Saturday matinee showings. The characteristics of B-films included low budgets, tight ...
  • B-picture (motion-picture commercial grade)
    cheaply produced, formulaic film initially intended to serve as the second feature on a double bill. During the 1930s and ’40s, a period often called the Golden Age of Hollywood, B-films were usually paired with bigger-budget, more prestigious A-pictures; but two B-films were sometimes used for midweek or Saturday matinee showings. The characteristics of B-films included low budgets, tight ...
  • B-scan (ultrasonography)
    ...it encounters changes in acoustic impedance, which cause reflections. The amount and time delay of the various reflections can be analyzed to obtain information regarding the internal organs. In the B-scan mode, a linear array of transducers is used to scan a plane in the body, and the resultant data is displayed on a television screen as a two-dimensional plot. The A-scan technique uses a......
  • B-spline (mathematics)
    ...equivalently, by two points and the curve’s slopes at those points. Two cubic curves can be smoothly joined by giving them the same slope at the junction. Bezier curves, and related curves known as B-splines, were introduced in computer-aided design programs for the modeling of automobile bodies....
  • B-type star (astronomy)
    ...stars with surface temperatures typically of 25,000–50,000 K (although a few O-type stars with vastly greater temperatures have been described); lines of ionized helium appear in the spectra. Class B stars typically range from 10,000 K to 25,000 K and are also bluish white but show neutral helium lines. The surface temperatures of A-type stars range from 7,400 K to about 10,000 K; lines....
  • B. V. (Scottish poet [1834-82])
    Scottish Victorian poet who is best remembered for his sombre, imaginative poem “The City of Dreadful Night,” a symbolic expression of his horror of urban dehumanization....
  • B.A. (degree)
    ...four years. The master’s degree involves one to two years’ additional study, while the doctorate usually involves a lengthier period of work. British and American universities customarily grant the bachelor’s as the first degree in arts or sciences. After one or two more years of coursework, the second degree, M.A. or M.S., may be obtained by examination or the completion o...
  • B.A.T. Industries PLC (British conglomerate)
    British conglomerate that is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of tobacco products. The company’s international headquarters are in London. Its chief American subsidiary, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation, is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky....
  • B.E.M. (British medal)
    Associated with this order is the British Empire Medal (BEM) instituted by George V. This award for meritorious service is given to both civilians and military personnel who are not eligible for admission into any of the five classes of the order....
  • B.F. Goodrich Company (American tire manufacturing company)
    major American manufacturer of specialty chemicals, plastic materials, and other related products. Headquarters are in Akron, Ohio....
  • B.J. (card game)
    gambling card game popular in casinos throughout the world. Its origin is disputed, but it is certainly related to several French and Italian gambling games. In Britain since World War I, the informal game has been called pontoon....
  • B.O.W.C. (work by De Mille)
    ...adventure, such as The Dodge Club; or, Italy in 1859 (1869); and historical romances, such as A Tale of Rome in the First Century (1867). Writings for young readers included the “B.O.W.C.” (“Brethren of the White Cross”) series, the first popular boys’ adventure stories produced in Canada. De Mille’s imagination ranged furthest in A Str...
  • B.S. (degree)
    ...are now awarded in the United States, for example, with the largest number in science, technology, engineering, medicine, and education. The commonest degrees, however, are still the B.A. and the B.S., to which the signature of a special field may be added (e.g., B.S.Pharm., or Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy). These special fields have their corresponding designations at the graduate......
  • B12 (chemical compound)
    a complex water-soluble organic compound that is essential to a number of microorganisms and animals, including humans. Vitamin B12 aids in the development of red blood cells in higher animals. The vitamin, which is unique in that it contains a metallic ion, cobalt, has a complex chemical structure as shown:...
  • BA (British airline)
    British air-transport company formed in April 1974 in the fusion of British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC, formed in 1939), British European Airways (BEA, formed in 1946), and their associated companies. The company, state-owned from its inception, was privatized in 1987. The airline offers service to cities around the world and carries more passengers on international scheduled flights than ...
  • Ba (president of North Vietnam)
    founder of the Indochina Communist Party (1930) and its successor, the Viet-Minh (1941), and president from 1945 to 1969 of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). As the leader of the Vietnamese nationalist movement for nearly three decades, Ho was one of the prime movers of the post-World War II anticolonial movement in Asia and one of the most influential communist leaders of the 20...
  • Ba (chemical element)
    (Ba), chemical element, one of the alkaline-earth metals of main Group 2 (IIa) of the periodic table. The element is used in metallurgy, and its compounds in pyrotechnics, petroleum mining, and radiology....
  • ba (Egyptian religion)
    in ancient Egyptian religion, with the ka and the akh, a principal aspect of the soul; the ba appears in bird form, thus expressing the mobility of the soul after death. Originally written with the sign of the jabiru bird and tho...
  • Ba (ancient Chinese state)
    ancient tribe and later an ancient Chinese feudal state that came into being in the 11th century bce, under the Xi (Western) Zhou dynasty. It was situated in the Jialing valley of present-day eastern Sichuan and Chongqing municipality. Ba established relations with the mid-Yangtze kingdom of Chu in the 5th century bce. In 316 ...
  • Ba Jin (Chinese author)
    Chinese anarchist writer whose novels and short stories achieved widespread popularity in the 1930s and ’40s....
  • Bâ, Mariama (Senegalese writer)
    ...the form of “dialogues,” either between Islam and Western materialism or between traditional autocracy and Christian compassion. Remarkable as women writers in a hitherto male world were Mariama Bâ, recipient of the first Noma Award for publishing in Africa for Une Si Longue Lettre (1980; So Long a Letter), and Aminata Sow Fall, a fellow Senegalese...
  • Ba Maw (prime minister of Myanmar)
    politician who in 1937 became the first Burmese premier under British rule; he later was head of state in the pro-Japanese government during World War II (August 1943–May 1945)....
  • Ba Ngoi (port, Vietnam)
    city, south-central Vietnam. It is situated on a peninsula enclosing Cam Ranh Bay, an inlet of the South China Sea. Cam Lam (Ba Ngoi), on the western shore of the bay, was the area’s major port and naval base during French colonial days. The United States military intervention in South Vietnam in 1965 created new installations and airfields, many of them at Cam Ranh. Pop. (1989) 114,041....
  • Ba Xian (Taoism)
    heterogeneous group of holy Taoists, each of whom earned the right to immortality and had free access to the Peach Festival of Hsi Wang Mu, Queen Mother of the West. Though unacquainted in real life, the eight are frequently depicted as a group—bearing gifts, for instance, to Shou Hsing, god of longevity, to safeguard their immortality....
  • ba yin (music)
    The Chinese talent for musical organization was by no means limited to pitches. Another important ancient system called the eight sounds (pa yin) was used to classify the many kinds of instruments used in Imperial orchestras. This system was based upon the material used in the construction of the instruments, the eight being stone, earth (pottery), bamboo, metal, skin, silk, wood, and......
  • Ba-Phalaborwa (South Africa)
    mining town, Limpopo province, South Africa, located east of the Drakensberg mountains and north of the Olifants River near Kruger National Park. It is built on top of an old black African mining centre of iron and copper ore; traces of their workings and clay smelting ovens have been found in the nearby granite hills. A name of tribal origin, Phalaborwa (“Better than the...
  • BAA (sports organization)
    ...of the 1930s hurt professional basketball, and a new NBL was organized in 1937 in and around the upper Midwest. Professional basketball assumed major league status with the organization of the new Basketball Association of America (BAA) in 1946 under the guidance of Walter A. Brown, president of the Boston Garden. Brown contended that professional basketball would succeed only if there were......
  • Baa Baa, Black Sheep (work by Kipling)
    ...was unhappy. Kipling was taken to England by his parents at the age of six and was left for five years at a foster home at Southsea, the horrors of which he described in the story Baa Baa, Black Sheep (1888). He then went on to the United Services College at Westward Ho, north Devon, a new, inexpensive, and inferior boarding school. It haunted Kipling for the rest of.....
  • Baa Baa Black Sheep (work by Boyington)
    ...Though his fate was unknown, the U.S. government awarded Major Boyington the Medal of Honor in 1944. He was released from prison in 1945 and retired with the rank of colonel in 1947. His memoirs, Baa Baa Black Sheep, were published in 1958....
  • Baade, Walter (German astronomer)
    ...has a more eccentric orbit and also approaches nearer the Sun (within 30 million km [19 million miles]) than does any other known body in the solar system except comets. It was discovered in 1949 by Walter Baade of the Hale Observatories (now Palomar Observatory), California. Its orbit extends from beyond Mars to within that of Mercury; it can approach within 6.4 million km of the Earth. In Jun...
  • Baader, Andreas (German radical)
    West German radical leftist group formed in 1968 and popularly named after two of its early leaders, Andreas Baader (1943–77) and Ulrike Meinhof (1934–76)....
  • Baader, Franz Xaver von (German theologian)
    Roman Catholic layman who became an influential mystical theologian and ecumenicist....
  • Baader-Meinhof Gang (German radical leftist group)
    West German radical leftist group formed in 1968 and popularly named after two of its early leaders, Andreas Baader (1943–77) and Ulrike Meinhof (1934–76)....
  • Baal (play by Brecht)
    After a short period of rather poorly received efforts, Schlöndorff formed his own film company, the first production of which Baal (1970), starring Fassbinder, was an adaptation of the Bertolt Brecht play. The following year, Schlöndorff married an actress who had appeared in the film, Margarethe von Trotta, with whom he collaborated professionally through.....
  • Baal (ancient deity)
    god worshiped in many ancient Middle Eastern communities, especially among the Canaanites, who apparently considered him a fertility deity and one of the most important gods in the pantheon. As a Semitic common noun baal (Hebrew baʿal) meant “owner” or “lord,” although it could be used more generally; for example, a baal of...
  • Baal Babylon (work by Arrabal)
    Arrabal’s first novel, Baal Babylone (1959; Baal Babylon), dealt with his nightmarish childhood in fascist Spain; in 1970 he adapted it into the screenplay ¡Viva la Muerte! (“Long Live Death!”) and directed its filming in Tunisia. An extremely prolific writer, he also, in addition to producing a dozen volumes of collected theatre pieces, wrot...
  • “Baal Babylone” (work by Arrabal)
    Arrabal’s first novel, Baal Babylone (1959; Baal Babylon), dealt with his nightmarish childhood in fascist Spain; in 1970 he adapted it into the screenplay ¡Viva la Muerte! (“Long Live Death!”) and directed its filming in Tunisia. An extremely prolific writer, he also, in addition to producing a dozen volumes of collected theatre pieces, wrot...
  • Baal Epic
    ...alphabet, from Ras Shamra (the site of ancient Ugarit), in northern Syria, there are important fragments of three narrative poems. One of these is mythological and recounts the career of the god Baal, which seems to coincide with the yearly cycle of vegetation on earth. As was usual with the death of gods in the ancient Mediterranean world, Baal’s end brings about a drought that ceases o...
  • Baʿal ha-Nes (Jewish rabbi and scholar)
    rabbi who was among the greatest of the tannaim, the group of some 225 masters of the Jewish Oral Law that flourished in Palestine for roughly the first 200 years ad. He continued the work of his teacher, Rabbi Akiba, in compiling by subject the Halakhot (laws) that came to be incorporated into the Mishna made by Rabbi ...
  • Baal Hammon (Carthaginian deity)
    ...in antiquity for the intensity of their religious beliefs, which they retained to the end of their independence and which in turn influenced the religion of the Libyans. The chief deity was Baal Hammon, the community’s divine lord and protector, who was identified by the Greeks with Cronus and by the Romans with Saturn. During the 5th century bc a goddess named Tanit came t...
  • Baal, J. van (Dutch anthropologist)
    ...need of reassurance that he is not an unimportant item in an indifferent world; if he cannot be comforted, to be threatened is better than to be alone in an empty void of nothingness. According to J. van Baal, a Dutch anthropologist,Man experiences his universe as a universe full of intentions, a universe which holds a claim on him, addressing him with something undefined, urging......
  • Baal of Lebanon (bronze cup)
    ...second home, giving the alphabet to Greeks in the mutual trading area and leaving inscriptions in many sites. One of the finest Phoenician inscriptions exists on a bronze cup from Cyprus called the Baal of Lebanon (in the Louvre, Paris) dating from about 800 bce. The so-called Moabite Stone (also in the Louvre), which dates from about 850 bce, has an inscription that...
  • Baal Shamen (ancient deity)
    god worshiped in many ancient Middle Eastern communities, especially among the Canaanites, who apparently considered him a fertility deity and one of the most important gods in the pantheon. As a Semitic common noun baal (Hebrew baʿal) meant “owner” or “lord,” although it could be used more generally; for example, a baal of...
  • baʿal shem (Judaism)
    in Judaism, title bestowed upon men who reputedly worked wonders and effected cures through secret knowledge of the ineffable names of God. Benjamin ben Zerah (11th century) was one of several Jewish poets to employ the mystical names of God in his works, thereby demonstrating a belief in the efficacy of the holy name long before certain rabbis and Kabbalists (followers of esoteric Jewish mysticis...
  • Baʿal Shem Ṭov (Polish rabbi)
    charismatic founder (c. 1750) of Ḥasidism, a Jewish spiritual movement characterized by mysticism and opposition to secular studies and Jewish rationalism. He aroused controversy by mixing with ordinary people, renouncing mortification of the flesh, and insisting on the holiness of ordinary bodily existence. He was also responsible for divesting Kabbala...
  • Baal Shemin (ancient deity)
    god worshiped in many ancient Middle Eastern communities, especially among the Canaanites, who apparently considered him a fertility deity and one of the most important gods in the pantheon. As a Semitic common noun baal (Hebrew baʿal) meant “owner” or “lord,” although it could be used more generally; for example, a baal of...
  • Baʿal-Berit (Canaanite deity)
    ...of which has been perceived more clearly as a result of recent archaeological excavations. From the mid-13th to the mid-11th century bc, Shechem was the site of the cult of the Canaanite god Baʿal-Berit (Lord of the Covenant). The architecture uncovered on the site by archaeologists would date to the 18th century bc, in which the presence of the patriarchs in ...
  • Baal-berith (Canaanite deity)
    ...of which has been perceived more clearly as a result of recent archaeological excavations. From the mid-13th to the mid-11th century bc, Shechem was the site of the cult of the Canaanite god Baʿal-Berit (Lord of the Covenant). The architecture uncovered on the site by archaeologists would date to the 18th century bc, in which the presence of the patriarchs in ...
  • Baʿalat (ancient deity, chiefly of Byblos)
    (from West Semitic baʿalat, “lady”), often used as a synonym for the special goddess of a region; also, the chief deity of Byblos. Very little is known of Baalat, “the Lady [of Byblos],” but, because of the close ties between Byblos and Egypt, she was often represented with a typically Egyptian hairstyle, headdress, and costume, and by t...
  • Baalat (Semitic goddess)
    ancient West Semitic goddess, consort of the supreme god. Her principal epithet was probably “She Who Walks on the Sea.” She was occasionally called Elath (Elat), “the Goddess,” and may have also been called Qudshu, “Holiness.” According to texts from Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, Syria), Asherah’s consort was ...
  • Baalat (ancient deity, chiefly of Byblos)
    (from West Semitic baʿalat, “lady”), often used as a synonym for the special goddess of a region; also, the chief deity of Byblos. Very little is known of Baalat, “the Lady [of Byblos],” but, because of the close ties between Byblos and Egypt, she was often represented with a typically Egyptian hairstyle, headdress, and costume, and by t...
  • Baʿalath (ancient deity, chiefly of Byblos)
    (from West Semitic baʿalat, “lady”), often used as a synonym for the special goddess of a region; also, the chief deity of Byblos. Very little is known of Baalat, “the Lady [of Byblos],” but, because of the close ties between Byblos and Egypt, she was often represented with a typically Egyptian hairstyle, headdress, and costume, and by t...
  • Baalbeck (archaeological site, Lebanon)
    large archaeological complex encompassing the ruins of an ancient Roman town in eastern Lebanon. It is located in the broad Al-Biqāʿ (Bekaa Valley) region, at an elevation of roughly 3,700 feet (1,130 metres), about 50 miles (80 km) east-northeast of Beirut. The complex was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site...
  • Baalbek (archaeological site, Lebanon)
    large archaeological complex encompassing the ruins of an ancient Roman town in eastern Lebanon. It is located in the broad Al-Biqāʿ (Bekaa Valley) region, at an elevation of roughly 3,700 feet (1,130 metres), about 50 miles (80 km) east-northeast of Beirut. The complex was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site...
  • Baalbek International Festival (music festival, Lebanon)
    Lebanon’s antiquities and ruins have provided not only inspiration for artists but also magnificent backdrops for annual music festivals, most notably the Baalbek International Festival. At one time, international opera, ballet, symphony, and drama companies of nearly all nationalities competed to enrich the cultural life of Beirut. Following the end of the civil war in 1990, Lebanon...
  • baʿale shem (Judaism)
    in Judaism, title bestowed upon men who reputedly worked wonders and effected cures through secret knowledge of the ineffable names of God. Benjamin ben Zerah (11th century) was one of several Jewish poets to employ the mystical names of God in his works, thereby demonstrating a belief in the efficacy of the holy name long before certain rabbis and Kabbalists (followers of esoteric Jewish mysticis...
  • baaleshem (Judaism)
    in Judaism, title bestowed upon men who reputedly worked wonders and effected cures through secret knowledge of the ineffable names of God. Benjamin ben Zerah (11th century) was one of several Jewish poets to employ the mystical names of God in his works, thereby demonstrating a belief in the efficacy of the holy name long before certain rabbis and Kabbalists (followers of esoteric Jewish mysticis...
  • Baalim (ancient deity)
    god worshiped in many ancient Middle Eastern communities, especially among the Canaanites, who apparently considered him a fertility deity and one of the most important gods in the pantheon. As a Semitic common noun baal (Hebrew baʿal) meant “owner” or “lord,” although it could be used more generally; for example, a baal of...
  • Baalot (ancient deity)
    The religion of the Canaanites was an agricultural religion, with pronounced fertility motifs. Their main gods were called the Baalim (Lords), and their consorts the Baalot (Ladies), or Asherah (singular), usually known by the personal plural name Ashtoret. The god of the city of Shechem, which city the Israelites had absorbed peacefully under Joshua, was called Baal-berith (Lord of the......
  • baalshem (Judaism)
    in Judaism, title bestowed upon men who reputedly worked wonders and effected cures through secret knowledge of the ineffable names of God. Benjamin ben Zerah (11th century) was one of several Jewish poets to employ the mystical names of God in his works, thereby demonstrating a belief in the efficacy of the holy name long before certain rabbis and Kabbalists (followers of esoteric Jewish mysticis...
  • Baalzebub (religion)
    in the Bible, the prince of the devils. In the Old Testament, in the form Baalzebub, it is the name given to the god of the Philistine city of Ekron (II Kings 1:1–18). Neither name is found elsewhere in the Old Testament, and there is only one reference to it in other Jewish literature. See devil....
  • Baarova, Lida (Czech actress)
    Czech actress (b. 1914, Prague, Austro-Hungarian Empire [now Czech Rep.]—d. Oct. 27, 2000, Salzburg, Austria), appeared in a number of successful German films in the 1930s, including Barcarole (1935) and Die Stunde der Versuchung (1936), but her career was damaged by her affair with Nazi minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels. The affair ended when Adolf Hitler refused to give...
  • Baasha (king of Israel)
    The dynasties of the northern kingdom were shortlived. Jeroboam was succeeded by his son Nadab, who reigned for two years before he was overthrown by Baasha, who decimated the house of Jeroboam. Reigning for 24 years, Baasha (who “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” like all of the northern kings, according to the interpretation of the Deuteronomists) had to concern himself.....
  • Baʿath Party (Arab political party)
    Arab political party advocating the formation of a single Arab socialist nation. It has branches in many Middle Eastern countries and was the ruling party in Syria from 1963 and in Iraq from 1968 to 2003....
  • Bāb al-Mandab (strait, Red Sea)
    strait between Arabia (northeast) and Africa (southwest) that connects the Red Sea (northwest) with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean (southeast). The strait is 20 miles (32 km) wide and is divided into two channels by Perim Island; the western channel is 16 miles (26 km) across, and the eastern is 2 miles (3 km) wide. With the building of the Suez Canal, the strait assumed great strategic and...
  • Bab Ballads (work by Gilbert)
    ...Queen in France,” based on “Sir Patrick Spens,” and “The Massacre of the Macpherson,” both of which were models for later writers, especially for W.S. Gilbert in the Bab Ballads (1869)....
  • Bab El-Mandeb Strait (strait, Red Sea)
    strait between Arabia (northeast) and Africa (southwest) that connects the Red Sea (northwest) with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean (southeast). The strait is 20 miles (32 km) wide and is divided into two channels by Perim Island; the western channel is 16 miles (26 km) across, and the eastern is 2 miles (3 km) wide. With the building of the Suez Canal, the strait assumed great strategic and...
  • Bāb, the (Iranian religious leader)
    merchant’s son whose claim to be the Bāb (Gateway) to the hidden imām (the perfect embodiment of Islamic faith) gave rise to the Bābī religion and made him one of the three central figures of the Bahāʾī faith....
  • Bāb-ilim (ancient city, Mesopotamia, Asia)
    one of the most famous cities of antiquity. It was the capital of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium bc and capital of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) empire in the 7th and 6th centuries bc, when it was at the height of its splendour. Its extensive ruins, on th...
  • Bab-ilu (ancient temple, Babylon, Mesopotamia)
    ...never completed, and the people were dispersed over the face of the earth. The myth may have been inspired by the Babylonian tower temple north of the Marduk temple, which in Babylonian was called Bab-ilu (“Gate of God”), Hebrew form Babel, or Bavel. The similarity in pronunciation of Babel and balal (“to confuse”) led to the play on words in Genesis 11:9:......
  • Bab-ilu (ancient city, Mesopotamia, Asia)
    one of the most famous cities of antiquity. It was the capital of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium bc and capital of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) empire in the 7th and 6th centuries bc, when it was at the height of its splendour. Its extensive ruins, on th...
  • Baba Chinese (people)
    ...languages are not mutually intelligible, it is not uncommon for two Chinese to converse in a lingua franca such as Mandarin Chinese, English, or Malay. The community that is colloquially called Baba Chinese includes those Malaysians of mixed Chinese and Malay ancestry who speak a Malay patois but otherwise remain Chinese in customs, manners, and habit....
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