A-Z Browse

  • Han Hsiang (Chinese mythology)
    in Chinese mythology, one of the Pa Hsien, the Eight Immortals of Taoism. He desired to make flowers bloom in an instant and to produce fine-tasting wine without using grain. When his uncle scoffed at the idea, Han Hsiang performed the impossible before his uncle’s eyes: flowers suddenly appeared in bloom from a clod of earth. In addition, a mysterious poem of 14 golden characters was seen ...
  • Han Jiang (river, Kwangtung province, China)
    river in eastern Guangdong province, China. The Han River rises in the Wuyi Mountains in southwest Fujian province to the north of Changting. Its upper course is known as the Ting River, and it flows south to Fengshi, below which it is joined by the Yongding River. Flowing south over the border into Guangdong province, it is joined at Sanheba by its principal ...
  • Han Kan (Chinese painter)
    Chinese painter of the Tang dynasty, who, though recorded as having done wall paintings on Buddhist and Daoist themes, is best remembered for his paintings of horses. Han emphasized the strength and nobility of the horses of the Tang empire by using a tautly controlled line and compositions of great clarity. The horse as a subject of painting was continued by ...
  • Han kung ch’iu (play by Ma Chih-yüan)
    ...on later drama, it is notable for its length, two or three times that of the average Yüan play. Ma Chih-yüan, another contemporary, wrote 14 plays, of which the most celebrated is Han-kung ch’iu (“Sorrow of the Han Court”). It deals with the tragedy of a Han dynasty court lady, Wang Chao-chün, who, through the intrigue of a vicious portrait paint...
  • Han languages
    principal language group of eastern Asia, belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese exists in a number of varieties that are popularly called dialects but that are usually classified as separate languages by scholars. More people speak a variety of Chinese as a native language than any other language in the world, and Modern Standard Chinese is one of the six offici...
  • Han Lin’er (Chinese rebel)
    With the death of Chen Youliang, events moved quickly to a climax. In 1367 the Song pretender Han Lin’er felt so threatened by the Mongols at his headquarters at Chuzhou that he decided to flee to Nanjing for protection. Escorted by one of Zhu’s men during the trip, Han died by drowning when his boat capsized—an event perhaps contrived by Zhu. In the same year Zhang Shicheng w...
  • Han River (river, Kwangtung province, China)
    river in eastern Guangdong province, China. The Han River rises in the Wuyi Mountains in southwest Fujian province to the north of Changting. Its upper course is known as the Ting River, and it flows south to Fengshi, below which it is joined by the Yongding River. Flowing south over the border into Guangdong province, it is joined at Sanheba by its principal ...
  • Han River (river, South Korea)
    river, northern South Korea, rising in the western slopes of the T’aebaek-sanmaek (mountains) and flowing generally westward across the peninsula through the provinces of Kangwŏn, Kyŏnggi, and North Ch’ungch’ŏng and through the city of Seoul to the Yellow Sea. Of its 319-mile (514-kilometre) length, 200 miles (320 km) are navigable, and it has been a valua...
  • Han River (river, Shensi and Hupeh province, China)
    one of the most important tributaries of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) of China. It has a total length of about 950 miles (1,530 km). The Han River rises in the Shenqiong Mountains, part of the Micang Mountains in the extreme southwestern part of Shaanxi province. Its upper stream is known successively as the Yudai, the Yang, and, below Mi...
  • Han River Valley (valley, China)
    The Han Valley itself broadens out near the city of Han-chung into a fertile and densely cultivated basin about 60 miles (100 kilometres) long and 10 miles broad. Farther downstream the valley again narrows, after which the river flows between mountains and through deep gorges, only emerging into the plain once more in Hupeh Province....
  • Han Shizu (emperor of Han dynasty)
    posthumous name (shi) of the Chinese emperor (reigned ad 25–57) who restored the Han dynasty after the usurpation of Wang Mang, a former Han minister who established the Xin dynasty (ad 9–25). The restored Han dynasty is sometimes referred to as the Dong (Eastern), or the ...
  • “Han shu” (Chinese historical work)
    eminent Chinese official of the Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce) who is reported to have begun the famous Han shu (“Book of Han”), considered the Confucian historiographic model on which all later dynastic histories were patterned....
  • Han Shui (river, Shensi and Hupeh province, China)
    one of the most important tributaries of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) of China. It has a total length of about 950 miles (1,530 km). The Han River rises in the Shenqiong Mountains, part of the Micang Mountains in the extreme southwestern part of Shaanxi province. Its upper stream is known successively as the Yudai, the Yang, and, below Mi...
  • Han Shui Valley (valley, China)
    The Han Valley itself broadens out near the city of Han-chung into a fertile and densely cultivated basin about 60 miles (100 kilometres) long and 10 miles broad. Farther downstream the valley again narrows, after which the river flows between mountains and through deep gorges, only emerging into the plain once more in Hupeh Province....
  • Han T’o-chou (Chinese minister)
    minister to the Chinese emperor Ningzong (reigned 1195–1224) of the Song dynasty (960–1279). Han tried to recover territory in northern China that had been taken from the Song several generations earlier by the Juchen (Jin) tribes of Inner Asia. The ensuing war proved disastrous. More Song territory was lost and a large indemni...
  • Han Tuizhi (Chinese author)
    master of Chinese prose, outstanding poet, and the first proponent of what later came to be known as Neo-Confucianism, which had wide influence in China and Japan....
  • Han Tuozhou (Chinese minister)
    minister to the Chinese emperor Ningzong (reigned 1195–1224) of the Song dynasty (960–1279). Han tried to recover territory in northern China that had been taken from the Song several generations earlier by the Juchen (Jin) tribes of Inner Asia. The ensuing war proved disastrous. More Song territory was lost and a large indemni...
  • “Han Var Min Ven” (work by Havrevold)
    ...poet Jan-Magnus Bruheim, three of whose collections have won state prizes; Finn Havrevold, whose toughminded boys’ teenage novel Han Var Min Ven became available in English translation as Undertow in 1968, and who also wrote successfully for girls; Leif Hamre, specializing in air force adventures; the prolific, widely translated Aimée Sommerfelt, whose works range fr...
  • Han Wengong (Chinese author)
    master of Chinese prose, outstanding poet, and the first proponent of what later came to be known as Neo-Confucianism, which had wide influence in China and Japan....
  • “Han Wu Ti nei-chuan” (Chinese tale)
    ...literature of Mao Shan came to have the greatest effect on secular writings. As works of great literary refinement, the Lives of the Perfected directly inspired a very famous tale, the Intimate Life of Emperor Wu of Han (Han Wu Ti nei-chuan; late 6th century), which in highly polished terms describes the visit to the emperor of a goddess, the Queen Mother of the West.......
  • Han Xiang (Chinese mythology)
    in Chinese mythology, one of the Pa Hsien, the Eight Immortals of Taoism. He desired to make flowers bloom in an instant and to produce fine-tasting wine without using grain. When his uncle scoffed at the idea, Han Hsiang performed the impossible before his uncle’s eyes: flowers suddenly appeared in bloom from a clod of earth. In addition, a mysterious poem of 14 golden characters was seen ...
  • Han Yongun (Buddhist poet)
    Korean Buddhist poet and religious and political leader....
  • Han Yü (Chinese author)
    master of Chinese prose, outstanding poet, and the first proponent of what later came to be known as Neo-Confucianism, which had wide influence in China and Japan....
  • Han Yu (Chinese author)
    master of Chinese prose, outstanding poet, and the first proponent of what later came to be known as Neo-Confucianism, which had wide influence in China and Japan....
  • Han-ch’eng (China)
    ...in the north of the province has enormous coal reserves, second in size only to those of Shansi. Important modern mines are those at T’ung-ch’uan, on the northern slope of the Wei Valley, and at Han-ch’eng, near the Huang Ho. There are minor coal and oil-shale deposits in the Han Basin in the south, where there are also iron-ore deposits. The Tsinling Mountains contain some...
  • Han-chung (China)
    city, southwestern Shaanxi sheng (province), central China. It is situated in a long, narrow, and fertile basin along the Han River, between the Qin (Tsinling) and Micang mountain ranges. To the north one of the few routes across the Qin Mountains joins it to Baoji in Shaanxi, while so...
  • Han-gang (river, South Korea)
    river, northern South Korea, rising in the western slopes of the T’aebaek-sanmaek (mountains) and flowing generally westward across the peninsula through the provinces of Kangwŏn, Kyŏnggi, and North Ch’ungch’ŏng and through the city of Seoul to the Yellow Sea. Of its 319-mile (514-kilometre) length, 200 miles (320 km) are navigable, and it has been a valua...
  • han-jen (Chinese social class)
    The bulk of the population belonged to the third and fourth classes, the han-jen, or northern Chinese, and the man-tzu, or southern barbarians, who lived in what had been Sung China. The expenses of state and the support of the privileged bore heavily on these two classes, with Kublai’s continuing wars and his extravagant building operations at Ta-tu. Peasants were brought in ...
  • Han-jen (Asian people)
    ...China since 1949, when the forces of Mao Zedong won the Chinese civil war and expelled the Nationalists and their flag from the mainland. However, red is also the traditional ethnic colour of the Han, who form the overwhelming majority in the country. Under the Ch’ing (Manchu) dynasty, which ruled from 1644 until 1911/12, most of the flags of China were yellow, the Manchu ethnic colour. ...
  • Han-k’ou (China)
    large urban area and river port, east-central Hubei sheng (province), central China. Located on the left bank of the Han River at its confluence with the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang), it is the largest of the three former cities (the other two being Hanyang and Wuchang) now constituti...
  • Han-lin Yüan (ancient academy, China)
    elite scholarly institution founded in the 8th century ad in China to perform secretarial, archival, and literary tasks for the court and to establish the official interpretation of the Confucian Classics, which were the basis of the civil-service examinations necessary for entrance into the upper levels of the official bureaucracy. The academy lasted until 1911....
  • Han-tan (China)
    city, southern Hebei sheng (province), China. Handan is situated on the higher ground on the western side of the North China Plain, on the great north-south route between Beijing and Zhengzhou and Luoyang (both in Henan province), where it is crossed by a long-established route from ...
  • Han-t’eng-ko-li Peak (mountain, Asia)
    peak in the Tien Shan range of Central Asia, at the juncture of the boundaries between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China. Situated in a heavily glaciated mountain knot, the mountain rises to 22,949 feet (6,995 metres) and is the highest point in Kazakhstan. Until ...
  • Han-yang (China)
    large urban and industrial area, east-central Hubei sheng (province), central China. Located on the right bank of the Han River at its confluence with the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang), opposite Hankou, it is the westernmost of the three former cities (also including Wuchang) now constituting the large ...
  • Han-Ye-Ping Iron and Coal Company (Chinese company)
    ...turned it over to private interests. In 1908 the Hanyang Ironworks of Hankou, the Daye iron mines, and the coal mines at Pingxiang in Jiangxi province were incorporated into a single concern, the Han-Ye-Ping Iron and Coal Company. This company experienced financial difficulties and by 1913 was entirely in the hands of its Japanese creditors....
  • Hana (Hawaii, United States)
    village, Maui county, on the east-central coast of Maui island, Hawaii, U.S. Located on the shore of Hana Bay, the village was for many years an isolated enclave of ancient Hawaiian culture. It retains the rural character of “Old Hawaii.” Captain James Cook, the English explorer-navigator, anchored in the bay in 1778, and missi...
  • Haná Valley (region, Czech Republic)
    agricultural region of southern Severomoravský kraj (region) and northeastern Jihomoravský kraj, eastern Czech Republic. A plain formed by the confluence of the Blata, Romže, Bečva, Moštěnka, Valová, and Haná rivers and the Morava, its very fertile soils support wheat, barley, corn (maize), and sugar beet cultivation and poultr...
  • hana-nuri (Japanese lacquerwork)
    in Japanese lacquerwork, technique of coating with black lacquer, involving two major methods. Hana-nuri (or nuritate-mono) uses black lacquer that contains oil in order to impart a glossy finish to the article....
  • Ḥanābilah (Islamic law)
    in Islām, the most fundamentalist of the four Sunnī schools of religious law. Based on the teachings of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (780–855), the Ḥanbalī legal school (madhhab) emphasized virtually complete dependence on the divine in the establishment of legal theory and rejected personal opinion (raʾy), analogy (qiy...
  • Hanabusa Itchō (Japanese painter)
    Japanese painter who broke away from the orthodox style of the Kanō school to experiment with humorous subjects from everyday life. Because of his subject matter, his work is sometimes classified with the ukiyo-e school of paintings and prints, and, indeed, some of his designs were used by later ukiyo-e wood-block printers. Unlike most of the ukiyo-e artists, however, he ...
  • Hanáchká Režná (Czech Republic)
    ...royal city and capital of Moravia until 1642. Other towns include Prostějov, an industrial centre manufacturing iron and steel, agricultural machinery, clothing, food and dairy products, and Hanáchká Režná (a regional liquor resembling bourbon whiskey); Náměšt’ na Hané, where the annual Hanácké Dož...
  • Hanafi, al- (writer)
    ...multaqā al-zuhūr bī rawḍah min al-manẓūm wa al manthūr (1524; “Collection of Tangled Flowers in the Garden of Poetry and Prose”) of al-Ḥanafī comprised an encyclopaedic survey and description of the various branches of knowledge, with an appendix containing an alphabetical list of the names of God. In Leba...
  • Ḥanafīyah (Islamic law)
    in Islām, one of the four Sunnī schools of religious law, incorporating the legal opinions of the ancient Iraqi schools of al-Kūfah and Basra. Ḥanafī legal thought (madhhab) developed from the teachings of the theologian Imām Abū Ḥanīfah (c. 700–767) by such disciples as Abū Yūsuf (...
  • hanafuda (cards)
    (Japanese: “flower cards”), deck of 48 cards divided into 12 suits of four cards. Each suit is named for a month of the year and pictures a flower identified with that month. The cards are tiny, only 218 by 114 inches (5.4 by 3.2 cm), but about three times thicker than Western cards....
  • Hanai, Masaya (Japanese businessman)
    Japanese businessman who as director (1959-78) and chairman (1978-82) of Toyota Motor Corp. turned the firm into one of the world’s most competitive car producers (b. Aug. 1, 1912--d. June 10, 1995)....
  • Hanai Masaya (Japanese businessman)
    Japanese businessman who as director (1959-78) and chairman (1978-82) of Toyota Motor Corp. turned the firm into one of the world’s most competitive car producers (b. Aug. 1, 1912--d. June 10, 1995)....
  • Hanáki (people)
    ...Valová, and Haná rivers and the Morava, its very fertile soils support wheat, barley, corn (maize), and sugar beet cultivation and poultry and pig rearing. The people, called Hanáki, speak a dialect of Czech (Moravian) and wear distinctive, richly embroidered costumes. The region’s centre is Olomouc (q.v.), a former royal city and capital of Moravia until......
  • Hanalei (Hawaii, United States)
    village, Kauai county, on the north-central coast of Kauai island, Hawaii, U.S. Near the head of Hanalei (“Crescent”) Bay, the village is in the scenic and fertile Hanalei Valley, which reaches depths of more than 3,400 feet (1,050 metres). Missionaries arrived at the site in 1834. The Waioli Mission House (1837), now used as a community centre, ...
  • hanamichi (kabuki)
    (Japanese: “flower passage”), in Kabuki theatre, runway that passes from the rear of the theatre to stage right at the level of the spectators’ heads. Some plays also make use of a second, narrower hanamichi constructed on the opposite side of the theatre. The name hanamichi suggests that it was once used to present flowers and gifts to the actors....
  • Hanania Chapel (chapel, Damascus, Syria)
    ...built by the Umayyads on the same site as the Byzantine Church of St. John, the Roman Temple of Jupiter (Iuppiter Optimus Maximus Damascenus), and the Aramaean sanctuary of Hadad. Still preserved is Ananias (Hanania) Chapel, commemorating the conversion in Damascus of Saul of Tarsus, who became St. Paul, the Apostle. It stands near the eastern end of Midhat Pasha Street, also known as the Stree...
  • “Hanaoka Seishū no tsuma” (work by Ariyoshi Sawako)
    Ariyoshi’s first major novel, Kinokawa (1964; The River Ki), chronicles three generations of aristocratic women in the 20th century. Hanaoka Seishū no tsuma (1967; The Doctor’s Wife), perhaps her best-known work, concerns the brave wife and domineering mother of Hanaoka Seishū, a 19th-century surgeon who pioneered the surgical use of anesthes...
  • Hanare Kirishitan (Japanese religious sect)
    ...would not abandon various Buddhist and other non-Christian elements that had crept into Kakure Kirishitan tradition during two centuries of isolation. These, hidden no longer, came to be known as Hanare Kirishitan, or Separate Christians....
  • Hanau (Germany)
    city, Hessen Land (state), central Germany. It is a port on the right bank of the canalized Main River at the mouth of the Kinzig, east of Frankfurt am Main. The old town grew up around the castle of the lords of Hanau (counts from 1429) and was chartered in 1303; the new town was fou...
  • Hanau am Main (Germany)
    city, Hessen Land (state), central Germany. It is a port on the right bank of the canalized Main River at the mouth of the Kinzig, east of Frankfurt am Main. The old town grew up around the castle of the lords of Hanau (counts from 1429) and was chartered in 1303; the new town was fou...
  • Hanauer, Chip (American boat racer)
    As a boat racer, Chip Hanauer left all the other drivers in his wake. He won his seventh national championship for Unlimited hydroplanes in 1993, which tied Bill Muncey’s record. His ninth victory in the Gold Cup, the equivalent of auto racing’s Indianapolis 500, broke Muncey’s record of eight. With 7 victories in 10 races, following his 7-for-9 mark of 1992, Hanauer had 50 v...
  • Hanauer, Lee Edward (American boat racer)
    As a boat racer, Chip Hanauer left all the other drivers in his wake. He won his seventh national championship for Unlimited hydroplanes in 1993, which tied Bill Muncey’s record. His ninth victory in the Gold Cup, the equivalent of auto racing’s Indianapolis 500, broke Muncey’s record of eight. With 7 victories in 10 races, following his 7-for-9 mark of 1992, Hanauer had 50 v...
  • Hanauma Bay (bay, Oahu, Hawaii, United States)
    Attractions on the coast include Hanauma Bay, an eroded crater that is now a popular site for snorkeling, and the Halona Blowhole, a natural saltwater geyser north of the bay at Halona Point. The ancient Kuapa fishpond, on the west coast of Koko Head and enclosed by beach parks and a marina crossed by Kalanianaole Highway, is fed by mountain streams from the north and tidal water from Maunalua......
  • Ḥanbal, Aḥmad ibn (Muslim scholar)
    Muslim theologian, jurist, and martyr for his faith. He was the compiler of the Traditions of the Prophet Muḥammad (Musnad) and formulator of the Ḥanbalī, the most strictly traditionalist of the four orthodox Islāmic schools of law. His doctrine influenced such noted followers as the 13th–14th-century theologian Ibn Taymīyah, the Wahhāb...
  • Hanbalites (Islamic law)
    in Islām, the most fundamentalist of the four Sunnī schools of religious law. Based on the teachings of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (780–855), the Ḥanbalī legal school (madhhab) emphasized virtually complete dependence on the divine in the establishment of legal theory and rejected personal opinion (raʾy), analogy (qiy...
  • Hanchett, Mary Hannah (American temperance leader)
    American temperance leader who adopted a physiological basis for her campaign against the use of alcoholic beverages....
  • Hancock (Michigan, United States)
    city, Houghton county, northwestern Upper Peninsula of Michigan, U.S. It is located about halfway up the Keweenaw Peninsula, across Portage Lake from Houghton. Laid out in 1859, it was named for John Hancock, the American Revolutionary leader. With the discovery of nearby copper mines in the mid-19th century, Hancock became a busy shipping p...
  • Hancock (county, Maine, United States)
    county, southeastern Maine, U.S. It is located in a mountain-and-valley region bounded to the west by the Penobscot River and to the south by several bays of the Atlantic Ocean and includes many islands. The rugged coastline was formed by a flooded mountain range; Mount Desert Island features Cadillac Mountain (1,532 feet ...
  • Hancock (county, Mississippi, United States)
    county, southeastern Maine, U.S. It is located in a mountain-and-valley region bounded to the west by the Penobscot River and to the south by several bays of the Atlantic Ocean and includes many islands. The rugged coastline was formed by a flooded mountain range; Mount Desert Island features Cadillac Mountain (1,532 feet ...
  • Hancock, Herbert Jeffrey (American musician)
    American keyboard player, songwriter, and bandleader, a prolific recording artist who achieved success as an incisive, harmonically provocative jazz pianist and then went on to gain wide popularity as a leader of electric jazz-rock groups....
  • Hancock, Herbie (American musician)
    American keyboard player, songwriter, and bandleader, a prolific recording artist who achieved success as an incisive, harmonically provocative jazz pianist and then went on to gain wide popularity as a leader of electric jazz-rock groups....
  • Hancock, Hunter (American disc jockey)
    Hunter Hancock is remembered as the first white disc jockey to play rhythm-and-blues records in southern California, where he went on the air on KFVD in 1943 playing his first love, jazz. On the advice of a friend, he began including a few “race” (rhythm-and-blues) records in his show, and his popularity soared. In the early 1950s he began moonlighting on another Los Angeles......
  • Hancock, John (United States statesman)
    American Revolutionary leader and first signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence....
  • Hancock, Joseph (British silversmith)
    ...cooled, and rolled. The edges of pieces made were rolled over to hide the copper that was visible when the sheet was cut. At first Boulsover produced only buttons, but his former apprentice, Joseph Hancock, later applied the process to other articles....
  • Hancock, Joy Bright (United States naval officer)
    U.S. military officer, one of the first women to hold a regular commission in the U.S. Navy....
  • Hancock, Keith (Australian author)
    ...and resourcefulness of the Australian soldier, the digger, was in fact derived from the bushman—that these were but two manifestations of the national type. The same perception is present in Keith Hancock’s Australia (1930), a reading of Australian history in terms of character....
  • Hancock, Langley George (Australian mining industrialist)
    Australian mining industrialist who unearthed some of the largest iron-ore reserves in the world, making him one of the nation’s richest citizens and financing his campaign to form a right-wing political party and to fight for Western Australian independence....
  • Hancock, Thomas (British inventor)
    English inventor and manufacturer who founded the British rubber industry. His chief invention, the “masticator,” worked rubber scraps into a shredded mass of rubber that could be formed into blocks or rolled into sheets. This process, perfected in 1821, led to a partnership with the Scottish chemist and inventor of waterproof fabrics, Charles Macintosh. The best k...
  • Hancock, Winfield Scott (United States military officer)
    Union general during the American Civil War (1861–65), whose policies during Reconstruction military service in Louisiana and Texas so endeared him to the Democratic Party that he became the party’s presidential candidate in 1880....
  • Hancock’s organ (mollusk anatomy)
    ...octopuses and nautiluses). Other organs have been designated as chemoreceptors, but with no critical evidence: (1) so-called subradular organs in the mouths of lower mollusks; (2) a structure called Hancock’s organ in some gastropods; and (3) rhinophores (once identified as “olfactory” tentacles) of some gastropods called opisthobranchs. The last, however, are almost certai...
  • Hańcza, Lake (lake, Poland)
    ...Lowland occupies the south-central part of the province. To the north is a portion of the Masurian Lakeland. The largest lake in the province is Lake Wigry (8.5 square miles [22 square km]). Lake Hańcza is the deepest of all Polish lakes (354 feet [108 metres]). The main rivers are the Bug, Narew, and Biebrza. About one-third of the province is forested. Podlaskie is the coolest......
  • hand (measurement)
    ancient unit of length, now standardized at 4 inches (10.16 cm) and used today primarily for measuring the height of horses from the ground to the withers (top of the shoulders). The unit was originally defined as the breadth of the palm including the thumb. A statute of King Henry VIII of England established the hand at four inches. Units of various lengths were used by the anc...
  • hand (anatomy)
    grasping organ at the end of the forelimb of certain vertebrates that exhibits great mobility and flexibility in the digits and in the whole organ. It is made up of the wrist joint, the carpal bones, the metacarpal bones, and the phalanges. The digits include a medial thumb (when viewed with the palm down), containing two phalanges, and four...
  • hand ax (tool)
    The most characteristic Acheulean tools are termed hand axes and cleavers. Considerable improvement in the technique of producing hand axes occurred over the long period; anthropologists sometimes distinguish each major advance in method by a separate number or name. Early Acheulean tool types are called Abbevillian (especially in Europe); the last Acheulean stage is sometimes called Micoquian.......
  • Hand, Billings Learned (United States jurist)
    American jurist whose tough and sometimes profound mind, philosophical skepticism, and faith in the United States were employed throughout a record tenure as a federal judge (52 years, from April 10, 1909, until his death). Although he was never a justice of the Supreme Court, he is generally considered to have been a greater judge than all but a few of those who have sat on the highest U.S. court...
  • hand drill (tool)
    Both the bow and pump drills remained the metal-worker’s prime tool for drilling small holes until the first geared hand drill was invented in 1805. Like every other tool, it underwent many improvements before acquiring its present rugged simplicity. Its great advantage lies in its unidirectional motion and the gearing that rotates the drill faster than the rate at which the crank is turned...
  • Hand, Edward (United States army officer)
    American army officer during the American Revolution....
  • Hand G (miniature painting)
    ...Eyck paid an illuminator for preparing a book for the duke; but central to the discussion of his ties to manuscript illustration has been the attribution to Jan of several miniatures, identified as Hand G, in a problematic prayer book known as the Turin-Milan Hours. So long as these “Eyckian” miniatures were dated in the 1420s or even earlier, Jan’s authorship seemed indubi...
  • hand grenade (military technology)
    small explosive, chemical, or gas bomb that is used at short range. The word grenade probably derived from the French word for pomegranate, because the bulbous shapes of early grenades resembled that fruit. Grenades came into use around the 15th century and were found to be particularly effective when exploded among enemy troops in the ditch of a fortress during an assault. They eventually...
  • hand horn (musical instrument)
    the orchestral and military brass instrument derived from the trompe (or cor) de chasse, a large, circular hunting horn that appeared in France about 1650 and soon began to be used orchestrally. Use of the term French horn dates at least from the 17th century. Valves were added to the instrument in the early 19th century. Modern Fre...
  • hand iron (textiles)
    Pressing has two major divisions: buck pressing and iron pressing. A buck press is a machine for pressing a garment or section between two contoured, heated, pressure surfaces that may have steam and vacuum systems in either or both surfaces. Before 1905 all garment pressing was done by hand irons heated directly by gas flame, stove plate heat, or electricity; the introduction of the steam buck......
  • hand lay-up (materials science)
    Hand lay-up is a versatile method employed in the construction of large structures such as tanks, pools, and boat hulls. In hand lay-up mats of glass fibres are arranged over a mold and sprayed with a matrix-forming resin, such as a solution of unsaturated polyester (60 parts) in styrene monomer (40 parts) together with free-radical polymerization initiators. The mat can be supplied already......
  • Hand, Learned (United States jurist)
    American jurist whose tough and sometimes profound mind, philosophical skepticism, and faith in the United States were employed throughout a record tenure as a federal judge (52 years, from April 10, 1909, until his death). Although he was never a justice of the Supreme Court, he is generally considered to have been a greater judge than all but a few of those who have sat on the highest U.S. court...
  • Hand of Ethelberta, The (work by Hardy)
    ...their families, in September 1874. At first they moved rather restlessly about, living sometimes in London, sometimes in Dorset. His record as a novelist during this period was somewhat mixed. The Hand of Ethelberta (1876), an artificial social comedy turning on versions and inversions of the British class system, was poorly received and has never been widely popular. The Return of......
  • Hand of Fatima (emblem)
    ...Liberation Front and the National Liberation Army gave support to that flag, finally raised over an independent Algeria on July 3, 1962. Another symbol long popular on Algerian flags, the so-called Hand of Fatima (the stylized silhouette of a hand), was represented along with a bright yellow ring in the green-white-green flag proposed in the 1940s by the Democratic Union of the Algerian......
  • hand puppet
    These have a hollow cloth body that fits over the manipulator’s hand; his fingers fit into the head and the arms and give them motion. The figure is seen from the waist upward, and there are normally no legs. The head is usually of wood, papier-mâché, or rubber material, the hands of wood or felt. One of the most common ways to fit the puppet on the hand is for the first finge...
  • hand replenished loom (weaving)
    Hand-replenished, or nonautomatic, looms are used only where particular circumstances—of yarns, fabrics, or use—make automatically replenished looms either technically unsuitable or uneconomic. Basically they differ little from the power looms of the latter half of the 19th century. They do not run appreciably faster but are better engineered, making use, for example, of machine-cut....
  • hand scroll (painting)
    in Japanese art, hand scroll, or scroll painting designed to be held in the hand (as compared to a hanging scroll). See scroll painting....
  • hand tool
    any of the implements used by craftsmen in manual operations, such as chopping, chiseling, sawing, filing, or forging. Complementary tools, often needed as auxiliaries to shaping tools, include such implements as the hammer for nailing and the vise for holding. A craftsman may also use instruments that facilitate accurate measurements: the rule, divider, square, and others. Power tools—usua...
  • hand truck
    ...trucks permit mechanized pickup and deposit of the loads, eliminating manual work in lifting as well as transporting. Depending on their means of locomotion, industrial trucks may be classified as hand trucks or power trucks....
  • hand-ax tradition (archaeology)
    ...from the Somme Valley in the north of France and the Thames Valley in the south of England, two main Lower Paleolithic traditons have been recognized in western Europe. These are as follows: (1) bifacial-tool, or hand-ax, traditions (Abbevillian and Acheulean); and (2) flake-tool traditions (Clactonian and Levalloisian)....
  • hand-mined tunneling
    The ancient practice of hand mining is still economical for some conditions (shorter and smaller tunnels) and may illustrate particular techniques better than its mechanized counterpart. Examples are forepoling and breasting techniques as developed for the hazardous case of running (unstable) ground. Figure 3 shows the essentials of the process: heading advanced under a roof of forepole planks......
  • hand-to-hand combat
    Apart from ambush and raid, which depend on making the best possible use of terrain, many primitive tribes also engage in formal, one-to-one frontal encounters that are part battle, part sport. The weapons employed on such occasions usually consist of the club (or its more advanced form, the mace), spear, and javelin, sometimes joined by the bow and special blunted arrows. Defensive armour......
  • Handa (Japan)
    city, Aichi ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan. Handa lies on the Chita Peninsula, facing Chita Bay of the Pacific Ocean. It served as an important commercial port during the Tokugawa period (1603–1867), when the local production of processed foods and cotton began. An irrigation system in the hills behind the city was opened in 1962. Vegetables, fruit, and flowers ar...
  • Handa Nkhumbi (people)
    Where, in addition to the second, third, and fourth partials, the fifth partials of each fundamental are also used, hexatonic tone systems arise. The tonal-harmonic system of the Handa-Nkhumbi group in southwestern Angola is one example, based on two fundamentals tuned about 200 cents apart. The resultant chords are thirds and fourths in characteristic positions:...
  • Handan (China)
    city, southern Hebei sheng (province), China. Handan is situated on the higher ground on the western side of the North China Plain, on the great north-south route between Beijing and Zhengzhou and Luoyang (both in Henan province), where it is crossed by a long-established route from ...

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