Kahr, Gustav, Ritter Von

Kahr was appointed provincial governor of Upper Bavaria in 1917. Shortly after the abortive Kapp Putsch against the Weimar Republic in March 1920, Kahr

Appomattox Court House

In the American Civil War, site in Virginia of the surrender of the Confederate forces to those of the North on April 9, 1865. After an engagement with Federal cavalry, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia was surrounded at Appomattox, seat of Appomattox county, Virginia, 25 miles east of Lynchburg. Three miles to the northeast, at the former county seat, known as Appomattox

Danapur

Also called �Dinapore�, or �Dinapur� town, northern Bihar state, northeastern India, on the Ganges River. It is a major road and rail junction and agricultural trade centre. Industries include printing, oilseed milling, and metalworks. There is a college affiliated with Magadh University and an army cantonment. Danapur was constituted a municipality in 1887. Pop. (1981) 58,684.

Asia, Rivers

Asia is a land of great rivers. The Ob, Irtysh, Yenisey with the Angara, Lena (with the waters of the Aldan and the Vilyuy), Yana, Indigirka, and Kolyma rivers all flow into the Arctic Ocean. Among rivers draining into the Pacific Ocean are the Anadyr, Amur (combined with the Sungari and the Ussuri), Huang He, Yangtze (Chang), Xi, Red, Mekong, and Chao Phraya. The Salween, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra

Hanks, Nancy

Hanks graduated from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, in 1949 and two years later settled in Washington, D.C. In 1953 she became an assistant to Nelson A. Rockefeller, then

Byzantine Art

Architecture, paintings, and other visual arts produced in the Middle Ages in the Byzantine Empire (centred at Constantinople) and in various areas that came under its influence. The pictorial and architectural styles that characterized Byzantine art, first codified in the 6th century, persisted with remarkable homogeneity within the empire until its final dissolution

Canada Act

Also called �Constitution Act� 1982, Canada's constitution approved by the British Parliament on March 25, 1982, and proclaimed by Queen Elizabeth II on April 17, 1982, making Canada wholly independent. The document contains the original statute that established the Canadian Confederation in 1867 (the British North America Act), the amendments made to it by the British Parliament over the years, and new material resulting

Giono, Jean

A love of nature came to Giono from his mountain town and from the shepherd family with whom, as a boy, he spent his summers. He was largely self-taught. As an infantryman in World War I, he was one of his company's

Bhangra

Dancers in pairs give spontaneous solo displays that include virile jumps and even

Hyattsville

City, Prince George's county, central Maryland, U.S., a northeastern residential suburb of Washington, D.C., at the head of the Anacostia River. Settled about the time of the American Civil War as Hart, it was renamed at its incorporation (1886) for its founder, Christopher Clarke Hyatt. In 1892 it became the first community to adopt the controversial single-tax system of providing public

Nathan, George Jean

Nathan graduated from Cornell University in 1904 and joined the staff of the New York Herald. Beginning in 1906, he was at various times drama critic for numerous magazines and newspapers, but his name is particularly

'amiriyah, Al-

Formerly �Maryut� industrial district of al-Iskandariyah (Alexandria) muhafazah (governorate), northern Egypt. The centre of the 913-sq-mi (2,365-sq-km) district, which adjoins Lake Maryut (Mareotis) on the southwest, is al-'Amiriyah town. This town was originally a small gypsum-mining centre on the desert roads leading south to Cairo and west along the coast to Marsa Matruh. Al-'Amiriyah's modern development began in

Nephi

City, seat (1882) of Juab county, north-central Utah, U.S. Located at the southern end of the Wasatch Range, the city was founded as an agricultural colony in 1851 and was originally called Salt Creek; in the late 1850s Mormon leaders renamed it after a prophet of the Book of Mormon. Nephi grew as a ranching and farming centre, later becoming a shipping point for gypsum mined in the vicinity

Abu Al-fida'

Abu al-Fida' was a descendant of Ayyub, the father of Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty that had been supplanted by the Mamluks in Egypt and elsewhere before his birth. In 1285 he accompanied his father and his cousin (prince of Hamah and a Mamluk client)

Dana, Charles A.

In 1839 Dana entered Harvard College, but poor health and lack of money forced him to leave in 1841. From 1841 to 1846 he lived at the utopian Brook Farm community, where he was one of the trustees, but, when his ideals for social change were unfulfilled,

Turgovishte

Also spelled �Targovi

Avesta

Also called �Zend-avesta, � sacred book of Zoroastrianism containing its cosmogony, law, and liturgy, the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster (Zarathushtra). The extant Avesta is all that remains of a much larger body of scripture, apparently Zoroaster's transformation of a very ancient tradition. The voluminous manuscripts of the original are said to have been destroyed when Alexander the

Murdoch, (keith) Rupert

In 1998 one of the most talked-about conflicts in baseball took place off the field and in the boardroom. Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch revealed in late 1997 that he planned to purchase the Los Angeles Dodgers for a record-high price of $350 million. Despite the protest of media giant and Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner, a longtime critic of Murdoch, on March 19, 1998, the sale was approved

Ob River

River of central Russia. One of the greatest rivers of Asia, the Ob flows north and west across western Siberia in a twisting diagonal from its sources in the Altai Mountains to its outlet through the Gulf of Ob into the Kara Sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is a major transportation artery, crossing territory at the heart of Russia that is extraordinarily varied in its physical

Kudu

Any of certain handsome, slender antelopes of the genus Tragelaphus, family Bovidae (order Artiodactyla). The greater kudu (T. strepsiceros) lives in small groups in hilly bush country or open woods of eastern and southern Africa. It stands about 1.3 m (51 inches) at the shoulder. It has a fringe on the throat and a crest of hair on the neck and back, and

Afghanistan, Ya'qub Khan (1879)

The Treaty of Gandamak (Gandomak; May 26, 1879) recognized Ya'qub Khan as emir, and he subsequently agreed to receive a permanent British embassy at Kabul. In addition, he agreed to conduct his foreign relations with other states in accordance �with the wishes and advice� of the British government. This British triumph, however, was short-lived. On September 3, 1879, the British envoy and

South Africa

Officially �Republic of South Africa, �formerly �Union of South Africa, � the southernmost country on the African continent. It has an area of 470,693 square miles (1,219,090 square kilometres). It measures almost 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) from north to south, as well as from east to west. South Africa is bordered by Namibia to the northwest, by Botswana and Zimbabwe to the north, and by Mozambique and Swaziland to the northeast and east. Lesotho, an independent constitutional

Indo-esfahan Carpet

Also spelled �Indo-isfahan,� type of floor covering ranging from small to extremely large, handmade in India, primarily in the 17th century, as free imitations of Herat designs (see Herat carpet). The name Esfahan was applied in the belief that Persian carpets sold better than Indian. They appear to have been exported in quantity to Europe, especially to Portugal and the Low Countries, by the various East

Suleja

The emirate's wooded savanna area of about 1,150 square miles (2,980 square km) originally included four small Koro chiefdoms that paid tribute to the Hausa kingdom of Zazzau.

Arabia, History Of, Saudi Arabia

Ibn Sa'ud's zealous Wahhabi followers, arriving in the more cosmopolitan atmosphere of Hejaz society, were now exposed to the world of Islam at large. Ibn Sa'ud managed the resulting problems with firmness and tact. He had furthermore to enforce his rule over the tribes impatient with centralized government. His tough action with them won, and he set out to develop security,

Essen, Louis

Essen studied physics at Nottingham University College, where he earned a University of London physics degree

Romanian Literature

In the period of national unity in Romania following World War I, the novel began to compete with lyric poetry. Writers took inspiration from society or recent events, principally the war. Liviu Rebreanu wrote of the peasants' need for land and independence and in Rascoala (1932; The Uprising) described the 1907 peasant uprising in Moldavia and Walachia. His best work, inspired

Obversion

In syllogistic, or traditional, logic, transformation of a categorical proposition (q.v.), or statement, into a new proposition in which (1) the subject term is unchanged, (2) the predicate is replaced by its contradictory, and (3) the quality of the proposition is changed from affirmative to negative or vice versa. Thus the obverse of �Every man is mortal� is �No man is immortal.� Because

Durban

Formerly �Port Natal, � largest city of KwaZulu/Natal province, South Africa, and chief seaport of South Africa, located on Natal Bay of the Indian Ocean. European settlement began with a band of Cape Colony traders led by Francis G. Farewell, who charted the port in 1824 and named the site Port Natal. Land was ceded to the group by Shaka, the Zulu king (whose right to take that action is disputed), and the