Greece

On April 6, 2001, the Greek Parliament adopted a thorough constitutional revision, which changed 78 articles of the country's basic law. Many amendments were passed jointly by the two biggest political parties, the ruling Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok) and the centre-right New Democracy (ND). Changes to the constitution included better protection of citizens' private

Frederick V

King of Denmark and Norway (1746 - 66) from the death of his father, Christian VI. The reign of this likable but ineffective king was marked by Danish neutrality in the Seven Years' War (1756 - 63) and a consequent improvement in the nation's foreign trade; by a narrow escape from war with Russia (1762); and by government-sponsored reforms in farming methods (from

Lip Fern

Ferns of the genus Cheilanthes (family Adiantaceae), about 180 species of tropical and temperate regions. Most are small, sturdy, often evergreen plants that thrive in dry and rocky areas. The leaves arise directly from the rootstocks and are often covered with dense hairs. Spore-bearing structures (sporangia) occur at the ends of veins and are protected by the leaf margins,

Palam�s, Kost�

Palam�s was educated at Mesolongion and at Athens and became the central figure in the Demotic movement of the 1880s, which sought to shake off traditionalism and draw inspiration for a new Greek literary and artistic style from the life and language of the people.

Furniture, Inlay and marquetry

Inlaid woodwork, in which decorative material such as wood or ivory is set into the surface of the veneer, has accompanied the art of furniture making for thousands of years. Ivory inlay can be seen in Egyptian furniture, particularly in small, meticulously executed toilet caskets, but it is difficult to locate in Greek and Roman furniture, today known almost exclusively

Fibrosarcoma

An uncommon malignant tumour of fibrous tissue found in young adults and most often occurring in the thighbone, upper arm bone, or jaw. The mass is felt before pain occurs. This tumour invades surrounding tissues, which makes complete surgical excision difficult. It often recurs and may metastasize.

France, History Of, France from 1715 to 1789

Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old R�gime and the French Revolution (1955, reprinted 1978; originally published in French, 1856), is still a basic source for the study of the period. Comprehensive histories include C.B.A. Behrens, The Ancien R�gime (1967, reprinted 1976); Pierre Goubert and Daniel Roche, Les Fran�ais et l'Ancien R�gime, 2 vol. (1984); Albert Soboul, La France � la veille de la R�volution, 2nd rev. ed. (1974), a Marxist interpretation; Alfred Cobban, Old R�gime and Revolution, 1715 - 1790 (1957, reprinted 1969), vol. 1 in his A History of Modern France; Hubert M�thivier, L�Ancien R�gime en France: XVIe - XVIIe - XVIIIe si�cles (1981); and Norman Hampson, The Enlightenment (1968, reprinted 1982). For discussions of social classes and economic issues, see Robert Forster, The Nobility of Toulouse in the Eighteenth Century (1960, reprinted 1971); Elinor G. Barber, The Bourgeoisie in 18th Century France (1955, reprinted 1970); Franklin L. Ford, Robe and Sword: The Regrouping of the French Aristocracy After Louis XIV (1953, reprinted 1965); Henri S�e, Economic and Social Conditions in France During the Eighteenth Century (1927, reissued 1968; originally published in French, 1925); and Steven Laurence Kaplan, Provisioning Paris: Merchants and Millers in the Grain and Flour Trade During the Eighteenth Century (1984). Economic histories make much use of the 18th-century travelogue of Arthur Young, Travels During the Years 1787, 1788,

Priesthood

The primary role of the priest is that of the ritual expert, the one who has a special and sometimes secret knowledge of the techniques of worship, including incantations, prayers, sacrificial acts, songs, and other acts that are believed to bridge the separation between the divine or sacred and the profane realms. The priest gains such knowledge through the institution

Black Sea

The roughly oval-shaped Black Sea occupies a large basin strategically situated at the southeastern extremity of Europe but connected to the distant waters

Wright, Quincy

Wright received his B.A. from Lombard College, Galesburg, Ill., in 1912 and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1915. He taught at Harvard University in 1916 - 19 and at the University of Minnesota in 1919 - 23. In 1923 he became

Zonaras, Joannes

After holding high office in Constantinople under Alexius I Comnenus, Zonaras became a monk and retired to a remote island. In Historical Epitome he drew on a rich collection of sources, some of which, notably several

Toprakkale

Also spelled �Topra Kaleh, � ancient Urartian fortress located near modern Van in southeastern Turkey. The walls of Toprakkale, erected in the 8th century BC, were of cyclopean masonry and sloped slightly inward, perhaps as a defense against earthquakes. Excavations at the site, carried out primarily by British and German teams, have revealed the high level of artistic achievement of ancient

San Francesco

Franciscan monastery and church in Assisi, Italy, begun after the canonization in 1228 of St. Francis of Assisi and completed in 1253. The crypt was added in 1818, when the tomb of St. Francis was opened. The lower church is where the saint is buried, and it has frescoes by Giunta Pisano, Cimabue, Giotto, Pietro Lorenzetti, Simone Martini, and Andrea da Bologna. The upper church has frescoes

Aquarium

Receptacle for maintaining aquatic organisms, either freshwater or marine, or a facility in which a collection of aquatic organisms is displayed or studied.

Astrodome

Modern domed stadium built in Houston, Texas, in 1965. The largest previous covered sports arenas provided only limited performing space and seated no more than 20,000 persons. The Astrodome, however, built on the principle of the dome, completely protects a sports area suitable for baseball and American football, with seating for 66,000 spectators in six tiers. The plastic-paneled

Buontalenti, Bernardo

Buontalenti entered the service of the Medici as a youth and remained with them the rest of his life. In the Uffizi Palace, Florence, he built a great court stage, where, during the winter of 1585 - 86, splendid fetes were produced under his direction. For the Medici extravaganzas, he designed costumes

Wiesel, Elie

Wiesel's early life, spent in a small Hasidic community in the town of Sighet, was a rather hermetic existence of prayer and contemplation. In 1940 Sighet was annexed

Czetwertynski Family

Also called �Swietopelk-Czetwertynski� Polish princely family descended from the Kievan grand prince Svyatopolk II Izyaslavich (d. 1113) of the house of Rurik. Among its prominent members was Antoni Czetwertynski (1748 - 94), the castellan of Przemysl and last leader of the pro-Russian Confederation of Targowica that opposed the Polish constitution of 1791; he was finally hanged as a traitor to Poland during Tadeusz Kosciuszko's

Adobe Systems Incorporated

The company was founded in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke. While employed at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto (California) Research Center (PARC), the two computer scientists had developed a programming language specially designed to describe the precise position, shape, and size of objects on a computer-generated page. This page description language, later known

Hellenistic Religion

The conquests of Alexander opened the way for religious interchange between East and West; the political structures left behind by Alexander and continued by his successors provided strong incentives for the hellenization of native religions. Characteristic of this first period of Hellenistic religious history were the following developments: (1) the introduction

Pre-columbian Civilizations, Civil war on the eve of the Spanish conquest

Huayna Capac's father had begun the custom of marrying a full sister in order to keep the royal bloodline pure and, more importantly, to prevent conflict over succession. According to this custom, one sister became the principal wife of the emperor, and one of their sons became the next ruler. As noted above, this system had failed at Huayna Capac's succession. Nor did it

P�tain, (henri-)philippe

Born into a family of farmers in northern France, P�tain, after attending the local village school and a religious

Performing Arts, Latin America.

Gerardo Tort's unsparing picture of street children in Mexico City, De la calle (Streeters), was based on a play by Jes�s Gonz�lez D�vila. Marysa Sistach's Perfuma de violetas, nadie te oye (Violet Perfume: Nobody Hears You) dealt intelligently with rape in working-class Mexico City. Guillermo del Toro's Spanish co-production El espinazo del diablo (The Devil's

Bykovsky, Valery

On June 16, 1963, after Bykovsky had been in orbit two days, the Soviet

Halston

Halston studied at Indiana University and the Art Institute of Chicago and operated a millinery shop in Chicago before joining milliner Lilly Dach� in New York City. In 1959 he became a milliner for Bergdorf Goodman; in 1966 he expanded his line into clothes

Floral Decoration, Other cultures

Outside the West and the Far East, the arranging of plant materials was more a casual part of everyday life than a formally recognized medium of artistic expression. The elaborate stylistic traditions evolved and formulated in the West and Far East through centuries of sophisticated creative activity are rarely found, therefore, in other cultures. In the Islamic

Beyers, C.f.

A graduate of Victoria College (now Stellenbosch University), Beyers migrated to the Transvaal, where he was naturalized and practiced as a lawyer. Joining the Boer forces in 1899, he rose

Nilus Of Rossano, Saint

Also called �Nilus The Younger� abbot and promoter of Greek monasticism in Italy, who founded several communities of monks in the region of Calabria following the Greek rule of St. Basil of Caesarea. A supporter of the regular successors to the papal crown in their controversies with antipopes,

Chi-an

Chi-an's history goes back to the foundation there,

Fable, Parable, And Allegory, Renaissance and modern allegory

Douglas Bush, Mythology and the Renaissance Tradition in English Poetry, rev. ed. (1963); Walter Benjamin, Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (1928); Harold Bloom, The Visionary Company (1961); A.S. Fletcher, The Prophetic Moment: An Essay on Spenser (1971); Alastair Fowler, Triumphal Forms: Structural Patterns in Elizabethan Poetry (1970); Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (1947); U.M. Kaufman, The Pilgrim's Progress and Traditions in Puritan Meditation (1966); Michael Murrin, The Veil of Allegory: Some Notes Toward a Theory of Allegorical Rhetoric in the English Renaissance (1969); Jean Seznec, La Survivance des dieux antiques (1939; Eng. trans., The Survival of the Pagan Gods, rev. ed., 1953); E.M.W. Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture (1943); Edgar Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, new ed. (1968).

Fusulina

Genus of extinct fusulinid foraminiferans (protozoans with a shell) found as fossils in marine rocks of Late Carboniferous age (286 to 320 million years old). Fusulina, an excellent index fossil for Late Carboniferous rocks, enables widely separated rocks to be correlated.