SharpBranch: October 2004

Sunday, October 31, 2004

Rhys, Si�n Dafydd

Rhys spent some time at Oxford then earned a degree in medicine from the University of Siena, Italy. He practiced as a physician at Cardiff,

Saturday, October 30, 2004

Latter Rain Revival

Early name for the Pentecostal movement within U.S. Protestantism; it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Tennessee and North Carolina and took its name from the �latter rain� referred to in Joel 2:23. The Bible passage states that the former (fall) rain and latter (spring) rain were poured down from God. These rains marked the beginning and end of the Jewish harvest.

Friday, October 29, 2004

Moree

Town, northern New South Wales, Australia, on the Gwydir River, in the Western Slopes district. Originating in 1848 as a livestock station, it became a village in 1852, a town in 1862, and a municipality in 1890. Its name comes from an Aboriginal word for �rising sun,� �long spring,� or �water hole.� At the junction of the Gwydir and Newell highways, with regular air and rail service to Sydney (319 mi [513 km] southeast),

Thursday, October 28, 2004

La Fayette, Gilbert Motier De

After serving in Italy under Marshal Jean le Meingre Boucicaut in 1409, he became steward of the Bourbonnais. In the wars with England, Jean I, duc de Bourbon, made him lieutenant general in Languedoc and Guyenne. After victories over the English and the Burgundians

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Gobi, Animal life

Animal life is varied, with such large mammals as the wild camel, the kulan (Equus hemionus), the dzheiran gazelle, and the dzeren (an antelope). Przewalski's horse, which once ranged in the western region of the desert, is probably extinct in the wild. Rodents include marmots and gophers, and there are reptiles.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Table Talk

Informal conversation at or as if at a dining table; especially, the social talk of a celebrity recorded for publication. Collections of such conversations exist from as early as the 3rd century AD, and the term has been in use in English since about the 16th century. The practice of recording conversations and sayings of the famous became especially popular in the 17th century.

Monday, October 25, 2004

Anazarbus

In full� Caesarea ad Anazarbus�, modern �Aga�li�, formerly ��e�enanavarza � former city of the ancient province of Cilicia in Anatolia that was important in the Roman and Byzantine periods. It was located in what is now south-central Turkey. The original native settlement was refounded by the Romans in 19 BC, following a visit by Augustus. It rivaled Tarsus, the Cilician capital, in the 3rd century AD, and under Diocletian became the seat of the separate

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Triclinius, Demetrius

Triclinius' editions incorporated notes by other scholars as well as scholia from earlier traditions. He was the first Byzantine scholar to examine closely the metrical structure

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Arguin Island

Island off the coast of Mauritania; it lies about 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Cape Blanc, in a sheltered Atlantic inlet (Arguin Bay). The island (4 by 2.5 miles [6 by 4 km]) was incorporated into the newly independent Mauritania in 1960. Aridity and poor anchorage have prevented the establishment of permanent settlements on it, but the coastal reefs, known as the Arguin Banks, are major fishing

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Glaucoma

Disease caused by an increase in pressure within the eye as a result of blockage of the flow of aqueous humour, a watery fluid produced by the ciliary body. (The ciliary body is a ring of tissue directly behind the outer rim of the iris; besides being the source of aqueous humour, it contains the muscle that flattens the curvature of the lens for far vision.) The normal flow

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Henry The Navigator

After Alfarrobeira, Henry spent most of his time at Sagres, though he did not altogether abandon public life. He was accorded by the King the sole right to send ships to visit and trade with the Guinea coast of Africa. He appeared occasionally at the Lisbon court and in 1450 helped arrange for the marriage of the King's sister to the emperor Frederick III. During most of his

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Mexico City, The colonial city

Cort�s razed Tenochtitl�n in 1521 and constructed a Spanish city on its ruins. The conquerors divided the central area among themselves and relegated the defeated to the periphery. The city was chartered and its cabildo, or town council, recognized in 1522; it was given leadership over other cabildos of New Spain in 1535. It soon became the most important city of the Americas, with

Monday, October 18, 2004

Vigevano

Industry has grown

Sunday, October 17, 2004

Mahasiddha

Both the Shaivites (followers of Shiva) of Hindu India and the Tantric Buddhists of Tibet preserve legends of 84 mahasiddhas who flourished up to the 11th century. (The number 84 is a conventional, mystical

Saturday, October 16, 2004

Alessandri Palma, Arturo

The son of an Italian immigrant, Alessandri was graduated in law from the University of Chile in 1893 and in 1897 was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. He was at various times minister of industry, minister of

Friday, October 15, 2004

Phase Diagram

Graph showing the limiting conditions for solid, liquid, and gaseous phases of a single substance or of a mixture of substances while undergoing changes in pressure and temperature or in some other combination of variables, such as solubility and temperature. The Figure shows a typical phase diagram for a one-component system (i.e., one consisting of a single pure

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Skaldic Poetry

Skalds were identified by name; their poems

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Abercromby, Sir Ralph

Entering the army in 1756, Abercromby served in the Seven Years' War. When war

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Aviculture

Raising and care of wild birds in captivity, for the breeding of game stock, the perpetuation of declining species, or for display and education. The simulation of natural conditions is a necessary goal of aviculturists, allowing them to study aspects of mating and breeding behaviour that may not be easily observed in the wild. As a result of such study, a number of species,

Monday, October 11, 2004

South America, Linguistic patterns

The linguistic diversity and multiplicity of South America probably is unmatched anywhere else in the world. Thousands of languages and dialects have been cataloged, including all those existing since the European conquest. Classification systems vary a great deal - from more than 100 �linguistic families� and many unrelated languages at one extreme to extremely

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Fairfield

In the mid-18th century the area's favourable climate

Saturday, October 09, 2004

Kocu Bey

In full� Kuricali Kocu Mustafa Bey, Kuricali �also spelled �G�riceli, Kocu �also spelled �Koci� Turkish minister and reformer, a notable early observer of the Ottoman decline. Originally from Albania, Kocu Bey was sent to Constantinople, where he was educated in the Imperial Palace. He later entered the service of a number of Ottoman sultans, finding particular favour with Murad IV (1623 - 40) and Ibrahim I (1640 - 48), whose adviser he became.

Friday, October 08, 2004

Nationalism

Nationalism began to appear in Asia and Africa after World War I. It produced such leaders as Kemal Atat�rk in Turkey, Sa'd Pasha Zaghul in Egypt, Ibn Sa'ud in the Arabian peninsula, Mahatma Gandhi in India, and Sun Yat-sen in China. Atat�rk succeeded in replacing the medieval structure of the Islamic monarchy with a revitalized and modernized secular republic in 1923. Demands

Thursday, October 07, 2004

World Water Crisis: Is There A Way Out?

Such was the dismal state of the world's water supply, as presented in a press release by Koichiro Matsuura, director general of UNESCO, on March 5, 2003. Matsuura later warned, �Over the next 20 years, the average supply of water worldwide per person is expected to drop by a third.� For years there had been warnings of an ever-worsening crisis in the availability of water on planet

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Marseille

Also spelled �Marseilles, �ancient �Massilia, �or �Massalia, � city, capital of Bouches-du-Rh�ne d�partement, France, and also the administrative and commercial capital of Provence-Alpes-C�te d'Azur, one of France's fastest growing r�gions. Located west of the French Riviera, Marseille is one of the major ports of the Mediterranean Sea. It is situated on the Mediterranean's Gulf of Lion within a semicircle of limestone hills and

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Haber, Fritz

After the war Haber's institute became the world's leading centre of research in physical chemistry, with a large and distinguished international staff. All his life he had been an advocate of close relations between science and industry, and he now became active in promoting the national organization of research and in fostering friendly relations with foreign

Monday, October 04, 2004

China, State and society

The state barred literati from using the academies and literary societies for explicitly political activities. Scholars in Peking and in the rich cities of the Yangtze Delta turned from politics to the study of texts that marked the empirical school of scholarship (k'ao-cheng hs�eh). Influenced by their knowledge of European mathematics and mathematical astronomy,

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Jia

The jia can either be a form of pottery or it can be bronze. It is a deep, cup-shaped vessel supported on three or four pointed, splayed legs. There is a vertical handle on the body and two small, capped, pillarlike additions on opposite sides

Saturday, October 02, 2004

Anodizing

Method of plating metal for such purposes as corrosion resistance, electrical insulation, thermal control, abrasion resistance, sealing, improving paint adhesion, and decorative finishing. Anodizing consists of electrically depositing an oxide film from aqueous solution onto the surface of a metal, often aluminum, which serves as the anode in an electrolytic

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