Early Netherlandish Art

In 1363 John II of France

Gabon, Health and welfare

Health facilities remain inadequate, particularly outside the Libreville area, despite improvements during the 1970s and '80s. The government provides nearly all health care services. The internationally known hospital operated by Albert Schweitzer at Lambaréné from 1924 to 1965 receives government assistance. Malaria, sleeping sickness, tuberculosis, syphilis, and other

30 Doradus

Also called  Tarantula Nebula (catalog number NGC 2070)  immense ionized-hydrogen region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way system (in which the Earth is located). The nebula consists of a cloud of interstellar gas—principally hydrogen—lit from within by young, hot stars that ionize the gas around them. As the atoms in the gas recombine, they emit visible light. The total mass of the nebula is about

Pachaimalai Hills

Range of hills in Tamil Nadu state, southern India, an eastward extension of the Eastern Ghats in the northeastern Tamilnad Uplands. The Pachaimalai Hills, together with the Javadi, Shevaroy, and Kalrayan hills, separate the Cauvery River basin in the south from the Palar River basin in the north. Extending over approximately 5,200 sq mi (13,500 sq km), they form a discontinuous line of highlands

Vieira, António

Vieira went to Brazil with his parents as a child of six. Educated at the

Prosody, The Renaissance

Renaissance prosodic theory had to face the fact of an accomplished poetry in the vernacular that was not written in metres determined by “rules” handed down from the practice of Homer and Virgil. Nevertheless, the classicizing theorists of the 16th century made a determined attempt to explain existing poetry by the rules of short and long and to draft “laws” by which

Zaccaria, Benedetto

In 1264 Zaccaria was named Genoese ambassador to the Byzantine emperor, Michael VIII Paleologus, who bestowed on him and his brother Manuele the fief of Phocaea, north of Smyrna, with its alum mines. On this foundation the brothers built a commercial empire,

Malay Language

Member of the Western, or Indonesian, branch of the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language family, spoken as a native language by more than 33,000,000 persons distributed over the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, and the numerous smaller islands of the area, and widely used in Malaysia and Indonesia as a second language. Malay shows the closest relationship to most of the

Losey, Joseph

After graduating from Dartmouth College (B.A., 1929) and Harvard University (M.A., 1930), Losey wrote book and theatre reviews. In 1935, while working as a European-based reporter for Variety, the

Insurance, Suretyship

Surety contracts are designed to protect businesses against the possible dishonesty of their employees. Surety and fidelity bonds fill the gap left by theft insurance, which always excludes losses from persons in a position of trust. A bond involves three contracting parties instead of two. The three parties are the principal, who is the person bonded; the obligee,

Kircher, Athanasius

Kircher learned Greek and Hebrew at the Jesuit school in Fulda, pursued scientific and humanistic studies at Paderborn, Cologne, and Koblenz, and in 1628 was ordained at Mainz. He fled the