813 résultats pour "may"

• Illinois - geography.

  the state before joining the Mississippi River at Grafton. The Illinois has been deepened and straightened and forms part of the Illinois Waterway. The watershed between rivers that flow into the Mississippi river system and rivers that flow into the Great Lakes is low and in many places is not easily discernible. Inwhat is now the Chicago area, explorers had little difficulty portaging, or carrying, their canoes over the low watershed between the Des Plaines River, which flows intothe Illinois,...

• Illinois - USA History.

  the state before joining the Mississippi River at Grafton. The Illinois has been deepened and straightened and forms part of the Illinois Waterway. The watershed between rivers that flow into the Mississippi river system and rivers that flow into the Great Lakes is low and in many places is not easily discernible. Inwhat is now the Chicago area, explorers had little difficulty portaging, or carrying, their canoes over the low watershed between the Des Plaines River, which flows intothe Illinois,...

• India - country.

  delta in the north, are intensely farmed. B Rivers and Lakes The rivers of India can be divided into three groups: the great Himalayan rivers of the north, the westward-flowing rivers of central India, and the eastward-flowingrivers of the Deccan Plateau and the rest of peninsular India. Only small portions of India’s rivers are navigable because of silting and the wide seasonal variation inwater flow (due to the monsoon climate). Water transport is thus of little importance in India. Barrages,...

• William Shakespeare I INTRODUCTION William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright and poet, recognized in much of the world as the greatest of all dramatists.

  Shakespeare’s reputation today is, however, based primarily on the 38 plays that he wrote, modified, or collaborated on. Records of Shakespeare’s plays begin toappear in 1594, when the theaters reopened with the passing of the plague that had closed them for 21 months. In December of 1594 his play The Comedy of Errors was performed in London during the Christmas revels at Gray’s Inn, one of the London law schools. In March of the following year he received payment for two playsthat had been per...

• William Shakespeare.

  Shakespeare’s reputation today is, however, based primarily on the 38 plays that he wrote, modified, or collaborated on. Records of Shakespeare’s plays begin toappear in 1594, when the theaters reopened with the passing of the plague that had closed them for 21 months. In December of 1594 his play The Comedy of Errors was performed in London during the Christmas revels at Gray’s Inn, one of the London law schools. In March of the following year he received payment for two playsthat had been per...

• Hardware (computer).

  Magnetic tape drives use magnetic tape similar to the tape used in VCR cassettes. Tape drives have a very slow read/write time, but have a very high capacity; in fact,their capacity is second only to hard disk drives. Tape drives are mainly used to back up data. Compact disc drives store information on pits burned into the surface of a disc of reflective material ( see CD-ROM). CD-ROMs can store up to 737 megabytes (MB) of data. A Compact Disc-Recordable (CD-R) or Compact Disc-ReWritable (CD-RW)...

• Gemstones.

  In the late 1960s a method was developed for “growing” diamonds by heating a diamond particle to a high temperature and subjecting it to methane gas. The gasdecomposes into carbon atoms, which adhere to the diamond crystal. The crystal structure of the enlarged diamond is identical to that of a natural diamond. Diamondsof about 1 carat (200 mg or 0.007 oz) have been produced by this method, but their cost is still considerably higher than that of naturally occurring diamonds. Sapphires are made...

• Botswana - country.

  at birth was 50.2 years, also a significant improvement. The urban population of Botswana has increased rapidly, from 18 percent of the total in 1981 to 51 percent in 2003. Gaborone, the capital, is the largest city and mainbusiness center. Other business centers are Francistown, Selebi-Pikwe, Molepolole, Kanye, and Serowe. Botswana received its name from the country’s principal ethnic group, the Tswana. Other ethnic groups include the Kgalagadi, Kalanga, and Basarwa. There are also asmall numbe...

• Martin Luther King, Jr.

  disorder that local white officials would be forced to end segregation to restore normal business relations. The strategy did not work in Albany. During months ofprotests, Albany’s police chief jailed hundreds of demonstrators without visible police violence. Eventually the protesters’ energy, and the money to bail out protesters,ran out. The strategy did work, however, in Birmingham, Alabama, when SCLC joined a local protest during the spring of 1963. The protest was led by SCLC member FredShut...

• Martin Luther King, Jr.

  disorder that local white officials would be forced to end segregation to restore normal business relations. The strategy did not work in Albany. During months ofprotests, Albany’s police chief jailed hundreds of demonstrators without visible police violence. Eventually the protesters’ energy, and the money to bail out protesters,ran out. The strategy did work, however, in Birmingham, Alabama, when SCLC joined a local protest during the spring of 1963. The protest was led by SCLC member FredShut...

• Milwaukee - geography.

  acts ranging from alternative rock to country music. During the rest of the summer months, the park is the site of weekend festivals staged by Milwaukee’s majorethnic groups: Italian, Irish, German, African American, Polish, Mexican, Native American, and Asian. The Great Circus Parade, featuring the world’s largest collection ofornate circus wagons, is another staple of Milwaukee’s festival season. The Wisconsin State Fair is held annually in nearby West Allis. V RECREATION The largest single u...

• Italy - country.

  C Natural Resources Italy is poor in natural resources. Much of the land is unsuitable for agriculture because of mountainous terrain or unfavorable climate. Italy, moreover, lacks substantialdeposits of basic natural resources such as coal, iron, and petroleum. Natural gas is the country’s most important mineral resource. Other deposits include feldspar andpumice. Many of Italy’s mineral deposits on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia had been heavily depleted by the early 1990s. Italy is rich...

• Chinese Literature I INTRODUCTION Chinese Literature, writings of the Chinese people, with a continuous history of more than 3,000 years.

  (Huang) River basin region in the north. The verses are in lines of four characters (or syllables) and use rhyme and alliteration (repetition of the initial letter). Confuciusquoted them in his works. Because he described them as “without depraved thoughts,” all the verses in the Shi jing have been treated as moral allegories. (4) The Li ji (Book of Ritual ) contains detailed discussions of the principles of conduct at court and in private ceremonies. Although the Han dynasty and later ruler...

• Chinese Literature I INTRODUCTION Chinese Literature, writings of the Chinese people, with a continuous history of more than 3,000 years.

  (Huang) River basin region in the north. The verses are in lines of four characters (or syllables) and use rhyme and alliteration (repetition of the initial letter). Confuciusquoted them in his works. Because he described them as “without depraved thoughts,” all the verses in the Shi jing have been treated as moral allegories. (4) The Li ji (Book of Ritual ) contains detailed discussions of the principles of conduct at court and in private ceremonies. Although the Han dynasty and later ruler...

• Ireland - country.

  F Plants and Animals Ireland’s animal life does not differ markedly from that of England or France. Over many centuries of human settlement almost all of Ireland’s natural woodlands werecleared, and indigenous animals such as bear, wolf, wildcat, beaver, wild cattle, and the giant Irish deer (a type of fallow deer) gradually disappeared. However, thehardy and versatile Connemara pony, Ireland’s only native pony breed, has been used by Irish farmers since prehistoric times. The great auk, or gar...

• Cold War.

  With this, all the countries of Eastern Europe were under Communist control, and the creation of the Soviet bloc was complete. The events of 1948 contributed to agrowing conviction among political leaders in both the United States and the USSR that the opposing power posed a broad and fundamental threat to their nation’sinterests. The Berlin blockade and the spread of Communism in Europe led to negotiations between Western Europe, Canada, and the United States that resulted in the NorthAtlantic...

• Cold War .

  With this, all the countries of Eastern Europe were under Communist control, and the creation of the Soviet bloc was complete. The events of 1948 contributed to agrowing conviction among political leaders in both the United States and the USSR that the opposing power posed a broad and fundamental threat to their nation’sinterests. The Berlin blockade and the spread of Communism in Europe led to negotiations between Western Europe, Canada, and the United States that resulted in the NorthAtlantic...

• Cold War - U.

  With this, all the countries of Eastern Europe were under Communist control, and the creation of the Soviet bloc was complete. The events of 1948 contributed to agrowing conviction among political leaders in both the United States and the USSR that the opposing power posed a broad and fundamental threat to their nation’sinterests. The Berlin blockade and the spread of Communism in Europe led to negotiations between Western Europe, Canada, and the United States that resulted in the NorthAtlantic...

• Alaska - geography.

  depression surrounded by highlands and have the coldest winter and hottest summer temperatures in Alaska. Once the Kuskokwim River passes through theKuskokwim Mountains, it forms the southern edge of a vast lake-studded alluvial plain bounded on the north by the Yukon River. This water-logged lowland is a majorsummer nesting area for birds. Fairbanks is the major city in this region, while Fort Yukon is the major community in the Yukon Flats and Bethel the largest settlementon the Lower Kuskokwi...

• Alaska - USA History.

  depression surrounded by highlands and have the coldest winter and hottest summer temperatures in Alaska. Once the Kuskokwim River passes through theKuskokwim Mountains, it forms the southern edge of a vast lake-studded alluvial plain bounded on the north by the Yukon River. This water-logged lowland is a majorsummer nesting area for birds. Fairbanks is the major city in this region, while Fort Yukon is the major community in the Yukon Flats and Bethel the largest settlementon the Lower Kuskokwi...

• Portraiture I INTRODUCTION Portraiture, visual representation of individual people, distinguished by references to the subject's character, social position, wealth, or profession.

  CaracallaCaracalla is a Roman portrait bust in marble of the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, probably done circa ad 215. Theson of Septimius Severus, Caracalla (as he was known) was a brutal man whose qualities come through in this piece withits dramatic realism. The bust, which is now in the Louvre, Paris, evidently served as the inspiration for Michelangelo’sbust of Brutus more than one thousand years later.Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York The first representations of identifiable ind...

• Chicago (city, Illinois) - geography.

  VI EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS Chicago has one of the largest public school systems in the United States. The Chicago Board of Education administers the system in a centralized fashion; in recentyears it has been experimenting with local school councils as a means of partial devolution of authority. These councils, established in 1989, have authority in severalareas, including the ability to approve budgets and curriculum. In addition, Chicago has many private schools, including larg...

• Panama Canal - Geography.

  The size of ships using the Panama Canal has steadily increased. About 27 percent of the vessels that use the canal are built to the maximum dimensions that can passthrough it (a category called “Panamax”). This has prompted further widening of Gaillard Cut, so that the larger Panamax vessels may transit safely. However, some ofthe world’s commercial and military ships are too large for the canal. Since the 1940s, new U.S. battleships and aircraft carriers have been built exceeding the canal’sdi...

• Spanish-American War.

  A Blockade of Cuba The Navy’s basic job was to blockade the island of Cuba. If the Spanish army could be cut off from seaborne supplies from Spain, it could not maintain itself for longagainst the Cuban insurgents, let alone prepare to fight the U.S. forces. To maintain a successful blockade, the U.S. Navy would have to control the sea approaches toCuba. To accomplish this, the United States determined that the Spanish navy had to be destroyed wherever it was found. Thus the U.S. war objectives...

• Piranha - biology.

• United Kingdom - country.

  B Natural Regions and Topography The island of Great Britain can be divided into two major natural regions—the highland zone and the lowland zone. The highland zone is an area of high hills andmountains in the north and west. The lowland zone in the south and east consists mostly of rolling plains. The zones are divided by an imaginary line running throughEngland from the River Exe on the southwest coast to the mouth of the River Tees on the northeast coast. The lowland zone has a milder climat...

• Paul Martin.

  VI CONFLICT WITH THE PRIME MINISTER Martin’s success could not have been achieved without the support he received from Jean Chrétien. Yet relations between the two men continued to deteriorate. In partthis was because of their continuing disagreement about how best to deal with the separatist challenge in Québec. In the 1993 election, a majority of Québec seats hadgone to the Bloc Québécois, and in 1994 the provincial separatist party, the Parti Québécois, won election on a platform promising...

• Paul Martin - Canadian History.

  VI CONFLICT WITH THE PRIME MINISTER Martin’s success could not have been achieved without the support he received from Jean Chrétien. Yet relations between the two men continued to deteriorate. In partthis was because of their continuing disagreement about how best to deal with the separatist challenge in Québec. In the 1993 election, a majority of Québec seats hadgone to the Bloc Québécois, and in 1994 the provincial separatist party, the Parti Québécois, won election on a platform promising...

• Carbon - chemistry.

  Graphite is black and slippery and conducts electricity. In graphite, the atoms form planar, or flat, layers. Each layer is made up of rings containing six carbon atoms.The rings are linked to each other in a structure that resembles the hexagonal mesh of chicken wire. Each atom has three sigma bonds (with 120° between any two ofthe bonds) and belongs to three neighboring rings. The fourth electron of each atom becomes part of an extensive pi bond system. Graphite conducts electricity,because th...

• China - country.

  North China lies between the Mongolian Steppe on the north and the Yangtze River Basin on the south. It stretches west from the Bo Hai gulf and the Yellow Sea to theeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Administratively, North China includes Beijing and Tianjin municipalities; Shandong and Shanxi provinces; most of Hebei, Henan,and Shaanxi provinces; and portions of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and of Jiangsu, Anhui, and Gansu provinces. Humans have lived in the agriculturally rich region of Nor...

• Florida - USA History.

  accidentally introduced into the region in the 1880s, and it spread with alarming rapidity throughout the upper reaches of the river. The plant is very difficult toeradicate, and it has also clogged the channels of other Florida rivers. To increase drainage of the Everglades, which drain naturally to Florida Bay and the Gulf ofMexico, a number of drainage channels and canals have been built across southern Florida. Among the rivers flowing from the peninsula to the Gulf of Mexico are the Suwanne...

• Literary Criticism I INTRODUCTION Literary Criticism, discussion of literature, including description, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of literary works.

  IV THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES The climate of criticism changed with the arrival on the literary scene of such giants as Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Pedro Calderòn in Spain; WilliamShakespeare, Ben Jonson, and John Milton in England; and Pierre Corneille, Jean Baptiste Racine, and Molière in France. Most of these writers specialized or excelled indrama, and consequently the so-called battle of the ancients and moderns—the critical comparison of Greek and Roman authors with more rece...

• North Carolina - geography.

  The drainage divide in North Carolina follows the Blue Ridge range on the eastern margin of the mountain region. This is called the “Eastern Continental Divide.” West ofthis divide, rivers drain into the Mississippi River through the Tennessee River and other tributaries of the Ohio River. The French Broad, the largest, and the LittleTennessee flow into the Tennessee River. The New River flows into the Kanawha River of West Virginia which in turn flows into the Ohio River. Most of the state’s ri...

• North Carolina - USA History.

  The drainage divide in North Carolina follows the Blue Ridge range on the eastern margin of the mountain region. This is called the “Eastern Continental Divide.” West ofthis divide, rivers drain into the Mississippi River through the Tennessee River and other tributaries of the Ohio River. The French Broad, the largest, and the LittleTennessee flow into the Tennessee River. The New River flows into the Kanawha River of West Virginia which in turn flows into the Ohio River. Most of the state’s ri...

• Capital Punishment.

  deterrent effect. Capital punishment advocates note that because the death penalty is reserved for the most aggravated murders, the deterrent effect of capitalpunishment on such crimes may not be apparent in data on homicide rates in general. Supporters also urge that the conflicting results of various studies indicate thatthe deterrent effect of the death penalty cannot not be proven or disproven with any certainty. They maintain that in the absence of conclusive proof that the threat ofexecuti...

• Poetry I INTRODUCTION Phyllis McGinley American poet and author Phyllis McGinley composed light, witty verse, much of which deals with family life.

  repetition of certain lines and the rhyming of certain lines. The Provençal sestina features a set of six words that end lines (end-words), repeated in a dizzyingly complexpattern. The range of effects created by the poetic line varies tremendously depending on its length, its patterns of repetition, and whether the sentence stops at the end of theline (end-stopped) or carries over the end of the line (enjambed). Many of the earliest examples of Old English poetry feature an accentual line with...

• Japan - country.

  island’s fertile soils support agriculture and provide the vast majority of Japan’s pasturelands. In addition, Hokkaidō contains coal deposits, and the cold currents off itsshores supply cold-water fish. Winters are long and harsh, so most of Hokkaid ō is lightly settled, housing about 5 percent of Japan’s population on approximately 20 percent of its land area. However,its snowy winters and unspoiled natural beauty attract many skiers and tourists. Hokkaid ō is thought of as Japan’s northern fr...

• Skiing.

  Safety is very important to all skiers, and all Alpine resorts have a ski patrol. The ski patrol’s responsibility is to take care of injured skiers, to mark hazardous spots ontrails, to make sure that trails are in good condition before opening them, and, at times, to act as traffic police in congested areas. Skiers are also responsible for takingtheir own safety into consideration, as well as that of others. Anyone who participates in the sport should be aware of the Skier’s Responsibility Code...

• France - country.

  In both the Paris and Aquitaine basins, fertile soils derived from limestone and wind-deposited dust, called loess, have supported prosperous agriculture since ancienttimes. Other lowlands in France are scattered and relatively small. They include the Alsace Plain in the east, bordering Germany, the valley of the Rhône River in thesoutheast, and the Languedoc Plain along the Mediterranean coast. A2 Uplands France contains several regions of uplands, the worn down remains of ancient mountain sys...

• World War I .

  and troops to Europe from the United States and other overseas sources. In 1914 Britain implemented a sea blockade of Germany to prevent the delivery of importssuch as food and war materials. The same year, Germany began using submarines to disrupt Allied seaborne traffic and prevent supplies from reaching Britain. In 1915Germany instituted a submarine blockade around Britain. From February 1915 to September 1915 and again in 1917, Germany used unrestricted submarine warfare,sinking ships withou...

• The way in which companies frame themselves, their products and their clients

• Cosmology - astronomy.

  In 1917 American scientist Harlow Shapley measured the distance to several groups of stars known as globular clusters. He measured these distances by using amethod developed in 1912 by American astronomer Henrietta Leavitt. Leavitt’s method relates distance to variations in brightness of Cepheid variables, a class of starsthat vary periodically in brightness. Shapley’s distance measurements showed that the clusters were centered around a point far from the Sun. The arrangement of theclusters was...

• United States House of Representatives.

  Because of the high cost of elections and the short two-year term of office, members of the House campaign almost constantly. They spend much of their time raisingcampaign funds, and they frequently return to their districts to keep in touch with voters. Because the elections are so frequent, House members tend to pay closeattention to how their votes in Congress will be seen in the short term. House members tend to come from wealthier family backgrounds than average Americans. Few working class...

• National Parks and Preserves.

  Some ibex raised in Italy’s 700 sq km (220 sq mi) Gran Paradiso National Park (1922) were transferred to aid herd restoration elsewhere in the country. Switzerlandreturned lynx to Swiss National Park to keep red deer populations in check. The growth of national parks also enabled many European countries to restore forests thathad given way to industrialization by the early 20th century. Africa’s wildlife was hunted heavily from the late 19th century well into the 20th century. By 1920 big-game h...

• Civil Rights Movement in the United States - U.

  The Great Depression of the 1930s increased black protests against discrimination, especially in Northern cities. Blacks protested the refusal of white-owned businessesin all-black neighborhoods to hire black salespersons. Using the slogan “Don't Buy Where You Can't Work,” these campaigns persuaded blacks to boycott thosebusinesses and revealed a new militancy. During the same years, blacks organized school boycotts in Northern cities to protest discriminatory treatment of blackchildren. The bla...

• Labor Unions in the United States - U.

  National Guard troops were used against the strikers, with the result that the strike was lost and the union that conducted it virtually destroyed. In 1894 a strike by theAmerican Railway Union against the Pullman Palace Car Company was defeated by an injunction issued under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which made acombination or contract in restraint of trade illegal. Thereafter employers used injunctions with increasing frequency and effectiveness as an antistrike weapon. See also Hours...

• American Literature: Drama I INTRODUCTION American Literature: Drama, literature intended for performance, written by Americans in the English language.

  American plays, while still a minority, began to appear in the theater repertory in the 19th century. Although American plays were still styled after British models, theirsubject matter came to be based on specifically American incidents or themes. In the United States as in Britain, many plays reflected the influence of romanticism , a European literary and artistic movement. Melodrama, with its outpourings of emotion, was the most prevalent dramatic form in the 19th century. Gothic melodramas...

• Africa.

  The highest elevations in Africa are found in the various ranges of East Africa. After Kilimanjaro, the next highest peaks are Mount Kenya (5,199 m/17,057 ft), north ofKilimanjaro in central Kenya; Margherita Peak (5,109 m/ 16,762 ft) in the Ruwenzori Range on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo(DRC); Ras Dashen (4,620 m/ 15,157 ft) in the Ethiopian Highlands of northern Ethiopia; Mount Meru (4,565 m/ 14,977 ft), close to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania; and MountElgon (4,...

• Africa - Geography.

  The highest elevations in Africa are found in the various ranges of East Africa. After Kilimanjaro, the next highest peaks are Mount Kenya (5,199 m/17,057 ft), north ofKilimanjaro in central Kenya; Margherita Peak (5,109 m/ 16,762 ft) in the Ruwenzori Range on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo(DRC); Ras Dashen (4,620 m/ 15,157 ft) in the Ethiopian Highlands of northern Ethiopia; Mount Meru (4,565 m/ 14,977 ft), close to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania; and MountElgon (4,...

• Nunavut - Canadian History.

  The Arctic Lands is a complex geological area that is centered on the Arctic Ocean. It includes coastal plains, plateaus, and mountains. Coastal plains and plateaus arefound in the western Northwest Territories section of the Arctic Lands, such as on Victoria Island, which is mostly a large, flat plateau. In striking contrast to theserelatively gentle landscapes, the eastern Nunavut section of the Arctic Lands is dominated by a jagged chain of ice-covered mountains. The mountains on EllesmereIsl...