838 résultats pour "early"

• Collectibles and Collecting.

  common blond and thus commands a higher price. If there are different variations to a collectible, the least common one is usually worth more. Often there areinteresting stories behind rarities, such as the highly sought-after 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card. At that time tobacco companies manufactured and distributedbaseball cards, and when the antitobacco Wagner complained, his card was pulled from production. Very few copies in good condition have ever been found. C Age Age is often an indic...

• Neandertals.

  Neandertals made stone tools by striking flakes from rock “cores.” The cores were carefully selected and prepared so that only a single blow was normally required todetach a flake. A number of relatively standardized flakes were sometimes produced from a single core. These sharp flakes served as “blanks” that were further workedand shaped into the desired tools. Suitable stone was sometimes rare, and often tools were sharpened and resharpened to make new tools, yielding a whole variety ofshapes...

• Arabic Literature I INTRODUCTION Arabic Literature, literature written in the Arabic language, from the 6th century to the present.

  The life of the Prophet Muhammad also generated its own literary sources, primary among which is the hadith. The hadiths were a collection of the Prophet's sayings and actions, transmitted through a chain of authorities said to go back to Muhammad himself. The two most famous collections of hadiths are those of al-Bukhari andMuslim in the 9th century. These works provide a wealth of information covering all aspects of a Muslim's life, from prayer to personal, social, and business conduct. The...

• 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...

• United States (Overview) - country.

  parts. IV UNITED STATES PEOPLE When Europeans first reached North America in the 1520s, they encountered other people—Native Americans—and they also encountered a new geography. Someimagined they were entering “a howling wilderness”—an environment filled with exotic flora and fauna but sparsely populated. In reality, they found their way to alandmass that was widely settled. But soon after the Europeans’ arrival, the population of the Americas plummeted, largely because Native Americans lacked...

• Solar System - astronomy.

  dwarf planets according to the IAU because they have rounded shapes from their own gravity but have not cleared their neighborhoods in space of other objects—bothorbit through the Kuiper Belt, a region beyond Neptune containing thousands of small icy bodies. Pluto and Eris are composed of layers of ice around a rocky core.Ceres qualifies as a dwarf planet because it is spherical but is found in the asteroid belt, a zone between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter that contains thousands of smallrocky...

• Submarine.

  B Propulsion Modern submarines use either diesel-electric or nuclear power to drive the sub's propeller and to provide internal electric power. Diesel-electric power emerged as themost efficient propulsion system for submarines in the early 20th century, following unsuccessful attempts to use steam or gasoline power. While on the surface, thesubmarine uses a diesel engine to drive the propeller and generate electricity. When submerged, a battery-driven electrical motor takes over for propulsion...

• Asteroid - astronomy.

  Asteroids of the S type, related to the stony iron meteorites, make up about 15 percent of the total population of asteroids that can be seen from Earth. Much rarer arethe M-type objects, corresponding in composition to the meteorites known as “irons.” These objects are made up of an iron-nickel alloy and may represent the cores ofbodies that were large enough to differentiate into layers and to melt deep inside. Their rocky outer layers may have been removed by impacts with other asteroids . A...

• Serbia - country.

  Minority groups speak their own languages, such as Albanian and Hungarian. Bosniaks generally speak Bosnian and write it with the Latin alphabet. Serbs are by tradition Orthodox Christians. The Roman Catholic and Protestant churches also have adherents in Serbia. Most of the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo areSunni Muslims ( see Sunni Islam), as are the Bosniaks of the Sandžak region. Bosniaks are descendants of Slavs who converted to Islam in the 15th and 16th centuries. B Education The leading in...

• Christmas.

  The new custom of Christmas gift giving allowed the marketplace to exert an unprecedented influence on holiday celebrations. Commercial innovations such asdepartment stores and mass advertising further expanded the custom of exchanging Christmas gifts. Seasonal retail sales helped fuel the economy, causing merchantsand advertisers to become some of the season’s most ardent promoters. Many holiday celebrants regretted these changes, however, and began voicing the nowcommon lament that Christmas h...

• Dwight D.

  maneuvers in Louisiana in 1941, he played a leading role as a staff officer, adding to his reputation and securing him a promotion to brigadier general. On December 7,1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the next day the United States entered World War II against the Axis Powers (Japan, Germany, and Italy). A weeklater, the army’s new chief of staff, General George C. Marshall, called Eisenhower to Washington, D.C., and put him in charge of the War Plans Division. Opinions differed on...

• French Revolution.

  B2 Assembly of Notables and Estates-General To pressure the parlements into accepting the plan, Calonne decided to gain prior approval of it from an Assembly of Notables—a group of hand-picked dignitaries hethought would sympathize with his views. But Calonne had badly miscalculated. Meeting in January 1787, the assembly refused to believe that a financial crisis reallyexisted. They had been influenced by Necker’s argument that state finances were sound and suspected that the monarchy was only...

• French Revolution .

  B2 Assembly of Notables and Estates-General To pressure the parlements into accepting the plan, Calonne decided to gain prior approval of it from an Assembly of Notables—a group of hand-picked dignitaries hethought would sympathize with his views. But Calonne had badly miscalculated. Meeting in January 1787, the assembly refused to believe that a financial crisis reallyexisted. They had been influenced by Necker’s argument that state finances were sound and suspected that the monarchy was only...

• Skateboarding.

  The earliest skateboards first appeared in the 1940s and 1950s. Many of the early boards were toy scooters whose handlebars had been removed. Other homemadeskateboards were steel-wheeled roller skates nailed onto a piece of wood. The first commercially produced skateboards appeared in the early 1960s, when MakahaSkateboards established a successful business. The Makaha company later developed the tail. By the 1970s, skateboard design had advanced, and the models produced were much safer than tho...

• Ernest Hemingway I INTRODUCTION Ernest Hemingway Twentieth-century American author Ernest Hemingway wrote novels and stories that reflected his rich life experiences as a war correspondent, outdoor sportsman, and bullfight enthusiast.

  In his early work Hemingway used themes of helplessness and defeat, but in the late 1930s his writing began to reflect concerns about social problems. His novel To Have and Have Not (1937) and his play The Fifth Column, published in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-nine Stories (1938), strongly condemned economic and political injustice. Two of his best short stories, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” were part of the story collection. In thecla...

• Aristotelianism, medieval

  are introduced by the interaction of Aristotle with Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious thinking. The Christianambiguities are perhaps the most familiar. Almost all of the Christian Aristotelians in the Latin West were members ofthe clergy. Most spent their professional lives teaching and writing, not the liberal arts or philosophy, but Christiantheology. It remains controversial whether or to what extent we can find an autonomous or even a textuallydistinguishable Aristotelian p...

• Rice - biology.

  V HISTORY According to the most widely accepted theory, rice cultivation originated as early as 10,000 BC in Asia. Archaeological evidence shows that rice was grown in Thailand as early as 4000 BC, and over the centuries spread to China, Japan, and Indonesia. By 400 BC rice was cultivated in the Middle East and Africa. The invading armies of Alexander the Great probably introduced rice to Greece and nearby Mediterranean countries around 330 BC. Rice was brought to the American colonies in t...

• US Beats USSR in Hockey.

  The two sides once again exchanged goals during the first period. Sergei Makarov briefly gave the Soviets a lead when he beat Craig. The goal outraged many in thecrowd who felt that referee Karl Kaisla of Finland missed a holding violation by a USSR player in front of the net. Controversy also played a role in the Americans'game-tying goal at the end of the period. With a few seconds left on the clock, Ken Morrow unleashed an 80-foot slap shot that ricocheted to center Mark Johnson,who deposited...

• Byzantine Empire .

  Emperor Alexius I, founder of the Comnenian dynasty, nevertheless appealed to the pope for aid against the Turks. Western Europe responded with the First Crusade(1096-99). Although Byzantium initially benefited from the Crusades, recovering some land in Asia Minor, in the long run they hastened the empire's decline. Italian merchant citieswon special trading privileges in Byzantine territory and gained control of much of the empire's commerce and wealth. The Byzantines experienced a superficialp...

• Madrid - geography.

  Madrid’s Plaza MayorBuilt in the early 17th century, the Plaza Mayor was used for a variety of activities, including bullfights, executions during theInquisition, and festivals. Today it is one of Madrid’s main tourist attractions.Cesar Lucas/The Image Bank The traditional heart of Madrid is an area 3.9 sq km (1.5 sq mi). In 1656 King Philip IV had a city wall built around the area. Over the next 200 years the city grew throughconstruction of taller buildings and the use of open land within the...

• Québec (city) - Geography.

  rotates between the mayors of small, medium, and core municipalities. The QUC is responsible for zoning, regional development, property valuation, waste disposal, andtourism promotion. City planning and public transit are handled in collaboration with the municipalities. Other municipal functions such as public works, libraries, water,parks, fire and police services, street repair, and traffic control are left to the municipalities. VII CONTEMPORARY ISSUES In recent years the St. Lawrence Rive...

• Mumbai - geography.

  number of people employed by them increased from 7,000 in the 1860s to 73,000 in 1900. Mumbai also prospered as an international port with the 1869 opening ofthe Suez Canal, which shortened the shipping route to Europe. Today most of India’s cotton continues to be grown in the Mumbai hinterland on a fertile, lava-based soilknown as black cotton soil. Textiles remain the dominant industry, employing more than half the workforce. Other important products of Mumbai include refined oil,petrochemical...

• Silk Road - History.

  and high in value because they were carried on the backs of the limited number of camels in each caravan. Thus, of necessity they were luxury items, not bulky rawmaterials or essential goods for daily use. The oases and towns along the route, which were located in or near remote areas, profited from the Silk Road trade and reliedon it for their existence. The great empires of Persia, China, and Rome, however, could easily have survived without the commerce in luxury goods. V SPREAD OF RELIGION A...

• Portland - geography.

  Garden arena, which opened in 1995. In 2000 the Portland Fire, an expansion Women's National Basketball Association team, began play in the Rose Garden as well. VI ECONOMY Portland enjoys a diversified economy. Major manufactured products include paper, transportation equipment, metal products, sportswear, and electronic componentsand equipment. Major corporations headquartered in the metropolitan region include Nike, a leader in the manufacture of sports footwear, in Beaverton; Louisiana-Paci...

• Dogsledding.

  Mushers are caretakers, but also coaches. Top mushers have large kennels, and their preparation for competition begins by buying and breeding race-specific dogs.They train their dogs, decide which to run on certain days, and make adjustments during races by switching and dropping dogs. Serious competitors run their dogsyear-round, using carts and all-terrain vehicles when there is not enough snow on the ground. During races they decide their strategy, choosing when to rest and whento push ahead....

• Political Parties.

  In both Britain and the United States, competition between political parties undermined traditional conceptions of politics rooted in classical and Christian notions ofvirtue and public service. According to this tradition, political leaders should act according to a model of virtue that involved placing the common good above theinterests of a fraction of the society. Leaders acting to benefit only themselves or a narrow portion of the society were considered corrupt. However, party competitionr...

• One Hundred Years of Olympics.

  Getting over the Hurdles The next three Olympics attracted more athletes and saw stronger performances but otherwise did not measure up to Athens. The 1900 Paris Olympics were upstagedby the concurrent Exposition Universelle and were spread out over two months. The 1904 games in remote St. Louis were subordinated to the Louisiana PurchaseExhibition; over three-fourths of the competitors were Americans, and even Coubertin did not attend. The 1908 London Olympics were also overshadowed byanother...

• Canadian Pacific Railway - Canadian History.

  roads constructed inland from the lakeshore. However, this changed with the outbreak in Saskatchewan of the Northwest Rebellion by Louis Riel and his supportersagainst the authority of the Canadian government in March 1885. Despite the fact that the railway was not completed, a contingent of troops was able to reachWinnipeg from Montréal in only seven days, much faster than they could have gone overland, and get from there to Saskatchewan in time to successfully put down therebellion. This actio...

• Belize - country.

  Education is compulsory for children between the ages of 5 and 14. Attendance at primary schools was nearly universal in 2002–2003, but only 78 percent of children ofsecondary school age were enrolled in school. Higher education is available at colleges in Belize City and Corozal. The literacy rate of 93 percent is one of the highest inLatin America. C Government Belize is governed under a constitution that became effective at independence in 1981. Belize recognizes the British monarch as its o...

• Astronaut - astronomy.

  Every operation during a flight is important and interesting, but many might be boring to an observer. Much of an astronaut’s job is entering computer instructions,preparing samples, making measurements, recording data, fixing what breaks, and adjusting the checklist when something unexpected happens. Sometimes astronautsretrieve or repair satellites, rendezvous or dock with other spacecraft, and do important emergency repairs. The adaptability of the human crew is crucial to the successof missi...

• Franklin Pierce.

  At the end of the war, Pierce returned home to his wife and six-year-old son. His law partnership had been dissolved, and he took a new partner. The new firm, like theold one, was highly successful. D Elder Statesman Pierce was by nature a politician. Although still in his early forties, as a retired U.S. senator he became New Hampshire's elder statesman and head of a group of lawyer-politicians called the Concord Clique, or the Regency. The group controlled the state's Democratic Party. Pierce...

• Franklin Pierce

  At the end of the war, Pierce returned home to his wife and six-year-old son. His law partnership had been dissolved, and he took a new partner. The new firm, like theold one, was highly successful. D Elder Statesman Pierce was by nature a politician. Although still in his early forties, as a retired U.S. senator he became New Hampshire's elder statesman and head of a group of lawyer-politicians called the Concord Clique, or the Regency. The group controlled the state's Democratic Party. Pierce...

• Political Parties in the United States.

  quickly enabled the Republican Party to overpower the Know-Nothings. Although the Republicans lost their first campaign for the presidency in 1856, they triumphed in1860 with former congressman Abraham Lincoln. The Republican victory resulted in part from the division of the Democratic Party into Northern and Southern factions,each of which ran its own presidential candidate, and in part from their success at attracting Whigs and Know-Nothings who had opposed the Republicans in 1856.During the C...

• 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...

• Horse Racing.

  interested parties claim the same horse at the same price, lots are drawn to determine the winning offer. Knowledgeable owners and trainers may use claiming races toobtain, at bargain prices, horses whose former owners underestimated the potential of their animals. Two other types of contests are match races and walkovers. A match race pits only two horses, almost always that season’s most successful racers, in a head-to-headduel. A walkover occurs when only one horse has not been scratched (w...

• Fiji Islands - country.

  the early 1990s. Fishing is done mainly at a subsistence level, but commercial fishing is increasing. The country also receives income from the sale of licenses to foreignvessels to fish in Fiji’s exclusive economic zone. Industry, including mining, manufacturing, and construction, employs 34 percent of Fiji’s wage earners and, in 2006, contributed 26 percent of GDP. The governmentinstituted tax-free incentives in 1988 that created a flourishing garment industry. Ready-made garments are now the...

• Capitalism.

  Physiocracy is the term applied to a school of economic thought that suggested the existence of a natural order in economics, one that does not require direction from the state for people to be prosperous. The leader of the physiocrats, the economist François Quesnay, set forth the basic principles in his Tableau économique (1758), in which he traced the flow of money and goods through the economy. Simply put, this flow was seen to be both circular and self-sustaining. More important, however...

• Gardening - biology.

  of synthetic and organic fertilizers, see Organic Farming.) Fertilizers usually are sold in packages, on which the percentage by weight of the macronutrients nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) are listed on thelabel—always in the order N-P-K. For example, a fertilizer that is labeled 10-5-3 is 10 percent nitrogen, 5 percent phosphorus, and 3 percent potassium. V PLANTING AND TRANSPLANTING Before planting seeds, gardeners prepare, or till, the soil using a variety of methods. Some...

• Soccer's Big Show Comes to the United States.

  There were many doubters, both overseas and within the United States. Some U.S. sportswriters derided the idea of holding the World Cup in the United States asakin to staging the World Series in India—how could there be any local interest? Foreign critics felt that money was the sole reason for FIFA's decision and that thesport was about to be cheapened to make it acceptable to Americans. The rumors flew: FIFA was going to enlarge the goals, it would allow timeouts (unheard of inthe sport) to ac...

• Space Shuttle - astronomy.

  The two SRBs, with their combined thrust of some 26 million newtons (about 5.8 million lb), provide most of the power for the first two minutes of flight. The SRBs takethe space shuttle to an altitude of 45 km (28 mi) and a speed of 4,973 km/h (3,094 mph) before they separate and fall back into the ocean to be retrieved,refurbished, and prepared for another flight. After the boosters fall away, the three main engines continue to provide thrust. These engines are clustered at the rear end of the...

• Animal Behavior - biology.

  The first motor program analyzed in much detail was the egg-rolling response of geese. When a goose sees an egg outside its nest, it stares at the egg, stretches itsneck until its bill is just on the other side of the egg, and then gently rolls the egg back into the nest. At first glance this seems a thoughtful and intelligent piece ofbehavior, but it is a mechanical motor program; almost any smooth, rounded object (the sign stimulus) will release the response. Furthermore, removal of the egg on...

• History of United States Business.

  their lives. But the rewards were worth it; a few lucrative voyages and a merchant could buy a townhouse, a carriage, perhaps a summer retreat. The merchant couldclimb the social ladder and circulate among the powerful in this highly materialistic society. This prospect of riches and the honor that accompanied them made Americancolonists willing to engage in highly speculative enterprises, such as shipping flour to the West Indies or importing goods from England by the thousands without beingcer...

• Ulysses S.

  In the autumn of 1862, Grant began planning the drive on Vicksburg, Mississippi, the Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, which was to yield one of hisgreatest military successes. After several unsuccessful attempts on Vicksburg during the winter, Grant devised a new strategy of attack. In April 1863 he marched hisarmy south along the west side of the river to a point well below the heavily defended city. There, with the aid of the Union river fleet, he crossed the river and began as...

• Ulysses S.

  In the autumn of 1862, Grant began planning the drive on Vicksburg, Mississippi, the Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, which was to yield one of hisgreatest military successes. After several unsuccessful attempts on Vicksburg during the winter, Grant devised a new strategy of attack. In April 1863 he marched hisarmy south along the west side of the river to a point well below the heavily defended city. There, with the aid of the Union river fleet, he crossed the river and began as...

• 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...

• Sydney (Australia) - geography.

  blocks in the eastern suburbs and around railway stations elsewhere; and homes on large lots in the outer suburbs, especially those to the northwest. For publichousing, the state government built a number of high-rise apartment blocks in run-down inner suburbs after World War II (1939-1945). These housing projects weresoon deemed unsuccessful and were discontinued because they fostered crime and other social problems. More recently, public housing has taken the form of separateor semidetached ho...

• Bosnia and Herzegovina - country.

  Serb military campaigns in 1992 and 1993 and Croat campaigns in 1993 and 1995 were aimed at expelling others from areas claimed by these groups. By the end ofthe war almost all non-Serbs had been expelled from Serb-claimed lands in eastern and northern Bosnia, and non-Croats from Croat-claimed lands in southwesternBosnia. In turn, most non-Muslims had left land under Muslim control in northwestern Bosnia. The largest cities had mixed populations in 1991, but the war and its aftermath made them a...

• incubus Roman In folklore and very early religious beliefs, an evil spirit or devil that came out at night and sat on the chests of sleeping people.