Crabbe, George

Crabbe grew up in the impoverished seacoast village of Aldeburgh and was apprenticed to a surgeon at 14. Hating his mean surroundings and unsuccessful occupation, he abandoned both in 1780 and went to London. In 1781 he wrote a

Shackleton, Sir Ernest Henry

Educated at Dulwich College (1887–90), Shackleton entered the mercantile marine service in 1890 and became a sublieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve in 1901. He joined Captain Robert Falcon Scott's British National Antarctic (Discovery) Expedition (1901–04) as third

Actinium Series

Set of unstable heavy nuclei constituting one of the four radioactive series (q.v.).

Ear, Human, Hearing tests

Before the development of electroacoustic equipment for generating and measuring sound, the available tests of hearing gave approximate answers at best. A person's hearing could be specified in terms of the ability to distinguish the ticking of a watch or the clicking of coins or the distance at which conversational speech or a whispered voice could be understood.

Aubrey, John

Antiquarian and writer, best known for his vivid, intimate, and sometimes acid biographical sketches of his contemporaries. Educated at Oxford at Trinity College, he studied law in London at the Middle Temple. He early displayed his interest in antiquities by calling attention to the prehistoric stones at Avebury,

Adab

Modern  Bismayah  ancient Sumerian city located south of Nippur (modern Niffer or Nuffar), Iraq. Excavations (1903–04) carried out by the American archaeologist Edgar James Banks revealed buildings dating from as early as the prehistoric period and as late as the reign of Ur-Nammu (reigned 2112–2095 BC). Adab was an important Sumerian centre only up to about 2000. The Sumerian king list ascribed to the city one

Korolyov

Also spelled  Korolev , formerly (1938–96)  Kaliningrad  city, Moscow oblast (province), Central federal district, western Russia. It lies just northeast of the city of Moscow. The area, known as Kalininsky, developed after 1928 as an industrial satellite, particularly for weapons manufacture, and dormitory town of the capital. It achieved city status and was renamed Kaliningrad in 1938. In 1996 the city was renamed in honour of the scientist

Neosho River

It has a drainage area of 12,660 square miles (32,789 square km), and flow at its mouth varies from 133,000 cubic feet (3,800 cubic m) per second to as little as 35 cubic feet (1 cubic m). In Kansas,

Esquimalt

District municipality and western suburb of metropolitan Victoria, southwestern British Columbia, Canada, at the southeastern end of Vancouver Island, on Juan de Fuca Strait. The name means “place of gradually shoaling waters” in the local Indian language. Its harbour was visited (1790) by Manuel Quimper of the Spanish navy, who called it Puerto de Cordova to honour the

Wandering Jew

In horticulture, any of several popular houseplants in the family Commelinaceae. See spiderwort; Zebrina.

Ibn Al-athir

Ibn al-Athir spent a scholarly life in Mosul, but often visited Baghdad. He was for a time with Saladin's army in Syria and later lived in Aleppo and Damascus. His chief work was a history of the world, al-Kamil fi at-tarikh (“The Complete History”), starting with

General Strike

The idea of a general strike, as a deliberate part of the tactics of collective bargaining, apparently began in Great Britain

Nagaland, The land

Nearly all of Nagaland is mountainous. In the north, the Naga Hills rise abruptly from the Brahmaputra valley to about 2,000 feet (610 metres) and then increase in elevation toward the southeast to more than 6,000 feet. The mountains merge with the Patkai Range along the Myanmar border, reaching a maximum height of 12,552 feet (3,826 metres) at Mount Saramati. The region is deeply dissected by rivers: