Fargue, Léon-paul

Before he reached 20 years of age, Fargue had already published his important poem Tancrède in the magazine Pan (1895; published in book form in 1911) and had become a member of the Symbolist circle connected with Le Mercure de France. His first collection of verse, Poèmes, was published

Meuse-argonne, Battles Of The

Following the German retreat from the Marne River in July, General Ferdinand Foch and the Allied high command designed a series of convergent and practically simultaneous offensives against the shaken German armies. One was a joint operation in the Meuse valley toward the Mézière and

Arzew

Also spelled  Arzeu,   port town, northwestern Algeria. Arzew lies near the mouth of the Wadi Mehgoun. Its natural harbour on the Mediterranean is sheltered by a mountainous promontory between the gulfs of Oran and Arzew. Arzew was an Almohad port in the 1100s. It was visited by Italian merchants in the 14th and 15th centuries and was captured and fortified by the Turks in the 16th. Occupied by the Algerian

Gtsang Dynasty

Also spelled  gTsang  (c. 1565–1642), Chinese royal dynasty whose rule was centred in the province of Gtsang, or gTsang. The Gtsang was the last secular native ruling house in Tibet. After overthrowing the previous Rin-spung rulers of the country around 1565, the Gtsang kings allied themselves with the powerful Karma-pa, or Red Hat, order of Buddhists and opposed the new reformed Dge-lugs-pa, or Yellow Hat, Buddhists,

Gulper

Any of nine species of deep-sea fish constituting three families, placed by some authorities in the order Anguilliformes (eels) and by others in a distinct order, Saccopharyngiformes (or Lyomeri). Gulpers range to depths of 2,700 m (9,000 feet) or more. The members of one family, Monognathidae, have mouths of normal proportions, but the other gulpers (Eurypharyngidae and Saccopharyngidae)

Mexico, Relief

Mexico is located in one of the Earth's most dynamic tectonic areas. It is a part of the circum-Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region of active volcanism and frequent seismic activity. Towering peaks, such as Citlaltépetl (also called Orizaba; 18,701 feet [5,700 metres]) and Popocatépetl (17,883 feet [5,452 metres]), are extremely young in geologic terms (late Tertiary) and are examples of the volcanic forces

Augustus, Caesar

The death in 12 BC of Lepidus enabled Augustus finally to succeed him as the official head of the Roman religion, the chief priest (pontifex maximus). In the same year, Agrippa, too, died. Augustus compelled his widow, Julia, to marry Tiberius against both their wishes. During the next three years, however, Tiberius was away in the field, reducing Pannonia (Yugoslavia and Hungary)

Steglitz

The district was among the most severely damaged parts of Berlin in World War II; bombs destroyed nearly half its houses. Today northern Steglitz is urban in character,

Wychavon

District, administrative county of Worcestershire, west-central England, in the southeastern part of the county. Most of the district is in the historic county of Worcestershire, but the area around Hinton and Childwickham and the parishes of Ashton-under-Hill and Kemerton belong the historic county of Gloucestershire. Wychavon district consists mostly of the

Devonshire, William Cavendish, 1st Duke Of, Marquess Of Hartington, Earl Of Devonshire, Baron Cavendish Of Hardwick

Cavendish was the eldest son of the 3rd earl of Devonshire (and succeeded to the title in 1684). On his return from a youthful grand

Novella

Short and well-structured narrative, often realistic and satiric in tone, that influenced the development of the short story and the novel throughout Europe. Originating in Italy during the Middle Ages, the novella was based on local events that were humorous, political, or amorous in nature; the individual tales often were gathered into collections along with

Anicca

Sanskrit  Anitya,   in Buddhism, the doctrine of impermanence, one of the basic characteristics of all existence. Anicca, anatta (the absence of a self), and dukkha (“suffering”) together make up the ti-lakkhana, or three characteristics of all phenomenal existence. That the human body is subject to change is empirically observable in the universal states of childhood, youth, maturity, and old

Saxhorn

Any of a family of brass wind instruments patented by the Belgian instrument-maker Antoine-Joseph Sax, known as Adolphe Sax, in Paris in 1845. Saxhorns, one of many 19th-century developments from the valved bugle, provided military bands with a homogeneous series of valved brass in place of the miscellany of valved instruments that had come into use since 1825 (such as flügelhorns,