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South Orkney Islands

(Encyclopedia)South Orkney Islands, group in the South Atlantic, c.850 mi (1,370 km) SE of Cape Horn. Discovered in 1821, they were claimed by the British and are included as dependencies of the colony of the Falkl...

Siegfried and Roy

(Encyclopedia) Siegfried and Roy (Siegfried Fischbacher, 1939-2021, b. Rosenheim, Germany; and Roy Uwe Ludwig Horn, 1944-2020, b. Nordenham, Germany), noted German-A...

Arch, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Arch, Joseph, 1826–1919, English labor leader, a Primitive Methodist preacher. He founded the National Agricultural Labourers Union in 1872 and became its president. In 1873, Arch visited Canada and...

trombone

(Encyclopedia)trombone [Ital.,=large trumpet], brass wind musical instrument of cylindrical bore, twice bent on itself, having a sliding section that lengthens or shortens it and thus regulates the pitch. The desce...

Mississippi Sound

(Encyclopedia)Mississippi Sound, arm of the Gulf of Mexico, c.100 mi (160 km) long and from 7 to 15 mi (11–24 km) wide, extending from Lake Borgne in Louisiana on the west to Mobile Bay in Alabama on the east. It...

Ligeti, György

(Encyclopedia)Ligeti, György, 1923–2006, Hungarian composer. He studied music in Romania and Hungary, and was a teacher at the Budapest Academy of Music until he fled to Vienna (1956) after the Soviet invasion o...

celluloid

(Encyclopedia)celluloid [from cellulose], transparent, colorless synthetic plastic made by treating cellulose nitrate with camphor and alcohol. Celluloid was the first important synthetic plastic and was widely use...

Family Compact, in French and Spanish history

(Encyclopedia)Family Compact, several alliances between France and Spain in the form of agreements between the French and Spanish branches of the Bourbon family. The first of the three compacts, the Treaty of the E...

Millet, Jean François, 1814–75, French painter

(Encyclopedia)Millet, Jean François, 1814–75, French painter. He was born into a poor farming family. In 1837 an award enabled him to go to Paris, where he studied with Delaroche. In 1849 he settled in Barbizon,...

Sabatier, Paul, French Protestant clergyman and historian

(Encyclopedia)Sabatier, Paul, 1858–1928, French Protestant clergyman and historian; brother of Auguste Sabatier. Ill health required his withdrawal from the active ministry, and he went to Assisi, Italy; there he...