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Whittle, Sir Frank

(Encyclopedia)Whittle, Sir Frank, 1907–96, English aeronautical engineer. Whittle was one of the first persons to associate the gas turbine with jet propulsion. Previously the gas turbine had been regarded as a m...

Bloch, Marc

(Encyclopedia)Bloch, Marc blôk [key], 1886–1944, French historian and an authority on medieval feudalism. He taught at the Univ. of Strasbourg from 1919, became professor at the Sorbonne in 1936, and was cofound...

bobsledding

(Encyclopedia)bobsledding, winter sport in which a bobsled—a partially enclosed vehicle with steerable sledlike runners, accommodating two or four persons—hurtles down a course of iced, steeply banked, twisting...

Montgomery, Bernard Law, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein

(Encyclopedia)Montgomery, Bernard Law, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein məntgŭmˈərē, ăləmānˈ [key], 1887–1976, British field marshal. Educated at Sandhurst, he entered the army in 1908 and served in Wo...

Mercier, Désiré Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Mercier, Désiré Joseph dāzērāˈ zhôzĕfˈ mârsēāˈ [key], 1851–1926, Belgian churchman, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was ordained in 1874 and eight years later became professor...

Maginot Line

(Encyclopedia)Maginot Line măzhˈĭnō, Fr. mäzhēnōˈ [key], system of fortifications along the eastern frontier of France, extending from the Swiss border to the Belgian. It was named for André Maginot, who w...

Francis Ferdinand

(Encyclopedia)Francis Ferdinand, 1863–1914, Austrian archduke, heir apparent (after 1889) of his uncle, Emperor Francis Joseph. In 1900 he married a Czech, Sophie Chotek. She was made duchess of Hohenberg, but be...

Rokossovsky, Konstantin

(Encyclopedia)Rokossovsky, Konstantin kənstəntyēnˈ rŏkŏs-sôfˈskē [key], 1896–1968, Soviet general, b. Warsaw. He entered the czarist army and in 1917 joined the Bolshevik forces in the Russian Revolution...

Sibiu

(Encyclopedia)Sibiu sēbyo͝oˈ [key], Ger. Hermannstadt, Hung. Nagyszeben, city (1990 pop. 188,385), central Romania, at the foot of the Transylvanian Alps. There are mechanical engineering works and industries pr...

Pirenne, Henri

(Encyclopedia)Pirenne, Henri äNrēˈ pērĕnˈ [key], 1862–1935, Belgian historian. He was for many years a professor of history at the Univ. of Ghent. A leader of Belgian passive resistance in World War I, he w...