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circle

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Circle circle, closed plane curve consisting of all points at a given distance from some fixed point, called the center. A circle is a conic section cut by a plane perpendicular to the axis of...

Westmorland, Ralph Neville, 1st earl of

(Encyclopedia)Westmorland, Ralph Neville, 1st earl of, 1364–1425, English nobleman. His family was one of the most powerful in England and shared domination of the northern counties with the Percy family, with wh...

marathon race

(Encyclopedia)marathon race, long-distance foot race deriving its name from Marathon, Greece. According to legend, in 490 b.c., Pheidippides, a runner from Marathon, carried news of victory over the Persians to Ath...

Loire, river, France

(Encyclopedia)Loire, longest river of France, c.630 mi (1,010 km) long, rising in the Cévennes Mts., SE France, and flowing in an arc through central and W France to the Atlantic Ocean at Saint-Nazaire. The upper ...

Tesla, Nikola

(Encyclopedia)Tesla, Nikola tĕsˈlə [key], 1856–1943, American electrician and inventor, b. Croatia (then an Austrian province). An ethnic Serb, he immigrated to the United States in 1884, worked for a short pe...

Bohigas, Oriol

(Encyclopedia) Bohigas, Oriol, 1925-2021, Spanish modernist architect, b. Barcelona, Spain, as Oriol Bohigas i Guardiola, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de...

Royal Opera

(Encyclopedia)Royal Opera, one of the principal British opera companies, based at the Royal Opera House (which it shares with the Royal Ballet) in Covent Garden, London. Formed in 1946 as the Covent Garden Opera Co...

Bolcom, William

(Encyclopedia)Bolcom, William (William Elden Bolcom), 1938–, American composer, b. Seattle, Wash. He attended the Univ. of Washington (B.A., 1958) and studied composition at Mills College and Stanford (D.M.A., 19...

Anderson, Maxwell

(Encyclopedia)Anderson, Maxwell, 1888–1959, American dramatist, b. Atlantic, Pa., grad. Univ. of North Dakota, 1911. His plays, many of which are written in verse, usually concern social and moral problems. Ander...

Uruguay , river, South America

(Encyclopedia)Uruguay yo͝oˈrəgwā, gwī, Span. o͞oro͞ogwiˈ, o͞oro͞owīˈ [key], river, c.1,000 mi (1,610 km) long, rising in S Brazil and flowing in an arc W, SW, and S to the Río de la Plata, an estuary; ...