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Senghor, Léopold Sédar

(Encyclopedia)Senghor, Léopold Sédar lāôpôldˈ sādärˈ säNgôrˈ [key], 1906–2001, African statesman and poet; president (1960–80) of the Republic of Senegal, b. Joal. The son of a prosperous landowner,...

Villon, François

(Encyclopedia)Villon, François fräNswäˈ vēyôNˈ [key], 1431–1463?, French poet, b. Paris, whose original name was François de Montcorbier or François Des Loges. One of the earliest great poets of France, ...

vapor pressure

(Encyclopedia)vapor pressure, pressure exerted by a vapor that is in equilibrium with its liquid. A liquid standing in a sealed beaker is actually a dynamic system: some molecules of the liquid are evaporating to f...

mirage

(Encyclopedia)mirage mĭräzhˈ [key], atmospheric optical illusion in which an observer sees in the distance a nonexistent body of water or an image, sometimes distorted, of some object or of a complete scene. Exa...

Gothic revival

(Encyclopedia)Gothic revival, term designating a return to the building styles of the Middle Ages. Although the Gothic revival was practiced throughout Europe, it attained its greatest importance in the United Stat...

Diaghilev, Sergei Pavlovich

(Encyclopedia)Diaghilev, Sergei Pavlovich syĭrgāˈ pävˈləvĭch dyäˈgĭlyĭf [key], 1872–1929, Russian ballet impresario and art critic, grad. St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music, 1892. In 1898 he founded ...

Commune of Paris

(Encyclopedia)Commune of Paris, insurrectionary governments in Paris formed during (1792) the French Revolution and at the end (1871) of the Franco-Prussian War. In the French Revolution, the Revolutionary commune,...

Sembene, Ousmane

(Encyclopedia)Sembene, Ousmane o͝osmäˈnĕ səmbĕˈnĕ [key], 1923–2007, Senegalese author and film director who wrote and made films in French and Wolof, often regarded as the father of sub-Saharan African ci...

Sullivan, Louis Henry

(Encyclopedia)Sullivan, Louis Henry, 1856–1924, American architect, b. Boston, studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. He is of great importance in the evolution...

Mahfouz, Naguib

(Encyclopedia)Mahfouz, Naguib nəgēbˈ mäkhfo͞osˈ [key], 1911–2006, Egyptian novelist and short-story writer, b. Cairo. After his graduation (1934) from Cairo Univ., he worked in various government ministries...