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Townshend, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Townshend, Charles, 1725–67, English statesman; grandson of the 2d Viscount Townshend. Distrusted for his marked instability, he held relatively minor offices until the 1st earl of Chatham made him ...

Shantou

(Encyclopedia)Shantou swäˈtouˈ [key], city (1994 est. pop. 718,800), SE Guangdong prov., China, a port on the South China Sea, in the Han River delta. When it was opened to foreign trade after the second Opium W...

police court

(Encyclopedia)police court, court with jurisdiction limited to minor offenses, chiefly the least grave misdemeanors and breaches of municipal ordinances. In practice the trial is usually held before a judge sitting...

Pharnabazus

(Encyclopedia)Pharnabazus färnəbāˈzəs [key], d. after 374 b.c., Persian governor. He had an important satrapy in Asia Minor under Darius II and Artaxerxes II. He was responsible for the assassination (404 b.c....

Orkhon

(Encyclopedia)Orkhon ôrˈkŏn, ôr-khŏnˈ [key], river, c.300 mi (480 km) long, rising in the Khangai Mts., N central Republic of Mongolia, and flowing east, then north, past the site of ancient Karakorum, and th...

Peter the Hermit

(Encyclopedia)Peter the Hermit, c.1050–1115, French religious leader. In 1095 he was a very successful preacher of the First Crusade (see Crusades), and he led one of its bands. In 1096 he reached Constantinople ...

ephemeris

(Encyclopedia)ephemeris ĭfĕmˈərĭs [key] (pl., ephemerides), table listing the position of one or more celestial bodies for each day of the year. The French publication Connaissance de Temps is the oldest of th...

Herodotus

(Encyclopedia)Herodotus hērŏdˈətəs [key], 484?–425? b.c., Greek historian, called the Father of History, b. Halicarnassus, Asia Minor. Only scant knowledge of his life can be gleaned from his writings and fr...

Pergamum

(Encyclopedia)Pergamum pûrˈgəməm [key], ancient city of NW Asia Minor, in Mysia (modern Turkey), in the fertile valley of the Caicus. It became important c.300 b.c., after the breakup of the Macedonian empire, ...

Homer, Winslow

(Encyclopedia)Homer, Winslow, 1836–1910, American landscape, marine, and genre painter. Homer was born in Boston, where he later worked as a lithographer and illustrator. In 1861 he was sent to the Civil War batt...