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Albumazar

(Encyclopedia)Albumazar älˌbo͞omäˈzər [key], 805?–885, Arab astronomer, more fully Abu-Mashar Jafar ibn Muhammad. In his De magnis conjunctionibus he claimed that the world had been created when the seven p...

Astyages

(Encyclopedia)Astyages ăstīˈəjēz [key], fl. 6th cent. b.c., king of the Medes (584–c.550 b.c.), son and successor of Cyaxares. His rule was harsh, and he was unpopular. His daughter is alleged to have marrie...

Shaki, city, Azerbaijan

(Encyclopedia)Shaki shĕkˈ– [key], city (1989 pop. 56,223), N Azerbaijan, on the southern slopes of the Caucasus. It is a silk and manufacturing center in a district that grows fruit and rice. Until its annexati...

minaret

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Minaret minaret mĭnərĕtˈ [key], tower, used in Islamic architecture, from which the faithful are called to prayer by a muezzin. Most mosques have one or more small towers, which are usuall...

Omar Khayyam

(Encyclopedia)Omar Khayyam kīämˈ [key], fl. 11th cent., Persian poet and mathematician, b. Nishapur. He was called Khayyam [tentmaker] probably because of his father's occupation. The details of his life are mos...

Bell, Gertrude Margaret Lowthian

(Encyclopedia)Bell, Gertrude Margaret Lowthian lōˈᵺēən [key], 1868–1926, British traveler, author, and government official, one of the builders of the modern state of Iraq, grad. Oxford, 1887. From 1899 on ...

Chitré

(Encyclopedia)Chitré chētrāˈ [key], city, S Panama, near the Gulf of Panama. It is capital of the Herre...

Heraclea

(Encyclopedia)Heraclea hĕrəklēˈə [key], ancient Greek city, in Lucania, S Italy, not far from the Gulf of Tarentum (Taranto). There Pyrrhus defeated the Romans in 280 b.c. Bronze tablets giving Roman municipal...

Pearl, river, United States

(Encyclopedia)Pearl, river, 485 mi (781 km) long, rising in E Miss. and flowing S to Lake Borgne, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico; its lower section (116 mi/187 km) forms the Miss.-La. boundary. Above Jackson, Miss....

Largo

(Encyclopedia)Largo, town (1990 pop. 65,674), Pinellas co., W Fla., on the Pinellas peninsula and the Gulf Coast, across the bay from Tampa; settled 1853, inc. 1905. It is a packing, canning, and shipping center in...