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Armstrong, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Armstrong, Henry, 1912–88, American boxer, b. Columbus, Miss. He was originally named Henry Jackson. He began his professional career in 1931, and soon became known as a strong and tireless puncher....

Romberg, Sigmund

(Encyclopedia)Romberg, Sigmund rŏmˈbûrg [key], 1887–1951, Hungarian-American composer, educated in Vienna. He came to the United States in 1909, played in restaurant and café orchestras, and soon had his own ...

White Sands

(Encyclopedia)White Sands, uninhabited desert area, S central N.Mex. It is a center for U.S. military-weapons research and testing. On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was exploded at Holloman Air Force Base (f...

Younghusband, Sir Francis Edward

(Encyclopedia)Younghusband, Sir Francis Edward, 1863–1942, British explorer, b. India. He explored Manchuria in 1886. The following year he journeyed from China to India, crossing the Gobi desert and the Mustagh ...

Abbey, Edward Paul

(Encyclopedia)Abbey, Edward Paul, 1927–1989, American writer and environmentalist, b. Indiana, Pa., grad. Univ. of New Mexico (B.A. 1951, M.A. 1956). An ardent, sometimes abrasive advocate for the wilderness of t...

pheromones

(Encyclopedia)pheromones, any of a variety of substances, secreted by many animal species, that alter the behavior of individuals of the same species. Sex attractant pheromones, secreted by a male or female to attr...

phlox

(Encyclopedia)phlox, common name for plants of the genus Phlox and for members of the Polemoniaceae, a family of herbs (and some shrubs and vines) found chiefly in the W United States. The family includes many popu...

Piura

(Encyclopedia)Piura pyo͞oˈrä [key], city (1993 pop. 199,484), capital of Piura dept., NW Peru, in the irrigated Piura valley of the Peruvian coastal desert. It is the commercial center for the region's cotton, s...

Ai Weiwei

(Encyclopedia)Ai Weiwei īˈ wāwā [key], 1957–, Chinese artist, architect, filmmaker, and political activist. He is the son of poet Ai Ch'ing, who was internally exiled (1958–76) to work camps with his family...

Ba'ath party

(Encyclopedia)Ba'ath party bäˈäth [key], Arab political party, in Syria and in Iraq. Founded in Damascus in 1941 with an ideology of secularism, socialism, and pan-Arab unionism, it was reformed with the name Ba...