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isthmus

(Encyclopedia)isthmus ĭsˈməs [key], narrow neck of land connecting two larger land areas. Since it commands the only land route between two large areas and is on two seas, an isthmus has great strategical and co...

Manitoba

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Manitoba mănĭtōˈbə [key], province (2001 pop. 1,119,583), 250,934 sq mi (650,930 sq km), including 39,215 sq mi (101,580 sq km) of water surface, W central Canada. The history of Manit...

Palmer, Nathaniel Brown

(Encyclopedia)Palmer, Nathaniel Brown, 1799–1877, American sea captain and antarctic explorer, b. Stonington, Conn. While on a whaling voyage (1820–21) in the South Shetlands, he commanded the Hero on an explor...

conducting

(Encyclopedia)conducting, in music, the art of unifying the efforts of a number of musicians simultaneously engaged in musical performance. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance the conductor was primarily a time beat...

Schiller, Ferdinand Canning Scott

(Encyclopedia)Schiller, Ferdinand Canning Scott shĭlˈər [key], 1864–1937, British philosopher. Schiller studied at Oxford and was professor of philosophy there (1897–1926) and at the Univ. of Southern Califo...

Ohio Company of Associates

(Encyclopedia)Ohio Company of Associates, organization for the purchase and settlement of lands on the Ohio River, founded at Boston in 1786. Its organizers were a group of New England men, most of them former Amer...

Shelburne

(Encyclopedia)Shelburne, town (1990 pop. 5,871) in Chittenden co., NW Vermont, 7 mi (11 km) S of Burlington on the banks of Lake Champlain. A popular resort, Shelburne is also a center for local lumber and dairy in...

Spaulding, Elbridge Gerry

(Encyclopedia)Spaulding, Elbridge Gerry, 1809–97, U.S. banker and politician, b. Locke (now Summer Hill), N.Y. A lawyer practicing in Buffalo, N.Y., after 1834, he gradually became a banker there and was active i...

Emancipation, Edict of

(Encyclopedia)Emancipation, Edict of, 1861, the mechanism by which Czar Alexander II freed all Russian serfs (one third of the total population). All personal serfdom was abolished, and the peasants were to receive...

Dionysius the Elder

(Encyclopedia)Dionysius the Elder, c.430–367 b.c., tyrant of Syracuse. Of humble origin, he entered politics as a supporter of the poorer classes. Having prompted (400 b.c.) a measure to elect truly democratic ge...