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Victoria, state, Australia

(Encyclopedia)Victoria vĭktôˈrēə [key], state (2016 pop. 5,926,624), 87,884 sq mi (227,620 sq km), SE Australia. It is bounded on the S and E by the Indian Ocean, Bass Strait, and the Tasman Sea. Melbourne is ...

Lucerne

(Encyclopedia)Lucerne lo͞otsĕrnˈ [key], canton (1993 pop. 331,800), 576 sq mi (1,492 sq km), central Switzerland. Drained by the Reuss and Kleine Emme rivers, Lucerne is mainly an agricultural and pastoral regio...

Grosseteste, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Grosseteste, Robert grōsˈtĕst [key], c.1175–1253, English prelate. Educated at Oxford and probably also at Paris, he became one of the most learned men of his time. He taught at Oxford and later,...

Roth, Philip

(Encyclopedia)Roth, Philip (Philip Milton Roth), 1933–2018, American author, one of the most important novelists of the 20th cent., b. Newark, N.J., B.A. Bucknell Univ., 1954, M.A. Univ. of Chicago, 1955. His wri...

Bethlehem, town, West Bank

(Encyclopedia)Bethlehem bĕthˈlĭhĕm, –lēəm [key] [Heb.,=house of bread or house of Lahm, a g...

John XXIII, Saint, pope

(Encyclopedia)John XXIII, Saint, 1881–1963, pope (1958–63), an Italian (b. Sotto il Monte, near Bergamo) named Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli; successor of Pius XII. He was of peasant stock. Educated at Bergamo and t...

Huns

(Encyclopedia)Huns, nomadic and pastoral people of unknown ethnological affinities who appeared in Europe in the 4th cent. a.d., and built up an empire there. They were organized in a predominantly military manner....

cuckoo

(Encyclopedia)cuckoo, common name for members of the extensive avian family Cuculidae, including the ani and the roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus), widely distributed in temperate and tropical regions. Cuckoos a...

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de

(Encyclopedia)Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de sərvănˈtēz, Span. mēgĕlˈ dā thĕrvänˈtās säˌävāᵺrä [key], 1547–1616, Spanish novelist, dramatist, and poet, author of Don Quixote de la Mancha, b. Alc...

Mongols

(Encyclopedia)Mongols mŏngˈgəlz, –gōlz [key], Asian people, numbering about 6 million and distributed mainly in the Republic of Mongolia, the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of China, and Kalmykia and the B...