A-Z Browse

Reformation scholar and Lutheran bishop who was responsible for the successful implantation of Lutheranism in Iceland....

Thorns represent the modification of an axillary shoot system in which the leaves are reduced and die quickly and the stems are heavily sclerified and grow for only a limited time (determinate growth). Thorns appear to protect the plant against herbivores. Examples are found in the Bougainvillea (Caryophyllales), where the thorn is a modified inflorescence, the honey locust (Gleditsia......

city, one of two capitals (with Bydgoszcz) of Kujawsko-Pomorskie województwo (province), north-central Poland, on the Vistula River. A river port, rail and road junction, and cultural centre, it is the birthplace (1473) of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikołaj Kopernik) and the seat of Nicolaus Coperni...

annual, herbaceous, tropical plant (Datura stramonium) of the potato family (Solanaceae) that has become an introduced weed throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere. The plant was used by Algonquin Indians in eastern North America as a hallucinogen and intoxicant. The leaves contain potent alkaloids (hyoscamine and hyoscine), and the plant has been used to develop a drug (stramon...

...builds a domed oven-shaped nest, but of plant materials on the forest floor. Some species, especially members of the Icteridae, make soft hanging nests that range to two feet or more in length. The thorn birds (Phacellodomus), as well as many other Furnariidae, build huge nests of twigs suspended from the ends of tree branches; these nests, which may be more than two metres (nearly seven...

dense, scrublike vegetation characteristic of dry subtropical and warm temperate areas with a seasonal rainfall averaging 250 to 500 millimetres (about 10 to 20 inches). This vegetation covers a large part of southwestern North America and southwestern Africa and smaller areas in Africa, South America, and Australia. In South America, thorn forest is sometimes called caatinga...

Luxembourgian politician who pursued his long-time advocacy of European integration throughout a distinguished career that extended far beyond the borders of Luxembourg. Thorn, a member of the Liberal Democrat Party, held several posts in Luxembourg’s government, including foreign minister (1969–80) and prime minister (1974–79). He was also president of the UN General Assembly...

American physician (b. Jan. 15, 1906, Buffalo, N.Y.—d. June 26, 2004, Beverly, Mass.), did groundbreaking work in the treatment of Addison disease and kidney failure. As physician in chief (1942–72) at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and Women’s Hospital) in Boston, Thorn developed an early test for Addison disease and began the use of cortisone to treat it, a major a...

city, Cook county, northeastern Illinois, U.S. It is a suburb of Chicago, about 30 miles (50 km) south of downtown. The city’s name derives from its proximity to Chicago and its elevation, which averages 95 feet (29 metres) above the surrounding area. The site was the intersection of two trails, the Hubbard (from Vincennes, Indiana, t...

Dutch painter, designer, and decorator in the Art Nouveau style. He was an important figure in modern religious art, best known for his use of symbolism in stained-glass windows....

Dutch painter, designer, and decorator in the Art Nouveau style. He was an important figure in modern religious art, best known for his use of symbolism in stained-glass windows....

dense, scrublike vegetation characteristic of dry subtropical and warm temperate areas with a seasonal rainfall averaging 250 to 500 millimetres (about 10 to 20 inches). This vegetation covers a large part of southwestern North America and southwestern Africa and smaller areas in Africa, South America, and Australia. In South America, thorn forest is sometimes called caatinga...

(1454–66), war between Poland and the Teutonic Knights that began as a revolt by the Prussian populace against their overlords, the Teutonic Knights, and was concluded by the Treaty of Toruń (Thorn; Oct. 19, 1466). In 1454 rebel Prussian groups petitioned Casimir IV of Poland for aid against the Knights. Casimir declared war on them, and in 1462 won the decisive Battle of Puck. In.....

any of a number of thorny shrubs or small trees of the genus Crataegus, in the rose family (Rosaceae), native to the North Temperate Zone. Many species are native to North America. The hawthorn’s leaves are simple, and usually toothed or lobed. The white or pink flowers, usually in clusters, are followed by small applelike, red fruits, or more rarely by blue or black ones. Many culti...

...inches) more toward its maximum recorded width of 25 centimetres (10 inches) in males or 31 centimetres (1214 inches) in females. The males of European thornback rays (Raja clavata) are about 50 centimetres (20 inches) wide when they reach first maturity, about seven years after birth; females are 60 to 70 centimetres (24 to 28 inches) at......

American actress and singer who electrified audiences with her explosive personality and high-spirited performances in musicals and comedies on the stage and screen. Hutton began performing for audiences at the age of three in her mother’s Detroit speakeasies during the Prohibition era. In 1937 she became the lead vocalist with the Vincent Lopez Orchestra, and in 1940 she found success on ...

...southern counterpart of the Mediterranean zone, although (with the exception of the Atlas Mountains) it is richer in its vegetation potential. There were once considerable enclaves of true evergreen bushland, which have reverted to shrubland (fynbos). Sclerophyllous foliage and proteas abound. Although grassy tracts occur on the mountains, they are characteristically unusual lower down.....

Savannas may be subdivided into three categories—wet, dry, and thornbush—depending on the length of the dry season. In wet savannas the dry season typically lasts 3 to 5 months, in dry savannas 5 to 7 months, and in thornbush savannas it is even longer. An alternative subdivision recognizes savanna woodland, with trees and shrubs forming a light canopy;......

...southern counterpart of the Mediterranean zone, although (with the exception of the Atlas Mountains) it is richer in its vegetation potential. There were once considerable enclaves of true evergreen bushland, which have reverted to shrubland (fynbos). Sclerophyllous foliage and proteas abound. Although grassy tracts occur on the mountains, they are characteristically unusual lower down.....

notable series of school dictionaries widely used in the United States. Their content is based on the theories of Edward Lee Thorndike, an educational psychologist, and Clarence Lewis Barnhart, lexicographer and editor, both pioneers in producing for school-aged readers dictionaries that were more than simplified versions of adult references....

English actress of remarkable versatility....

English actress of remarkable versatility....

American psychologist whose work on animal behaviour and the learning process led to the theory of connectionism, which states that behavioral responses to specific stimuli are established through a process of trial and error that affects neural connections between the stimuli and the most satisfying responses....

American psychologist whose work on animal behaviour and the learning process led to the theory of connectionism, which states that behavioral responses to specific stimuli are established through a process of trial and error that affects neural connections between the stimuli and the most satisfying responses....

...50 years old and with an eminent body of research behind him—was starting his work on classical conditioning. Thorndike’s typical experiment involved placing a cat inside a “puzzle box,” an apparatus from which the animal could escape and obtain food only by pressing a panel, opening a catch, or pulling on a loop of string. Thorndike measured the speed with......

...are followed by the delivery of a food pellet will press the lever again; if the only consequence of pressing the lever is the delivery of a painful shock, the rat will desist from this action. Thorndike’s law of effect—which stated that a behaviour followed by a satisfactory result was most likely to become an established response to a particular stimulus—was intended to.....

...stated that those behavioral responses that were most closely followed by a satisfying result were most likely to become established patterns and to occur again in response to the same stimulus. The law of exercise stated that behaviour is more strongly established through frequent connections of stimulus and response. In 1932 Thorndike determined that the second of his laws was not entirely......

...Virginia Woolf?Art Direction, Color: Dale Hennesy and Jack Martin Smith for Fantastic VoyageOriginal Music Score: John Barry for Born FreeScoring of Music Adaptation or Treatment: Ken Thorne for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the ForumSong Original for the Picture: “Born Free” from Born Free; music by John Barry, lyrics by Don......

American children’s author whose writing tended to either heartrending fiction about desolate children or lively, factual nature pieces....

A self-taught musician, Evans started his first band in 1933, first leading it and later working as pianist and arranger. From 1941 to 1948, he worked as an arranger with Claude Thornhill’s band, devising the unique instrumentation that was to become a trademark of his early years: a standard big-band lineup, plus French horns and tuba. Evans used similar instrumentation for his two......

English painter, the first to excel in historical painting, whose style was in the Italian Baroque tradition....

thorny vinelike plant of the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae), popular as a houseplant and in the tropics as a garden shrub. Flowering is year-round, but most plentiful in wintertime in the Northern Hemisphere. The sprawling, branching, vinelike stems attain lengths of more than two metres (seven feet). Native to Madagascar, crown of thorns has stout, gray spines, oval leaves that drop as they age, a...

the wreath of thorns was placed on the head of Jesus Christ at his crucifixion, whereby the Roman soldiers mocked his title of “King of the Jews.” A relic purported to be the Crown of Thorns was transferred from Jerusalem to Constantinople by 1063. The French king Louis IX (St. Louis) took the relic to Paris about 1238 and had the Sainte-Chapelle built (1242...

A major contribution to climate grouping was made by the American geographer-climatologist C. Warren Thornthwaite in 1931 and 1948. He first used a vegetation-based approach that made use of the derived concepts of temperature efficiency and precipitation effectiveness as a means of specifying atmospheric effects on vegetation. His second classification retained these concepts in the form of a......

American singer and songwriter who performed in the tradition of classic blues singers such as Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie. Her work inspired imitation by Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin, who recorded popular cover versions of Thornton’s “Hound Dog” and “Ball and Chain,” respectively....

Original Screenplay: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen for FargoAdapted Screenplay: Billy Bob Thornton for Sling BladeCinematography: John Seale for The English PatientArt Direction: Stuart Craig for The English PatientOriginal Dramatic Score: Gabriel Yared for The English PatientOriginal Musical or Comedy Score:......

diversified U.S. multinational corporation founded in 1953 by Charles Bates “Tex” Thornton (1913–81). Its more than 80 divisions provide products and services ranging from electronic and electrical components and equipment to aerospace and marine systems and equipment. It is headquartered in Beverly Hills, Calif. Among Litton’s popularly known brand-name products are L...

English economist, banker, and philanthropist who made significant contributions to monetary theory....

coral formation in the Central and Southern Line Islands, part of Kiribati, in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, about 450 miles (720 km) northwest of Tahiti. With a total area of 1.45 square miles (3.76 square km), it is made up of 20 islets that rise to 20 feet (6 metres) above mean sea level and enclose a shallow lagoon t...

...segregated brachiopods, gastropods (class of mollusk containing present-day snails and slugs), crinoids (class of echinoderm containing present-day sea lilies and feather stars), and trilobites. The Thornton Reef Complex outside Chicago is an example of a well-zoned Wenlock complex more than 1 km (0.6 mile) in diameter. Others are well known from the Silurian of Manitoulin Island (Ontario,......

diversified U.S. multinational corporation founded in 1953 by Charles Bates “Tex” Thornton (1913–81). Its more than 80 divisions provide products and services ranging from electronic and electrical components and equipment to aerospace and marine systems and equipment. It is headquartered in Beverly Hills, Calif. Among Litton’s popularly known brand-name products are L...

British-born American architect, inventor, and public official, best known as the creator of the original design for the Capitol at Washington, D.C....

American singer and songwriter who performed in the tradition of classic blues singers such as Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie. Her work inspired imitation by Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin, who recorded popular cover versions of Thornton’s “Hound Dog” and “Ball and Chain,” respectively....

...southern counterpart of the Mediterranean zone, although (with the exception of the Atlas Mountains) it is richer in its vegetation potential. There were once considerable enclaves of true evergreen bushland, which have reverted to shrubland (fynbos). Sclerophyllous foliage and proteas abound. Although grassy tracts occur on the mountains, they are characteristically unusual lower down.....

Stony corals (order Madreporaria or Scleractinia) number about 1,000 species; black corals and thorny corals (Antipatharia), about 100 species; horny corals, or gorgonians (Gorgonacea), about 1,200 species; and blue corals (Coenothecalia), one living species....

small (20-centimetre- [8-inch-] long), squat, orange and brown Australian lizard of the Old World family Agamidae. Moloch is entirely covered with thornlike spines, the largest projecting from the snout and over each eye. The shape of its body and many of its habits are similar to those of horned lizards of North America, which are in the family Iguanidae. Both are flattened, ha...

English sculptor who executed many public monuments....

English naval architect and engineer who made fundamental improvements in the design and machinery of torpedo boats and built the first torpedo boat for the Royal Navy....

English sculptor who executed many public monuments....

writer commonly known as the father of the Icelandic novel....

writer commonly known as the father of the Icelandic novel....

city, regional municipality of Niagara, southeastern Ontario, Canada. It lies along the Welland Ship Canal, 4 miles (6.5 km) south of St. Catharines. Founded in 1788 and named after a British member of Parliament, Sir John Thorold, the town grew with the development of the canal, beginning in 1829. Thorold is now an industrial and shipping centre, on the edge ...

Radon-220 (thoron; 51.5-second half-life) was first observed (1899) by the British scientists R.B. Owens and Ernest Rutherford, who noticed that some of the radioactivity of thorium compounds could be blown away. Radon-219 (actinon; 3.92-second half-life) was found (1904), associated with actinium, independently by Friedrich O. Giesel and......

in music, a system of partially improvised accompaniment played on a bass line, usually on a keyboard instrument. The use of basso continuo was customary during the 17th and 18th centuries, when only the bass line was written out, or “thorough” (archaic spelling of “through”), giving considerable leeway to the keyboard player, usually an organist or harpsichordist, in t...

breed of horse developed in England for racing and jumping (see ). The origin of the Thoroughbred may be traced back to records indicating that a stock of Arab and Barb horses was introduced into England as early as the 3rd century. Natural conditions favoured development of the original stock, and selective breeding was encouraged by those interested i...

breed of horse developed in England for racing and jumping (see ). The origin of the Thoroughbred may be traced back to records indicating that a stock of Arab and Barb horses was introduced into England as early as the 3rd century. Natural conditions favoured development of the original stock, and selective breeding was encouraged by those interested i...

...the Heat of the NightCinematography: Burnett Guffey for Bonnie and ClydeArt Direction: Edward Carrere and John Truscott for CamelotOriginal Music Score: Elmer Bernstein for Thoroughly Modern MillieScoring of Music Adaptation or Treatment: Ken Darby and Alfred Newman for CamelotSong Original for the Picture: “Talk to the Animals”......

any of about 40 species of herbaceous plants constituting the genus Eupatorium of the composite family Asteraceae, native primarily to tropical America. The North American plant known as boneset is E. perfoliatum, also known as agueweed and Indian sage. It is common in wet places and is a coarse, rough, hairy perennial about 0.6 to 1.8 metres (2 to 6 feet) high. It...

American inventor of the ring spinning machine (1828), which by the 1860s had largely replaced Samuel Crompton’s spinning mule in the world’s textile mills because of its greater productivity and simplicity....

American humorist and one of the most effective portrayers of American frontier life and character before Mark Twain....

...Possession (1990) did so with particular intelligence. It also made extensive use of period pastiche, another enthusiasm of novelists toward the end of the 20th century. Adam Thorpe’s striking first novel, Ulverton (1992), records the 300-year history of a fictional village in the styles of different epochs. Golding’s veteran ficti...

British-born Australian rock icon who as front man for the Aztecs, was regarded as the father of Australian pub rock. Thorpe was known as much for his showmanship as for his musicianship, and the band’s shows were marked by high energy and great volume. Thorpe formed his first band, the Planets, in 1957 in Brisbane, Queen. At the age of 17 he moved to Sydney, where he formed the beat combo...

...foundations of its expansion began to broaden the conception of logistics to encompass industrial mobilization and the war economy. Reflecting this trend, a U.S. marine officer, Lieutenant Colonel Cyrus Thorpe, published his Pure Logistics in 1917, arguing that the logical function of logistics, as the third member of the strategy–tactics–logistics trinity, was to provide.....

Australian athlete, who was the most successful swimmer in that country’s history, accumulating five Olympic gold medals and 11 world championship titles between 1998 and 2004....

one of the most accomplished all-around athletes in history, who in 1950 was selected by American sportswriters and broadcasters as the greatest American athlete and the greatest gridiron football player of the first half of the 20th century....

...not rooted in class loyalty. From the early 1960s on, the party enjoyed spectacular by-election successes; fueled by these performances, an increasing number of Liberal candidates was fielded. Under Jeremy Thorpe the party made substantial progress in the 1974 general election, returning almost 20 percent of the popular vote. The charismatic Thorpe himself fell victim to a scandal in which mone...

one of the most accomplished all-around athletes in history, who in 1950 was selected by American sportswriters and broadcasters as the greatest American athlete and the greatest gridiron football player of the first half of the 20th century....

American poet and writer, remembered largely for a single narrative poem that gained national popularity....

chemist and director of British government laboratories (1894–1909) who, with a number of specialists, published A Dictionary of Applied Chemistry (1890–93). After obtaining his doctorate from the University of Heidelberg (1869), he held teaching posts in Glasgow and Leeds and the chair in chemistry at the Royal College of Science (later the Imperial College of Science and Tec...

...join this fringe, the would-be publisher had only to get hold of a manuscript, by fair means or foul, enter it as his copy (or dispense with the formality), and have it printed. Just such a man was Thomas Thorpe, the publisher of Shakespeare’s sonnets (1609); the mysterious “Mr. W.H.” in the dedication is thought by some to be the person who procured him his copy. The first...

American humorist and one of the most effective portrayers of American frontier life and character before Mark Twain....

American humorist and one of the most effective portrayers of American frontier life and character before Mark Twain....

British-born Australian rock icon who as front man for the Aztecs, was regarded as the father of Australian pub rock. Thorpe was known as much for his showmanship as for his musicianship, and the band’s shows were marked by high energy and great volume. Thorpe formed his first band, the Planets, in 1957 in Brisbane, Queen. At the age of 17 he moved to Sydney, where he formed the beat combo...

five-time Icelandic prime minister (1942, 1944–46, 1949–50, 1953–56, 1959–63)....

port and capital of the Faeroe Islands. It is situated at the southern tip of Streymoy, the largest island of the Faeroe Islands. Tórshavn was founded in the 13th century, but it remained only a small village for several centuries thereafter. The ancient Lagting, or Faeroese parliament, used to meet on Tinganaes, a promontory that cuts Tórshavn harbour into two parts. The Lagting now...

Icelandic patriotic poet and lyricist, best remembered as a translator of many important works into Icelandic....

...is a by-product from uranium processing—the scandium, which may be present in amounts up to five parts per million, being recovered from the uranium solution. There is, however, a rare mineral thortveitite—found in Norway—that contains up to 34 percent scandia, Sc2O3....

...they set sail southward, and the warmer, wooded area that they found they named Vinland. There they built some houses and explored the region before returning to Greenland. In 1003 Leif’s brother Thorvald led an expedition to Vinland and spent two years there. In 1004 (or 1010, according to other historians) Thorfinn Karlsefni, encouraged by Thorvald’s reports of grapes growing wi...

sculptor, prominent in the Neoclassical period, who was the first internationally acclaimed Danish artist. In the 20th-century reevaluation of Neoclassicism, however, Thorvaldsen’s reputation outside Denmark has declined, and works once regarded as the perfect reincarnation of the antique are now often considered cold and dry....

The key building in the development of Scandinavian classicism in the period 1830–1930 is the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen, erected in 1839–48 from designs by Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll. It was built to house the collection of sculpture that the celebrated Danish Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen presented to his native country in 1837. The opportunity was taken......

founder of the first European settlement on Greenland (c. 986) and the father of Leif Eriksson, one of the first Europeans to reach North America....

sculptor, prominent in the Neoclassical period, who was the first internationally acclaimed Danish artist. In the 20th-century reevaluation of Neoclassicism, however, Thorvaldsen’s reputation outside Denmark has declined, and works once regarded as the perfect reincarnation of the antique are now often considered cold and dry....

...novel Crome Yellow (1921). Drawing upon Lawrence and Eliot, he concerned himself in his novels of ideas—Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925), and Point Counter Point (1928)—with the fate of the individual in rootless modernity. His pessimistic vision found its most complete....

lake, largest body of water in Turkey and the second largest in the Middle East. The lake is located in the region of eastern Anatolia near the border of Iran. It covers an area of 1,434 square miles (3,713 square km) and is more than 74 miles (119 km) across at its widest point. Known to the ancient Greek geographers as Thospitis Lacus, or Arsissa Lacus, its modern Turkish name, Van Göl...

in Egyptian religion, a god of the moon, of reckoning, of learning, and of writing. He was held to be the inventor of writing, the creator of languages, the scribe, interpreter, and adviser of the gods, and the representative of the sun god, Re. His responsibility for writing was shared with the goddess Seshat. The cult of Thoth was centred in the town of Khmunu (Hermopolis; modern al-Ashmū...

...square, an old crooked shopping street leads northeast to the former centre of the city, Kongens Nytorv (“King’s New Square”), laid out in the 17th century. Buildings there include the Thott Palace (now the French Embassy) and the Charlottenborg Palace (now the Royal Academy of Fine Arts), both of the 17th century, and the Royal Theatre, built in 1874....

French statesman, bibliophile, and historiographer whose detached, impartial approach to the events of his own period made him a pioneer in the scientific approach to history....

...and Rochefort, along the Châtelleraut-Poitiers-Niort corridor, in the coastal belt, and in the northern area of Bressuire-Thouars in Deux-Sèvres. Two of these towns—Niort and Thouars—rank among the oldest towns in France....

goddess of ancient Egypt, the benevolent protectress of fertility and childbirth, associated also with the nursing of infants. She was depicted as having the head of a hippopotamus standing upright (sometimes with the breasts of a woman), the tail of a crocodile, and the claws of a lion. Her image often appeared in household shrines and on amulets. Another goddess, called Opet (...

covert symbolic responses to intrinsic (arising from within) or extrinsic (arising from the environment) stimuli. Thought, or thinking, is considered to mediate between inner activity and external stimuli....

...quantum theory, not relativity. In fact, Einstein would engage in a series of historic private debates with Niels Bohr, originator of the Bohr atomic model. Through a series of sophisticated “thought experiments,” Einstein tried to find logical inconsistencies in the quantum theory, particularly its lack of a deterministic mechanism. Einstein would often say that “God does ...

traditionally, the three fundamental laws of logic: (1) the law of contradiction, (2) the law of excluded middle (or third), and (3) the principle of identity. That is, (1) for all propositions p, it is impossible for both p and not p to be true, or symbolically, ∼(p · ∼p), in which ∼ means “not” and ...

covert symbolic responses to intrinsic (arising from within) or extrinsic (arising from the environment) stimuli. Thought, or thinking, is considered to mediate between inner activity and external stimuli....

...at the capitalists themselves and brought them into line on charges of bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property and economic information, and cheating on government contracts. Finally, the thought-reform campaign humbled university professors and marked a turning point in the move from Western to Soviet influence in structuring China’s university curriculum....

...of his drawings, and in 1917 a collection of these sayings, put together by his friend the poet Pierre Reverdy, was published in the review Nord–Sud as “Thoughts and Reflections on Painting.” Even a brief sampling can suggest the quality, at once poetic and rational, of Braque’s mind and the sort of thinking that lay behind......

...debate in the Congress on July 2–4, 1776, defending Jefferson’s draft of the declaration and demanding unanimous support for a decisive break with Great Britain. Moreover, he had written Thoughts on Government, which circulated throughout the colonies as the major guidebook for the drafting of new state constitutions (see primary source document: The Foundation...

...books on ethics and politics that he had meditated upon and partly written in collaboration with his wife. The essay On Liberty appeared in 1859 with a touching dedication to her and the Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform in the same year. In his Considerations on Representative Government (1861) he systematized opinions already put forward in many casual articles and......

...the popularization of science, panicked at the last minute and ran out, leaving Faraday with a packed lecture hall and no lecturer. On the spur of the moment, Faraday offered Thoughts on Ray Vibrations. Specifically referring to point atoms and their infinite fields of force, he suggested that the lines of electric and magnetic force associated with these atoms......

...the reigns of the first two Georges—without infringing on the limitations of the royal prerogative set by the revolution settlement of 1689. Burke’s chief comment on this issue is his pamphlet “Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents” (1770). He argued that George’s actions were against not the letter but the spirit of the constitution. The choice of ...

...one of its members, the scandalous John Wilkes, who had been found guilty of libel. The pamphlet ridiculed those who thought the case precipitated a constitutional crisis. Thoughts on the Late Transactions Respecting Falkland’s Islands (1771) argued against a war with Spain over who should become “the undisputed lords of tempest-beaten barrenness....