A-Z Browse

long-limbed and predominantly ground-dwelling primate found in the grass and scrub regions of West and Central Africa and southeast to the Serengeti plains....

...himself with other German princes against Louis XIV of France, and afterward fought on the side of the Holy Roman Empire against both France and Turkey. Frederick’s chief adviser about this time was Eberhard Danckelmann (1643–1722), whose services in continuing the reforming work of the Great Elector were very valuable; but, having made many enemies, he fell from power in 1697 and...

actor and playwright who created the French comedy of manners and was one of the most popular of French dramatists before the Revolution....

...culture in Wand of Noble Wood (1961), Blade Among the Boys (1962), and Highlife for Lizards (1965). Nkem Nwankwo created the comic protagonist of Danda (1964), the irreverent antihero perhaps inspired by trickster tales. The outstanding Igbo novelist was Chinua Achebe. All his novels present the conflict of emergent Africa: in......

The existence of the state was primarily dependent on two factors: danda (authority) and dharma (in its sense of the social order—i.e., the preservation of the caste structure). The Artha-shastra, moreover, refers to the seven limbs (saptanga) of the......

...Pradesh, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh states. It has dimensions of about 200 miles (320 km) from north to south and about 300 miles (480 km) from east to west. The region derives its name from the Dandak Forest (the abode of the demon Dandak) in the Hindu epic the Rāmāyaṇa. It was successively ruled by the Nalas, Vākāṭakas, and Cālukyas......

physical region in east-central India. Extending over an area of about 35,600 square miles (92,300 square km), it includes the Abujhmar Hills in the west and borders the Eastern Ghāts in the east. The Dandakāranya includes parts of Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh states. It has dimensions of about 200 miles (320 km) from north to south and about 300 miles (480 km) from ea...

...rice and dal (pigeon-pea) milling, sawmilling, bone-meal manufacturing, bidi (cigarette) making, beekeeping, and furniture making. There are deposits of bauxite, iron ore, and manganese. The Dandakāranya Development Authority was created by the union (central) government in 1958 to assist refugees from Pakistan. It constructed the Bhaskel Dam and Pakhanjore reservoir; wood-working...

...making through internecine maneuvering and competition. In the reign of Maḥmūd’s son, Masʿūd I, the weaknesses in the system had already become glaringly apparent. At the Battle of Dandānqān (1040), Masʿūd lost control of Khorāsān, his main holding in Iran, to the pastoralist Seljuq Turks; he then decided to withdraw t...

agricultural town on the west bank of the Nile, in Qinā muḥāfaẓah (governorate), Upper Egypt. The modern town is built on the ancient site of Ta-ynt-netert (She of the Divine Pillar), or Tentyra. It was the capital of the sixth nome (province) of pharaonic Upper Egypt and was dedicated to the sky and fertility go...

weedy perennial herb of the genus Taraxacum of the family Asteraceae, native to Eurasia but widespread throughout much of temperate North America. The most familiar species is T. officinale....

mountain ranges, part of the Eastern Highlands, east of Melbourne in southern Victoria, Australia. Several peaks exceed 1,600 ft (500 m), the highest of which is Mt. Dandenong (2,077 ft). With nearly twice as much rainfall as the nearby coastal plain and with fertile volcanic soils, the mountains have dense vegetative cover. The name is derived from an Aboriginal word, tanjenong, meaning ...

breed of terrier developed in the border country of England and Scotland. First noted as a distinct breed about 1700, it was later named after a character created by Sir Walter Scott in his novel Guy Mannering (1815). Unlike other terriers, the Dandie Dinmont has a softly curved, rather than angular, body. It has large eyes, a long body, short legs, and ...

Indian Sanskrit writer of prose romances and expounder on poetics. Scholars attribute to him with certainty only two works: the Daśakumāracarita, translated in 1927 as The Adventures of the Ten Princes, and the Kāvyādarśa (“Mirror of Poetry”)....

British television broadcaster (b. Nov. 9, 1961, Weston-super-Mare, Eng.—d. April 26, 1999, London, Eng.), served as an anchor of newscasts as well as host of the Crimewatch UK and Holiday series and had just begun presenting The Antiques Inspectors show. Her talent and girl-next-door likability made her one of the BBC’s most popular an...

doge of the Republic of Venice from 1192 to 1205, noted for his promotion of the Fourth Crusade, which led to the overthrow of the Greek Byzantine Empire and the aggrandizement of Venice....

an ancient Italian family distinguished in the history of Venice. It rose quickly to prominence when expansion from the lagoons to the mainland began. By the 11th century it was rich, and by the 12th (when the branches of San Luca, San Severo, and San Moisè can already be distinguished) it was competing for the highest posts in church and state. In the middle decades of the 12th century, w...

...in 1284 produced its gold ducat, or zecchino (sequin), of the same weight. Venetian ducats rivaled Florentine florins in commercial influence and were widely copied abroad. The series begun under Giovanni Dandolo continued with the names of the successive doges until the early 19th century....

Italian chemist and statesman, an innovator in both science and politics. He helped further democratic ideas in Italy, while his writings, especially on agriculture, won him a reputation throughout Europe....

city, southeastern Liaoning sheng (province), China. A prefecture-level municipality (shih), its territory includes not only the municipal area but also several counties (hsien) occupying the entire North Korean border zone of Liaoning. It is situated some 22 miles (35 km) from the mouth of the Yalu River....

American professional baseball player who spent most of his career between 1933 and 1955 playing in the Negro leagues and on teams outside the United States....

American singer and film actress who was the first black woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for best actress....

American singer and film actress who was the first black woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for best actress....

American professional baseball player who spent most of his career between 1933 and 1955 playing in the Negro leagues and on teams outside the United States....

American first lady (1789–97), the wife of George Washington, first president of the United States and commander in chief of the colonial armies during the American Revolutionary War. She set many of the standards and customs for the proper behaviour and treatment of the president’s wife....

American professional baseball player who spent most of his career between 1933 and 1955 playing in the Negro leagues and on teams outside the United States....

American professional baseball player who spent most of his career between 1933 and 1955 playing in the Negro leagues and on teams outside the United States....

skin disorder, a form of seborrheic dermatitis that affects the scalp....

acute, infectious, mosquito-borne hemorrhagic fever that temporarily is completely incapacitating but is rarely fatal. Besides fever, the disease is characterized by an extreme pain in and stiffness of the joints (hence the name “breakbone fever”). Dengue is caused by a virus and may occur in any country where the carrier mosquitoes breed....

...draisienne and patented an improved model in 1818 as the “pedestrian curricle.” The following year he produced more than 300, and they became commonly known as hobby-horses. They were very expensive, and many buyers were members of the nobility. Caricaturists called the devices “dandy horses,” and riders were sometimes jeered in public. The......

The dandy roll is a light, open-structured unit covered with wire cloth and placed on the wire between suction boxes, resting lightly upon the wire and the surface of the sheet. Its function is to flatten the top surface of the sheet and improve the finish. When the dandy roll leaves a mesh or crosshatch pattern, the paper is said to be “woven.” When parallel, translucent lines are.....

Screenplay: Robert E. Sherwood for The Best Years of Our LivesOriginal Story: Clemence Dane for Vacation from MarriageOriginal Screenplay: Muriel Box and Sydney Box for The Seventh VeilCinematography, Black-and-White: Arthur Miller for Anna and the King of SiamCinematography, Color:......

...of settlements, but they have been found in wells, such as at Berlin-Lichterfelde, in Germany. They also may have come to function as a foundation deposit for a later settlement, as was the case at Danebury, in southern England, where an Iron Age hill fort was placed at the location of a Late Bronze Age hoard. Hoards were relatively infrequent during the earliest part of the Bronze Age, when......

...in 1844, the Derby and the Oaks in 1846, and the Two Thousand Guineas and the Derby in 1854. Because his horses were trained at Danebury, Hampshire, he and his betting associates were called the Danebury Confederacy....

a tax levied in Anglo-Saxon England to buy off Danish invaders in the reign of Ethelred II (978–1016); it also designates the recurrent gelds, or taxes, collected by the Anglo-Norman kings. The word is not recorded before the Norman Conquest, the usual earlier (Old English) term being gafol (“gavel,” or “tribute”). Though the Danes were sometimes bought of...

...Denmark, on Masned Sound. Founded in the 12th century around its castle, which was built by Valdemar I as a defense against the Wends, the town of Vordingborg became a favourite meeting place of the Danehof (national assembly), at one of whose meetings the oldest national statute was published (1241). The city was chartered in 1415. In the 14th century Valdemar IV built the curious “Goos...

founder of the order of missionary priests known as the Passionists....

ancient West Semitic legend probably concerned with the cause of the annual summer drought in the eastern Mediterranean. The epic records that Danel, a sage and king of the Haranamites, had no son until the god El, in response to Danel’s many prayers and offerings, finally granted him a child, whom Danel named Aqhat. Some time later Danel offered hospitality to the divine craftsman Kothar, ...

the northern, central, and eastern region of Anglo-Saxon England colonized by invading Danish armies in the late 9th century. In the 11th and 12th centuries, it was recognized that all of eastern England between the Rivers Tees and Thames formed a region in which a distinctive form of customary law prevailed in the local courts, differing from West Saxon law to the south and Mercian law to the wes...

the northern, central, and eastern region of Anglo-Saxon England colonized by invading Danish armies in the late 9th century. In the 11th and 12th centuries, it was recognized that all of eastern England between the Rivers Tees and Thames formed a region in which a distinctive form of customary law prevailed in the local courts, differing from West Saxon law to the south and Mercian law to the wes...

the northern, central, and eastern region of Anglo-Saxon England colonized by invading Danish armies in the late 9th century. In the 11th and 12th centuries, it was recognized that all of eastern England between the Rivers Tees and Thames formed a region in which a distinctive form of customary law prevailed in the local courts, differing from West Saxon law to the south and Mercian law to the wes...

...regions until the 13th and 14th centuries and perhaps beyond. Traces of the preconquest social and political structures of the northern Peloponnese may be reflected in the story of the widow Danelis, a rich landowner whose wealth was almost proverbial in the later 9th century. She was a sponsor of the young Basil, later Basil I (867–886), and may have represented the last in a line......

...on retaining most of the Macedonian territory they had occupied, and Romania demanded compensation for its neutrality. When Geshov was not able to negotiate a compromise, he resigned in favour of Stoyan Danev, who reflected the tsar’s desire for a military solution. On the night of June 16–17 (June 29–30) Bulgarian forces began the Second Balkan War by launching a surprise ...

the ancient frontier rampart of the Danes against the Germans, extending 10.5 miles (17 kilometres) from just south of the town of Schleswig to the marshes of the river Trene near the village of Hollingstedt. The rampart was begun about ad 808 by Godfred (Gudfred), king of Vestfold. In 934 it was penetrated by the German king Henry I, after which it was extended by King Harald I Blue...

the ancient frontier rampart of the Danes against the Germans, extending 10.5 miles (17 kilometres) from just south of the town of Schleswig to the marshes of the river Trene near the village of Hollingstedt. The rampart was begun about ad 808 by Godfred (Gudfred), king of Vestfold. In 934 it was penetrated by the German king Henry I, after which it was extended by King Harald I Blue...

the ancient frontier rampart of the Danes against the Germans, extending 10.5 miles (17 kilometres) from just south of the town of Schleswig to the marshes of the river Trene near the village of Hollingstedt. The rampart was begun about ad 808 by Godfred (Gudfred), king of Vestfold. In 934 it was penetrated by the German king Henry I, after which it was extended by King Harald I Blue...

...from northern Europe to North China, has round clusters of scarlet berries and reaches 4 metres (13 feet). Red-berried elder (S. pubens), with dark pith, is a similar North American species. Danewort (S. ebulus), widespread in Europe and North Africa, is a perennial with annually herbaceous growth to 1 metre (3 feet). Its clusters of black berries were once a source of dye....

In 1978 the U.S. Congress passed legislation introduced by Senator John Danforth that declared April 28–29, 1979, the anniversary of the American liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in 1945, to be Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust. Danforth deliberately sought a date with American significance so that observances could be held in the civic arena as well as in......

...was Houji, literally translated as “Lord of Millet.” He appears to have been a cultural hero and agricultural deity rather than a tribal chief. The earliest plausible Zhou ancestor was Danfu, the grandfather of Wenwang. Prior to and during the time of Danfu, the Zhou people seem to have migrated to avoid pressure from powerful neighbours, possibly nomadic people to the north. Unde...

For the chiefly class, the important kinship unit is a descent group known as the dang, composed of all descendants of a single grandfather or great-grandfather. In the centralized Dagomba state, only the sons of a previous paramount chief, the ya-na, may rise to that office, which is filled in rotation by one of three divisional chiefs....

Vietnamese scholar and statesman, a leading North Vietnamese communist intellectual....

Contemporary Indonesian popular music, consumed mostly (but not entirely) by the young, has made kroncong a thing of the past. Dangdut, a synthesis of Indian film music, a type of Sumatran Malay music called orkes Melayu (Malay orchestra), kroncong, and Euro-American popular music, was pioneered in the......

one of the northern Cook Islands, a self-governing state in free association with New Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean. First seen (1595) by the Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña, it was ‘‘rediscovered’’ (1765) by John Byron, an English navigator, who called it Isle of Danger because the high surf and dangerous rock...

In 2004 Snyder published his first volume of all-new poetry in 20 years, Danger on Peaks, a collection that stays true to his earlier work by bringing nature into the reader’s inner vision. A longtime advocate of environmental issues, Snyder argued in Back on the Fire: Essays (2007) that forest fires can be beneficial and that government act...

American comedian (b. Nov. 22, 1921, Babylon, N.Y.—d. Oct. 5, 2004, Los Angeles, Calif.), immortalized the line “I don’t get no respect” as part of his stand-up comedy act. His perpetually agitated look and hilariously self-deprecating one-liners landed him regular appearances on The Tonight Show, and a guest spot on Saturday Night Live led to a scene-stea...

British informer who falsely accused British Roman Catholics of conspiracy during the panic created by the fictitious Popish Plot of 1678, based on Titus Oates’s allegations that Catholics were plotting to murder King Charles II and take over the government....

Other Nominees...

Laclos chose a career in the army but soon left it to become a writer. His first novel, Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782), caused an immediate sensation. Written in epistolary form, the story deals with the seducer Valmont and his accomplice, Mme de Merteuil, who take unscrupulous delight in their victims’ misery. Laclos’ second novel, De l’éducation des femmes...

...Henningsen, who was often concerned with experiences of the emancipated woman; and Karin Michaëlis, a fine psychologist, best known for her novel Den farlige alder (1910; The Dangerous Age)....

Hazardous materials movements require special attention. Sometimes only certain routes, warehouses, and vehicular equipment can be used. Communities along the way may have special requirements affecting the movement and storage of the materials. For some hazardous material movements, specialized carriers must be used. Containers and vehicles have special markings, and additional documentation......

Original Screenplay: Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow for Rain ManAdapted Screenplay: Christopher Hampton for Dangerous LiaisonsCinematography: Peter Biziou for Mississippi BurningArt Direction: Stuart Craig for Dangerous LiaisonsOriginal Score: Dave Grusin for The Milagro Beanfield......

Other Nominees...

...bullfighting scenes in his novels The Sun Also Rises (1926) and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and his last major literary work, The Dangerous Summer (1960), was an account of the rivalry between two great matadors, Dominguín and his brother-in-law, Antonio Ordóñez (who was the son of the......

...aridity, particularly in its central section. In the west various small streams run off into the Takla Makan Desert in the north, Lake Ayakkum to the south, or the Qaidam Basin in the west. The Dangjin Pass, at the eastern end of the range, is traversed by a road that links eastern Xinjiang (via Gansu province), the Qaidam Basin, and the Tibet Autonomous Region (via Qinghai province)....

mountain range in the Tibet Autonomous Region, southwestern China. On the high plateau south of the mountains, there are many large salt lakes. In its eastern part the range forms the boundary between Tibet and Qinghai province. Although many peaks are higher than 19,000 feet (5,700 metres) and the tallest, Basudan Ula, reaches some 20,000 f...

Bellow won a reputation among a small group of readers with his first two novels, Dangling Man (1944), a story in diary form of a man waiting to be inducted into the army, and The Victim (1947), a subtle study of the relationship between a Jew and a Gentile, each of whom becomes the other’s victim. The Adventures of Augie.....

forested range of hills averaging 1,500–2,000 feet (450–600 m) and dividing Thailand from Cambodia. This east–west-trending range extends from the Mekong River westward for approximately 200 miles (320 km), merging with the highland area near San Kamphaeng, Thailand. Essentially the southern escarpment of the sandstone Khorat Plateau of northeastern Thailand, the Dângr...

town, east-central Belize, at the mouth of the 20-mile- (32-km-) long North Stann Creek on the Caribbean coast. It was founded in 1823 by Garifuna refugees from Honduras (descendants of Carib Indians and Africans exiled from British colonies in the eastern Caribbean in the 18th century). Dangriga developed as a port and trading centre for bananas, timber, coconuts, and fish. It ...

In the northwest the Tangut (Pinyin: Dangxiang), a Tibetan-speaking branch of the Qiang, inhabited the region between the far end of the Great Wall in present-day Gansu and the Huang He bend in Inner Mongolia. Their semi-oasis economy combined irrigated agriculture with pastoralism, and, by controlling the terminus of the famous Silk Road, they became middlemen in trade between Central Asia and......

The Tannhäuser legend is preserved in a popular ballad, Danhauser, traceable to 1515; the origins of the legend itself probably lie in the 13th century. Enticed to the court of Venus, Tannhäuser lives a life of earthly pleasure, but soon, torn by remorse, he makes a pilgrimage to Rome to seek remission of his sins. The pope tells him that, as his pilgrim’s staff will ne...

...and strapwork” (Laub-und-Bandelwerk) was a much used type of motif, and excellent work was done by A.F. von Löwenfinck (who is known particularly for his work on porcelain) and Joseph Philipp Danhofer. Perhaps the finest 18th-century faience was made by the factory at Höchst, near Mainz, which also manufactured porcelain. Decoration was usually in overglaze colours,....

lowermost and oldest division of Paleocene rocks, representing all rocks deposited worldwide during the Danian Age (65.5 million to 61.7 million years ago) of the Paleogene Period (65.5 million to 23 million years ago). The Danian Stage is named for exposures in Denmark, in which great quantities of Danian limestones are e...

musician and composer, an outstanding member of a large and important family of musicians long connected with the French court....

French composer whose operas were successful and widely known in his day and who was a famous and remarkable chess player....

The first recorded representatives of the family were Michel Danican (died c. 1659), upon whom the nickname Philidor (the name of a famous Italian musician) was bestowed by Louis XIII as a complimentary reference to his skill, and André’s father Jean (died 1679), who, like Michel, played various instruments in the Grande Écurie, the king’s band. André and ...

...the grand principality of Vladimir, and this new seat grew in importance when Michael Khorobrit, brother of Alexander Nevsky, conquered Vladimir (1248) and made himself prince of both centres. Daniel, Nevsky’s son and the progenitor of all the later Rurikid princes of Moscow, had a long and successful reign (1276–1303), but at his death the principality still embraced little more....

The Book of Daniel presents a collection of popular stories about Daniel, a loyal Jew, and the record of visions granted to him, with the Babylonian Exile of the 6th century bce as their background. The book, however, was written in a later time of national crisis—when the Jews were suffering severe persecution under Antiochus IV Epiphanes (reigned 175–164/163 ...

...about 1000, given in 1651 to the scholar Franciscus Junius by Archbishop James Ussher of Armagh and now in the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. It contains the poems Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, and Christ and Satan, originally attributed to Caedmon (q.v.) because these subjects correspond roughly to the subjects described in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History a...

Buber’s manifold activities were inspired by his philosophy of encounter—of man’s meeting with other beings. An early mystical period culminated in Daniel (1913), five dialogues on orientation and realization, man’s two basic stances toward the world. Orientation takes the world as a static state of affairs governed by comprehensible laws. It is a receptive, anal...

...unauthoritative addition to Scripture; a return to Palestine to hasten the messianic redemption; and a reexamination of Scripture to retrieve authentic law and doctrine. Under the leadership of Daniel al-Qumisi (c. 850?), a Karaite settlement prospered in the Holy Land, from which it spread as far as northwestern Africa and Christian Spain. A barrage of Karaite treatises presenting new.....

...the grand principality of Vladimir, and this new seat grew in importance when Michael Khorobrit, brother of Alexander Nevsky, conquered Vladimir (1248) and made himself prince of both centres. Daniel, Nevsky’s son and the progenitor of all the later Rurikid princes of Moscow, had a long and successful reign (1276–1303), but at his death the principality still embraced little more....

Provençal poet, troubadour, and master of the trobar clus, a poetic style composed of complex metrics, intricate rhymes, and words chosen more for their sound than for their meaning....

...Berks). Mount Penn (1,300 feet [396 metres]), with a red-and-gold pagoda (1908) and a stone observation tower (1939) at its summit, is the centre of a city park. Local historic landmarks include the Daniel Boone Homestead (where Boone was born in 1734), the Conrad Weiser Homestead (1729), and Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site near Pottstown. An annual folk festival at nearby Kutztown......

American journalist and newspaper editor (b. Sept. 19, 1912, Zebulon, N.C.—d. Feb. 21, 2000, New York, N.Y.), served as managing editor of the New York Times from 1964 to 1969 and as its Washington, D.C., bureau chief from 1973 to 1976. Daniel began his long career at the Times in 1944 as a foreign correspondent, distinguishing himself in assignments in warti...

Daniel Deronda (8 parts, 1876), in which George Eliot comes nearest the contemporary scene, is built on the contrast between Mirah Cohen, a poor Jewish girl, and the upper class Gwendolen Harleth, who marries for money and regrets it. The less convincingly realized hero, Daniel, after discovering that he is Jewish, marries Mirah and departs for Palestine to establish a......

Czechoslovak-born filmmaker who, faced with Soviet persecution, fled to the U.S. after producing the 1965 movie The Shop on Main Street, which won an Academy Award for best foreign film; in the U.S. he headed several film schools (b. April 14, 1926--d. Feb. 29, 1996)....

French Jesuit historian whose writings include an outstanding history of France....

In 1975 Collins left the Chicago school system to found the private Daniel Hale Williams Westside Preparatory School. With financial assistance from the government-funded Alternative Schools Network, she began with four students; within a year enrollment had increased to 20 students, most of whom were considered uneducable by the standards of Chicago public schools....

...overshadowed by his grandiose projects for St. Peter’s, but a few of them are of outstanding interest. For the Chigi Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, he carved two groups, “Daniel in the Lions’ Den” and “Habakkuk and the Angel” (1655–61). These works show the beginnings of his late style: elongation of the body, expressive ...

...lumbering artery supporting the huge pulp and paper factories at Baie-Comeau, the river has become a major source of hydroelectric power; Hydro-Quebec has built several plants—including Daniel-Johnson Dam, one of the world’s largest multiarch dams—which together have a generating capacity in the millions of kilowatts. A submarine cable, laid in 1954, carries electric power....

American writer who was the illustrious only daughter of U.S. Pres. Harry S. Truman and first lady Bess Truman and carved a literary niche for herself as her parents’ biographer (Harry S. Truman [1973] and Bess W. Truman [1986]) and as the author of a number of best-selling mysteries. Her first book was the autobiographical Souvenir: Margaret Truman’s Own Story (...

ruler of the principalities of Galicia and Volhynia (now in Poland and Ukraine, respectively), who became one of the most powerful princes in east-central Europe....

the earliest known Russian travel writer, whose account of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land is the earliest surviving record in Russian of such a trip. Abbot of a Russian monastery, he visited Palestine probably during 1106–07. His narrative begins at Constantinople; from there he traveled along the west and south coasts of Asia Minor to Cyprus and the Holy Land. Despite his credulity and er...

associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1841–60)....

ruler of the principalities of Galicia and Volhynia (now in Poland and Ukraine, respectively), who became one of the most powerful princes in east-central Europe....

English contemplative poet, marked in both verse and prose by his philosophic sense of history....

Weizmann turned again to science, founding the Daniel Sieff Research Institute at Reḥovot, Palestine (1934), with the help of friends in England. Earlier, he had toured South Africa (1931) and played a leading part in public efforts to save German Jewry and its property after the advent of the Nazis (1933)....

a book of the Old Testament found in the Ketuvim (Writings), the third section of the Jewish canon, but placed among the Prophets in the Christian canon. The first half of the book (chapters 1–6) contains stories in the third person about the experiences of Daniel and his friends under Kings Nebuchadrezzar II, Belshazzar, Darius I, and Cyrus II; the second half, written mostly in the first ...

the earliest known Russian travel writer, whose account of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land is the earliest surviving record in Russian of such a trip. Abbot of a Russian monastery, he visited Palestine probably during 1106–07. His narrative begins at Constantinople; from there he traveled along the west and south coasts of Asia Minor to Cyprus and the Holy Land. Despite his credulity and er...

Soviet poet and short-story writer who was convicted with fellow writer Andrey D. Sinyavsky of anti-Soviet slander in a sensational 1966 trial that marked the beginning of literary repression under Leonid I. Brezhnev, general secretary of the Communist Party....