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La Hire, Laurent de (French painter)
French Baroque classical painter whose best work is marked by gravity, simplicity, and dignity....
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La Hontan, Louis-Armand de Lom d’Arce, baron de (French soldier)
French soldier and writer who explored parts of what are now Canada and the United States and who prepared valuable accounts of his travels in the New World....
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La Hyre, Laurent de (French painter)
French Baroque classical painter whose best work is marked by gravity, simplicity, and dignity....
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La Isla Española (island, West Indies)
second largest island of the West Indies, lying within the Greater Antilles. It is divided politically into the Republic of Haiti (west) and the Dominican Republic (east). The island’s area is 29,418 square miles (76,192 square km); its greatest length is nearly 400 miles (650 km), and its width is 150 miles (241 km). Christopher Columbus...
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La Jaunaye, Convention of (French history)
...(May) and the rise to power of the moderate Thermidorian faction in Paris (July), a more conciliatory policy was adopted. In December the government announced an amnesty, and on Feb. 17, 1795, the Convention of La Jaunaye granted the Vendée freedom from conscription, liberty of worship, and some indemnities for losses....
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La Jolla Canyon (canyon, Pacific Ocean)
...to Scripps Institution of Oceanography, for which it was named. The canyon’s shallow tributary valleys head very close to shore in water only 40 feet (12 m) deep. The valley joins a larger canyon, La Jolla Canyon, at an axial depth of 980 feet, 1.3 miles from its head. There the walls of Scripps Canyon are V-shaped and have a height of approximately 360 feet....
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La Joya (cemetery, Spain)
...of the former rulers, new adventurers came onto the scene. Their traces can be seen in rich tombs around Carmona at cemeteries such as El Acebuchal, Setefilla, and in Huelva at the cemetery of La Joya. Princely wealth from La Joya included a chariot of walnut wood, an ivory casket with silver hinges, bronze mirrors, tiered incense burners, and ornate libation jugs. Gold jewelry is known......
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La Junta (Colorado, United States)
city, seat (1889) of Otero county, southeastern Colorado, U.S. It lies along the Arkansas River at the northern edge of the Comanche National Grassland, at an elevation of 4,052 feet (1,235 metres). Founded in 1875, it was first called Otero, after a Spanish settler; its present name is Spanish for “the junction,” referring to its location at the...
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La, La Lucille (musical)
...it became an enormous success, selling more than two million recordings and a million copies of sheet music, and making Gershwin an overnight celebrity. That same year, La, La Lucille, the first show for which Gershwin composed the entire score, premiered; its most popular songs included The Best of Everything, ......
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La Lajuela (Costa Rica)
city, northwestern Costa Rica. It lies in the Valle Central at an elevation of 3,141 feet (957 metres). Known in colonial days as Villahermosa, the town was active in support of independence from Spain in 1821; five years later it suffered from a plot to restore Spanish control over Costa Rica. For a brief period in the 1830s Alajuela served as the nation...
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La Libertad (El Salvador)
city and port, southwestern El Salvador. Its open roadstead port as well as its location south of San Salvador encouraged La Libertad’s development in the 19th century as a shipping outlet for “balsam of Peru”—a variety of balsam yielded from El Salvador’s coastal forests. During the early 20th century La Libertad was one of the country...
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La Libertad (department, Peru)
city and port, southwestern El Salvador. Its open roadstead port as well as its location south of San Salvador encouraged La Libertad’s development in the 19th century as a shipping outlet for “balsam of Peru”—a variety of balsam yielded from El Salvador’s coastal forests. During the early 20th century La Libertad was one of the country......
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La Línea (Spain)
city, Cádiz provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Andalusia, southwestern Spain. It lies along the Bay of Gibraltar, between San Roque and the British colony of Gibraltar. The name is derived f...
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La Línea de la Concepción (Spain)
city, Cádiz provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Andalusia, southwestern Spain. It lies along the Bay of Gibraltar, between San Roque and the British colony of Gibraltar. The name is derived f...
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La Louvière (Belgium)
town, Hainaut province, southwestern Belgium, on the Central Canal, about 11 miles (17 km) east of Mons. It has been a centre of coal mining since the 14th century. La Louvière is also a major centre of steel manufacturing and produces sheet metal, furniture, and ceramics. Nearby is the park of Mariemont, named for Mary of Hungary, sister of Charles V and queen of the Netherlands, who first...
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La Macarena Mountains (mountains, Colombia)
...and buttes with rapids in the streams. This slightly higher ground forms the watershed between the Amazon and Orinoco systems. Some 60 miles (100 km) south of Villavicencio the elongated, forested La Macarena Mountains rise 8,000 feet (2,500 metres) from the surrounding lowlands, an isolated tropical ecosystem....
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La Ma’dukelleng (Indonesian rebel)
Buginese aristocrat who unified his southern Celebes people and created a state that held out against the Dutch for more than a century....
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La Malinche, Mount (mountain, Mexico)
Tlaxcala is situated on the cool, semiarid Mesa Central at a mean elevation of 7,000 feet (2,100 metres) against the backdrop of La Malinche (Matlalcueyetl) volcano, which rises to an elevation 14,636 feet (4,461 metres) within a national park southeast of the capital. The state occupies roughly the same area as did a pre-Hispanic federation that refused to surrender to the Aztecs. Many Indians......
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La Mancha (plateau, Spain)
barren elevated plateau (2,000 feet [610 metres]) formed over limestone in central Spain, stretching between the Toledo Mountains and the western spurs of the Cuenca hills and bounded by the La Alcarria region to the north and the Sierra Morena to the south. It includes portions of the provinces of Cuenca, Toledo, and Albacete and most of Ciudad Real. It constitutes the southern...
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La Marche, Olivier de (Burgundian author)
Burgundian chronicler and poet who, as historian of the ducal court, was an eloquent spokesman of the chivalrous tradition....
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La Marfée, battle of (French history)
...other malcontents joined him; and in 1641 he published a manifesto against Richelieu and invaded France with a Habsburg army. He defeated the Marshal de Chatillon (Gaspard III de Coligny) at La Marfée on July 6, 1641, but was killed by a mysterious shot at the moment of his victory....
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La Marmora, Alfonso Ferrero (Italian general and statesman)
Italian general and statesman who, while in the service of Sardinia–Piedmont, played an important role in the Risorgimento....
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La Marmora, Mount (mountain, Italy)
The island’s relief is dominated by mountains of granite and schist. The highest point is Mount La Marmora (6,017 feet [1,834 m]) in the Gennargentu Massif. The climate is subtropical and Mediterranean. Precipitation ranges from 24 inches (600 mm) on the plains to 39 inches (990 mm) in the mountains. Sardinia’s rivers, of which the Tirso and Flumendosa are the most important, are sho...
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La Matanza (partido, Argentina)
partido (county) of Gran (Greater) Buenos Aires, eastern Argentina, directly southwest of the city of Buenos Aires, in Buenos Aires provincia (province). The present-day county was part of the pago (country district) of Las Conchas during the 17th and early 18t...
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La Mauricie National Park (park, Quebec, Canada)
partido (county) of Gran (Greater) Buenos Aires, eastern Argentina, directly southwest of the city of Buenos Aires, in Buenos Aires provincia (province). The present-day county was part of the pago (country district) of Las Conchas during the 17th and early 18t...
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La Mesilla, Treaty of (United States-Mexican history)
(Dec. 30, 1853), transaction that followed the conquest of much of northern Mexico by the United States in 1848. Known in Mexican history as the sale of the Mesilla Valley, it assigned to the United States nearly 30,000 additional square miles (78,000 square km) of northern Mexican territory (La Mesilla), now southern Arizona and southern New Mexico, in exchange for $10,000,000....
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La Mesnardière, Hippolyte-Jules Pilet de (French author)
...(1647) records polite usage of the time. In the field of literary theory the same rational approach produced the Poétique (1639; “Treatise on Poetry”) of Hippolyte-Jules Pilet de La Mesnardière and the Abbé d’Aubignac’s Pratique du théâtre (1657; “The Practice of Theatre...
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La Mettrie, Julien Offroy de (French physician and philosopher)
French physician and philosopher whose Materialistic interpretation of psychic phenomena laid the groundwork for future developments of behaviourism and played an important part in the history of modern Materialism....
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La Mothe Le Vayer, François de (French philosopher)
independent French thinker and writer who developed a philosophy of Skepticism more radical than that of Michel de Montaigne but less absolute than that of Pierre Bayle....
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La Mothe-Fénelon, François de (French author)
...Discourse on Universal History); but he also exerted a considerable moral influence in his sermons and funeral orations, which took the art of pulpit oratory to a new high level. François de La Mothe-Fénelon was a much less orthodox churchman, and the influence he wielded was of a more liberal nature. Like Bossuet, he was a tutor in the royal household, and he......
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La Motta, Giacobe (American boxer)
American boxer and world middleweight boxing champion (1949–51) whose stamina and fierceness in the ring earned him the nickname “the Bronx Bull.” Lacking finesse, he often allowed himself to take a severe beating before ferociously turning on his foe. His opponents failed to knock him down in 106 professional fights....
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La Motta, Jake (American boxer)
American boxer and world middleweight boxing champion (1949–51) whose stamina and fierceness in the ring earned him the nickname “the Bronx Bull.” Lacking finesse, he often allowed himself to take a severe beating before ferociously turning on his foe. His opponents failed to knock him down in 106 professional fights....
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La Motte, comtesse de (French adventuress)
scandal at the court of Louis XVI in 1785 that discredited the French monarchy on the eve of the French Revolution. It began as an intrigue on the part of an adventuress, the comtesse (countess) de La Motte, to procure, supposedly for Queen Marie-Antoinette but in reality for herself and her associates, a diamond necklace worth 1,600,000 livres. The necklace was the property of the Parisian......
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“La Nausée” (novel by Sartre)
During his years of teaching in Le Havre, Sartre published La Nausée (1938; Nausea, 1949), his first claim to fame. This novel, written in the form of a diary, narrates the feeling of revulsion that a certain Roquentin undergoes when confronted with the world of matter—not merely the world of other people but the very awareness of his own body. According to some......
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La Niña (oceanic phenomenon)
...from the Equator such that the deeper, colder waters move to the surface. In the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the Equator, when this upwelling is stronger than average, the event is called La Niña. When the trade winds weaken in this region, however, warmer-than-average surface conditions occur, and upwelling is weaker than usual. This event is called El Niño. Changes in...
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La Noue, François de (Huguenot leader)
Huguenot captain in the French Wars of Religion (1562–98), known for his exploits as a soldier and for his military and historical writings....
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La Orotava (Spain)
town, northern Tenerife island, Santa Cruz de Tenerife provincia (province), in the Canary Islands comunidad autónoma (autonomous community), Spain, just southwest of Santa Cruz de Tenerife city. The town is a health resort with its port, Puerto de la Cruz...
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La Oroya (Peru)
city, central Peru. It is situated at the junction of the Mantaro and Yauli rivers on a central plateau of the Andes Mountains, at an elevation of 12,195 feet (3,717 metres). The city, located in a rich mining region based on the Cerro de Pasco, Morococha, and Casapalca mines, is a smelting and refining centre for copper, zinc, silver, and lead ores; it is also the site of a hyd...
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La Palma (island, Canary Islands, Spain)
island, Santa Cruz de Tenerife provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of the Canary Islands of Spain, in the North Atlantic Ocean, off the northwestern coast of Africa. Its central geographic feature is La Caldera de Taburie...
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La Palma (Panama)
town, eastern Panama, on the estuary of the Tuira River near the Gulf of San Miguel. It is the principal trading centre for the large sparsely populated region that surrounds it. Plantains, corn (maize), and rice are cultivated, and livestock is raised; there is also some sawmilling. The town is isolated, with no highway links to other communities in central and western Panama. Pop. (2000) 1,741....
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“La Pamela” (work by Goldoni)
...Medebac. Although Goldoni’s early plays veer between the old style and the new, he dispensed with masked characters altogether in such plays as La Pamela (performed 1750; Eng. trans., Pamela, a Comedy, 1756), a serious drama based on Samuel Richardson’s novel....
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La Pampa (plain, Argentina)
vast plains extending westward across central Argentina from the Atlantic coast to the Andean foothills, bounded by the Gran Chaco (north) and Patagonia (south). The name comes from a Quechua Indian word meaning “flat surface.” The Pampas have a gradual downward slope from northwest to southeast, from approximately 1,640 feet (500 metres) above sea level at Mendoza...
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La Pampa, University of (university, Santa Rosa, Argentina)
...Founded in 1892, the city developed as an agricultural centre processing grain (wheat) and cattle from the eastern part of the province. It has a regional museum of art and natural history; the University of La Pampa was founded there in 1958. The city is a communications hub that serves central Argentina. Pop. (2001) 94,340....
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La Paz (Mexico)
city, capital of Baja California Sur estado (state), northwestern Mexico. It lies about 40 feet (12 metres) above sea level on sheltered La Paz Bay of the Gulf of California (also called Sea of Cortez) and has a hot, dry climate. Spaniards charted the bay in 1533, but a Jesuit mission was not establish...
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La Paz (Honduras)
town, southwestern Honduras, at an elevation of 2,461 feet (750 m) above sea level in the Comayagua River valley, on the eastern flanks of the Cordillera de Montecillos. It was founded in 1792 and has been called La Paz since 1861. The city serves as a commercial centre for the surrounding agricultural and pastoral lands, which yield primarily henequen, coffee, and cattle. The t...
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La Paz (Bolivia)
city, administrative capital of Bolivia, west-central Bolivia, situated some 42 miles (68 km) southeast of Lake Titicaca. La Paz, which lies between 10,650 and 13,250 feet (3,250 and 4,100 metres) above sea level, is the world’s highest national capital. Visitors, upon arrival, find exertion difficult because of the rarefied atmosphere found at these elevations. The centr...
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La Paz, Cordillera de (mountain range, South America)
...(3,300 to 6,600 feet [1,000 to 2,000 metres]) valleys. From the massif of Vilcanota in the north to the pass of San Francisco in the south, the main cordillera is composed of six lesser ranges: the Cordillera de La Paz; the Cordillera Tres Cruces; two parallel ranges, the Azanaques (east) and the Frailes (west); the Chichas; and the Lípez, extending southwestward to connect the......
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La Paz de Ayacucho (Bolivia)
city, administrative capital of Bolivia, west-central Bolivia, situated some 42 miles (68 km) southeast of Lake Titicaca. La Paz, which lies between 10,650 and 13,250 feet (3,250 and 4,100 metres) above sea level, is the world’s highest national capital. Visitors, upon arrival, find exertion difficult because of the rarefied atmosphere found at these elevations. The centr...
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La Pérouse, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de (French navigator)
French navigator who conducted wide-ranging explorations in the Pacific Ocean....
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La Perouse Strait (waterway, Russia-Japan)
international waterway between the islands of Sakhalin (Russia) and Hokkaido (Japan). The strait, named after the French explorer Jean-François de Galaup, Count de La Pérouse, separates the Sea of Okhotsk from the Sea of Japan. It is 27 miles (43 km) wide at its narrowest part, between Cape Krilon (Sakhalin) and Cape Sōya (Hokkaido) and varies in depth from 167 to 387 feet (51...
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La Piedad Cavadas (Mexico)
city, northwestern Michoacán estado (state), west-central Mexico. On the Lerma River, which forms the Michoacán-Guanajuato border, it is 314 miles (505 km) west-northwest of Mexico City and 119 miles (192 km) northwest of Morelia, the state capital. During the colonial era it was known as Zula la Vieja but was elevated to city rank and given its present name in...
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La Place Ducale (building, Charleville-Mézières, France)
...The Place Ducale, in the centre, is a fine example of early 17th-century classical French architecture, despite the presence of the 19th-century Hôtel de Ville, which replaced the unfinished Ducal Palace. The poet Arthur Rimbaud was born in the vicinity and composed his poem “Le Bateau ivre” (“The Drunken Boat”) near the 17th-century mill, which is now a museu...
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La Planche, François de (Flemish weaver)
At the turn of the 16th–17th centuries, two Flemish weavers had been taken to France by government arrangement to establish low-warp looms in Paris: François de La Planche (or Franz van den Planken; 1573–1627) and Marc de Comans (1563–before 1650). Satisfactory working conditions were found for them in the old Gobelins family dyeworks on the outskirts of the city, and.....
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“La Planète des singes” (work by Boulle)
...he turned to a literature of the fantastic, Contes de l’absurde (1953; “Stories of the Absurd”), and to science fiction, La Planète des singes (1963; Planet of the Apes; film adaptation, 1968) and E = mc2 (1957), which contains ironic but humane considerations of the fate of modern man caught in a political, social,...
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La Plata (Bolivia)
judicial capital of Bolivia. (La Paz is the country’s administrative capital.) Sucre lies in a fertile valley crossed by the Cachimayo River 9,153 feet (2,790 metres) above sea level. It was founded in 1539 by the conquistador Pedro de Anzúrez on the site of a Charcas Indian village and has been variously called La Plata (the Spanish colonial nam...
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La Plata (Argentina)
city, capital of Buenos Aires provincia (province), eastern Argentina, 6 miles (9 km) inland from the southern shore of the Río de la Plata estuary. The site was selected in 1882 by the provincial governor of Buenos Aires, Dardo Rocha, as the new provincial seat, a move made necessary when Buenos Aires was federalized as the nationa...
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la Plata, Río de (estuary, South America)
a tapering intrusion of the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of South America between Uruguay to the north and Argentina to the south. While some geographers regard it as a gulf or as a marginal sea of the Atlantic, and others consider it to be a river, it is usually held to be the estuary of the Paraná and ...
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La Plata River (river, Puerto Rico)
river in east-central Puerto Rico, rising on the western slope of Mount Santa (2,963 feet [903 metres]), a peak of the Sierra de Cayey. Part of the stream is impounded by Lake Carite; the reservoir’s outlet diverts waters for a series of hydroelectric stations on the Guamaní River in the coastal Guayama area to the south. The La Plata itself flows about 46 miles (7...
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La Plata river dolphin (mammal)
The smallest river dolphin species, the La Plata river dolphin (Pontoporia blainvillei), also lives in South America. Also known as the franciscana, it inhabits the coastal waters of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. Gray above and pale below, this little dolphin grows only 1.2–1.7 metres (4–5.6 feet) long and weighs 20–60 kg (45–135 pounds). Female...
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La Porrée, Gilbert de (French bishop)
In his remaining years he participated in the condemnation of Gilbert de La Porrée—a scholarly dialectician and bishop of Poitiers who held that Christ’s divine nature was only a human concept. He exhorted Pope Eugenius to stress his role as spiritual leader of the church over his role as leader of a great temporal power, and he was a major figure in church councils. His great...
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la Pouplinière, Le Riche de (French music patron)
His most influential contact at this time was Le Riche de la Pouplinière, one of the wealthiest men in France and one of the greatest musical patrons of all time. Rameau was put in charge of La Pouplinière’s excellent private orchestra, a post he held for 22 years. He also taught the financier’s brilliant and musical wife. The composer’s family eventually moved i...
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“La Profession de foi du vicaire savoyard” (essay by Rousseau)
...which proves to be a kind of simplified Christianity, involving neither revelation nor the familiar dogmas of the church. In the guise of La Profession de foi du vicaire savoyard (1765; The Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar) Rousseau sets out what may fairly be regarded as his own religious views, since that book confirms what he says on the subject in his private......
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“La Religieuse” (work by Diderot)
La Religieuse describes the distressing and ultimately tragic experiences of a girl who is forced to become a nun against her will. In Jacques le fataliste, Jacques, who believes in fate, is involved in an endless argument with his master, who does not, as they journey along retelling the story of their lives and loves. Diderot’s philosophical standpoint in this work is......
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La Renaudie (French noble)
...family gained ascendancy in the government, creating enmity among the smaller nobility. A conspiracy to overturn their government was formed at Nantes, with a needy Périgord nobleman named La Renaudie as its nominal head, though the agitation had in the first instance been fostered by the agents of Louis I de Bourbon, prince de Condé. The Guises were warned of the conspiracy......
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La Republique du Genève (canton, Switzerland)
canton, southwestern Switzerland. The canton lies between the Jura Mountains and the Alps and consists mainly of its capital, the city of Geneva (Genève). It is one of the smallest cantons in the Swiss Confederation. Bordering on Vaud canton for 3.5 miles (5.5 km) in the extreme north, it is otherwise surrounded by French territory—the département of ...
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La Révellière-Lépeaux, Louis-Marie de (French politician)
member of the French Revolutionary regime known as the Directory....
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La Rioja (region, Spain)
comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) and historical region of Spain coextensive with the north-central Spanish provincia (province) of La Rioja (until 1980 called Logroño). La Rioja is bordered by the autonomous communities of the Basque Country to the north, Nav...
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La Rioja (province, Argentina)
provincia (province), northwestern Argentina, extending southeastward from Chile. The province’s southeastern half is an arid to semiarid plain, while the northwestern section is crossed north to south by alternating mountain ranges and semiarid valleys associated with the Andean cordillera. Saline marshes and lakes of the southeast...
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La Rioja (Argentina)
city, capital of La Rioja provincia (province), northwestern Argentina, on La Rioja River at the foot of the Velasco Mountains. Founded in 1591 by explorers for gold and silver, it long remained a small commercial and administrative centre close to intermittently worked deposits of copper, silver, and lead ores in the hi...
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La Rive, Auguste-Arthur de (French physicist)
Swiss physicist who was one of the founders of the electrochemical theory of batteries....
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La Rocca, Nick (American musician)
...bands in New Orleans from 1891, is often referred to as the father of white jazz. Specializing first in French and German marching music, his band by 1910 had converted almost entirely to ragtime. Nick La Rocca, one of the many musicians who apprenticed with Laine, incorporated the sound, and much of the repertoire, of Laine’s band when forming the Original Dixieland Jazz (originally......
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La Roche, Sophie von (German writer)
German writer whose first and most important work, Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (1771; History of Lady Sophia Sternheim), was the first German novel written by a woman and is considered to be among the best works from the period in which English novels, particularly those of Samuel Richardson, had great influence on many German writers....
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La Roche-sur-Yon (France)
town, capital of Vendée département, Pays de la Loire région, western France, south of Nantes. The Vendée region had been pacified at the time of the French Revolution but still remained disaffected after the counterrevolutionary insurrection of 1793; Napoleon in 1804 established a military and administrative town in the centre of the ...
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La Rochefoucauld family (French noble family)
one of France’s noblest families, traceable in Angoumois to the year 1019. Ducal titles belonging to it are: duke (duc) de La Rochefoucauld (1622); duke de La Roche-Guyon (1679); duke d’Anville (1732); duke d’Estissac; duke de Liancourt (1747); duke de Doudeauville (1780); duke (duca) di Bisaccia (Neapolitan title; 1851); and duke (duque) de Estrées (Spanish title; 189...
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La Rochefoucauld, François VI, duc de (French writer)
French classical author who had been one of the most active rebels of the Fronde before he became the leading exponent of the maxime, a French literary form of epigram that expresses a harsh or paradoxical truth with brevity....
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La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, François-Alexandre-Frédéric, duc de (French educator)
educator and social reformer who founded the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Métiers at Châlons and whose model farm at Liancourt contributed to the development of French agriculture....
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La Rochejaquelein, Henri du Vergier, Count de (French noble)
...Bourdic, and Jean-Nicolas Stofflet were joined by royalist nobles such as Charles Bonchamps, Marquis de Bonchamps, Maurice Gigost d’Elbée, François-Athanase Charette de La Contrie, and Henri du Vergier, Count de La Rochejaquelein. In May the rebels (about 30,000 strong) took the towns of Thouars, Parthenay, and Fontenay, and their army, which had changed its name from ...
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La Rochelle (France)
city, Atlantic seaport and capital of Charente-Maritime département, Poitou-Charentes région, western France, situated on an inlet opposite Ré Island. The city, which has straight, regular streets, a large park, and shady promenades on the sites of its old fortifications, grew considerably after 1946, especially to the west. The old commercial...
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La Rochelle, Pierre Drieu (French writer)
French writer of novels, short stories, and political essays whose life and works illustrate the malaise common among European youth after World War I....
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La Rocque, Jean-François de, Sieur de Roberval (French explorer)
French colonizer chosen by Francis I to create a settlement on North American lands found earlier by Jacques Cartier....
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La Romana (Dominican Republic)
city and port, southeastern Dominican Republic, on the Caribbean Sea opposite Catalina Island. Founded near the end of the 19th century, La Romana grew rapidly after the establishment of a large sugar mill in 1911. In addition to sugarcane, the surrounding region produces coffee, tobacco, beeswax, cattle, and hides. The city has food-processing and soap, shoe, and furniture plan...
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La Rue, Bubbles (marionette character)
A few of their creations became classic puppet figures: Bubbles La Rue, the marionette striptease dancer; the singing frogs; Snarky Parker, the master of ceremonies; and Heathcliff, the talking horse. Bil Baird trained a generation of younger puppeteers, including the creator of the Muppets, Jim Henson, and many of Henson’s associates. He was also......
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La Rue, Perchon de (Flemish composer)
composer in the Flemish, or Netherlandish, style that dominated Renaissance music, known for his religious music....
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La Rue, Pierchon de (Flemish composer)
composer in the Flemish, or Netherlandish, style that dominated Renaissance music, known for his religious music....
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La Rue, Pierre de (Flemish composer)
composer in the Flemish, or Netherlandish, style that dominated Renaissance music, known for his religious music....
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La Rue, Pierson de (Flemish composer)
composer in the Flemish, or Netherlandish, style that dominated Renaissance music, known for his religious music....
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La Sal Mountains (mountains, Utah, United States)
...sunken deserts, picturesque buttes and mesas, and rare verdant sections of valley. Elevations range from 2,000 feet (600 m) in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, to more than 12,700 feet (3,870 m) in the La Sal Mountains, Utah. Erosion by the Colorado River system has carved deep, brilliantly coloured gorges, notably the Grand Canyon. (The erosive power of the river is shown in the video.) The......
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La Sale, Antoine de (French writer)
French writer chiefly remembered for his Petit Jehan de Saintré, a romance marked by a great gift for the observation of court manners and a keen sense of comic situation and dialogue....
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La Salle (Illinois, United States)
city, La Salle county, north-central Illinois, U.S. It lies on the Illinois River, about 90 miles (150 km) southwest of Chicago. With Peru (adjacent to the west) and Oglesby (southeast), La Salle forms a tri-city unit. The city was named for the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, sieur (lord) de La Salle, who bui...
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La Salle (Quebec, Canada)
city, Montréal region, southern Quebec province, Canada, on the south shore of Île de Montréal (Montreal Island), at the head of the Lachine Rapids of the St. Lawrence River. Settlement of the site began in 1668, when Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, established a fortified townsite first known as Saint-Sulpice and later as La Petite Chine, or Lachine. Surviving an Iroquoi...
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La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (work by Parkman)
...in the Seventeenth Century (1867) is a powerful narrative of the tragedy of the Jesuit missionaries whose missions among the Hurons were destroyed by persistent Iroquois attacks, and his La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, first published in 1869 as The Discovery of the Great West but later revised after French documents were made available, is in many respects......
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La Salle, René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de (French explorer)
French explorer in North America, who led an expedition down the Illinois and Mississippi rivers and claimed all the region watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries for Louis XIV of France, naming the region “Louisiana.” A few years later, in a luckless expedition seeking the mouth of the Mississippi, he was murdered by his men....
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La Salle, Saint Jean-Baptiste de (French educator)
French educator and founder of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (sometimes called the de La Salle Brothers), the first Roman Catholic congregation of male nonclerics devoted solely to schools, learning, and teaching....
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La Salle Street (street, Chicago, Illinois, United States)
...the area enclosed by the Chicago River, Michigan Avenue, and Congress Parkway. The Loop includes a portion of State Street, a major shopping district with several large department stores, and LaSalle Street (sometimes considered Chicago’s Wall Street), the location of several large financial institutions, including the Chicago Stock Exchange (founded 1882; from 1949 to 1993, the Midwest....
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La Salle University (university, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States)
private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. It is operated by the Christian Brothers, a teaching order of the Roman Catholic church. It comprises schools of Arts and Sciences, Business Administration, and Nursing, offering a range of bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in nursin...
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La Scala (opera house, Milan, Italy)
theatre in Milan, one of the principal opera houses of the world and the leading Italian house....
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la Selle, Mount (mountain, Haiti)
...the West Indies, reaching 10,417 feet (3,175 metres) at Duarte Peak in the Cordillera Central in the Dominican Republic. The most elevated part of Haiti is the southwestern peninsula, which rises to Mount La Selle at 8,773 feet (2,674 metres). In contrast to the highlands, the basin of Lake Enriquillo in southwestern Dominican Republic has land below sea level, the surface of the lake being......
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La Serena (Chile)
city, northern Chile, lying on a marine terrace overlooking Bahía (bay) de Coquimbo, just south of the Río Elqui and east of Coquimbo city. Founded c. 1543 on the river’s northern bank, it was named after the birthplace of the conquistador Pedro de Valdivia. Razed by Diaguita Indians in 1549 and rebuilt on the present site the follo...
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La Sila (mountains, Italy)
...of the Apennine Range by the Mount Pollino massif (7,375 feet [2,248 m]), which is continued southward by the west coast range, which is in turn separated by the Crati River from the extensive La Sila massif (rising to 6,325 feet [1,928 m]). A narrow isthmus between the gulfs of Sant’Eufemia (west) and Squillace (east) separates the northern from the southern part of the region, in which...
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La Silla Observatory (observatory, Chile)
ESO operates at three sites in Chile—the La Silla Observatory, located about 600 km (370 miles) north of Santiago at an altitude of 2,400 metres (7,900 feet), the Very Large Telescope (Paranal Observatory) on Paranal, a 2,600-metre- (8,500-foot-) high mountain about 130 km (80 miles) south of Antofagasta, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) located about 50 km......
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