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Beltaine (ancient Celtic festival)
festival held on the first day of May in Ireland and Scotland, celebrating the beginning of summer and open pasturing. Beltane is first mentioned in a glossary attributed to Cormac, bishop of Cashel and king of Munster, who was killed in 908. Cormac describes how cattle were driven between two bonfires on Beltane as a magical means of protecting them from disease before they were led into summer p...
Beltane (ancient Celtic festival)
festival held on the first day of May in Ireland and Scotland, celebrating the beginning of summer and open pasturing. Beltane is first mentioned in a glossary attributed to Cormac, bishop of Cashel and king of Munster, who was killed in 908. Cormac describes how cattle were driven between two bonfires on Beltane as a magical means of protecting them from disease before they were led into summer p...
belted kingfisher (bird)
The typical kingfishers (subfamily Alcedininae) are river dwellers, like the belted kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon), the only widespread North American species. This handsome crested bird flies off over the water when disturbed, uttering a loud rattling call. It is about 30 cm (12 inches) long and is bluish gray above and across the breast and white below. Only the females sport the......
belted sandfish (fish)
Sea bass are carnivorous, feeding on fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and other invertebrates. Some are active swimmers; others, such as the groupers, are more sedentary. Certain species, such as the belted sandfish (Serranellus subligarius) of Florida, are hermaphroditic (male and female reproductive organs in one animal). Others, such as the groupers, may mature as one sex and later......
belted tire
...angle of about 50 degrees to the axis of the tire tube, and the cords in successive plies (two or four) cross one another—an arrangement that serves to equalize cord tensions. In a bias-ply belted tire, another set of cords overlies the bias-laid ones. This extra set of cords, called a belt, is typically made of fibreglass. A radial-ply belted tire also has a belt running around the......
Belter, Johann Heinrich (American cabinetmaker)
cabinetmaker and designer known for his superb Victorian Rococo pieces....
Belter, John Henry (American cabinetmaker)
cabinetmaker and designer known for his superb Victorian Rococo pieces....
Beltian Geosyncline (geology)
a linear trough in the Earth’s crust in which rocks of Precambrian age (about 4 billion to 542 million years ago) were deposited in the Northern Rocky Mountain region. The rocks consist of limestones, shales, and sandstones and attain total thicknesses as great as 10,600 metres (35,000 feet). Beltian rocks are exposed...
Beltine (ancient Celtic festival)
festival held on the first day of May in Ireland and Scotland, celebrating the beginning of summer and open pasturing. Beltane is first mentioned in a glossary attributed to Cormac, bishop of Cashel and king of Munster, who was killed in 908. Cormac describes how cattle were driven between two bonfires on Beltane as a magical means of protecting them from disease before they were led into summer p...
Beltir (people)
...had permanent villages and engaged in both pastoralism and farming. The Sagay, of heterogeneous ethnic composition and origin, changed from hunting and fishing to farming and stockbreeding. The Beltir (meaning “river-mouth people”), famed as trappers and as smiths, have also become farmers and stockbreeders. The Koybal, not a tribe in the ethnographic sense but a territorial......
Belton, Michael J. (American astronomer)
...200 km (125 miles) in diameter and travels in an unstable, eccentric orbit between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus with a period of about 50.7 years. In 1989 two other Americans, Karen J. Meech and Michael Belton, detected a fuzzy luminous cloud around Chiron. Such a cloud, termed a coma and being a distinguishing feature of comets, consists of dust and entraining gases expelled from the......
Beltrami, Eugenio (Italian mathematician)
Italian mathematician known for his description of non-Euclidean geometry and for his theories of surfaces of constant curvature....
Beltrán Alcayaga, María Lucia (Mexican singer)
(MARÍA LUCIA BELTRÁN ALCAYAGA), Mexican singer (b. 1931?, Sinaloa, Mexico--d. March 24, 1996, Mexico City, Mexico), infused mariachi ballads with such drama, emotion, and style that she came to be known as Lola la Grande, the queen of mariachi. Her regal bearing was enhanced by extravagant costuming and ornate ...
Beltrán, Lola (Mexican singer)
(MARÍA LUCIA BELTRÁN ALCAYAGA), Mexican singer (b. 1931?, Sinaloa, Mexico--d. March 24, 1996, Mexico City, Mexico), infused mariachi ballads with such drama, emotion, and style that she came to be known as Lola la Grande, the queen of mariachi. Her regal bearing was enhanced by extravagant costuming and ornate ...
Beltrán, Manuela (Colombian rebel)
popular uprising in 1780–81 in the Viceroyalty of New Granada. In response to new tobacco and polling taxes imposed in 1780 by the Spanish government, insurgents led by Manuela Beltrán in Socorro, Colombia, sparked a revolt that soon spread to neighbouring towns north of Bogotá. The rebels, in addition to demanding the cancellation of taxes, urged such wide-ranging reforms......
Beltrán, Pedro Gerado (Peruvian economist, diplomat, and publisher)
Peruvian economist, diplomat, and publisher whose brief term as prime minister and minister of finance (1959–61) stabilized the Peruvian economy....
Beltraneja, La (Spanish infanta)
...Pacheco, marqués de Villena, initially gained ascendancy over the king, others vied for royal favour. The nobles, alleging Henry’s impotence, refused to accept the legitimacy of the infanta Joan, who they declared was the child of the queen and of the king’s most recent favourite, Beltrán de la Cueva. Because of that account, the young girl was derided as “La....
Belts (Moldova)
city, northern Moldova, on the Răut (Reut) River. Bălţi, dating from the 15th century, is a major railway junction and the centre of the rich agricultural Bălţi Steppe. Most industries are concerned with processing farm produce, notably flour milling, sugar refining, and wine making, but furniture, ...
Beltsy (Moldova)
city, northern Moldova, on the Răut (Reut) River. Bălţi, dating from the 15th century, is a major railway junction and the centre of the rich agricultural Bălţi Steppe. Most industries are concerned with processing farm produce, notably flour milling, sugar refining, and wine making, but furniture, ...
Beluch (people)
group of tribes speaking the Balochi language and estimated at about five million inhabitants in the province of Balochistān in Pakistan and also neighbouring areas of Iran and Afghanistan. In Pakistan the Baloch people are divided into two groups, the Sulaimani and the Makrani, separated from each o...
Belucha, Mount (mountain, Russia)
one of the Katun Mountains, a series of snowcapped peaks in Russia. The highest mountain in the Russian portion of the Altai Mountains, Belukha reaches a height of 14,783 feet (4,506 m) in one of its twin peaks. Glaciers cover some 27 square miles (70 square km) of its surface; the largest, Berel, ascends to a height of 6,396...
Beluchi language
one of the oldest living languages of the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European languages. Balochi is spoken by about five million people as a first or second language in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, India, and Baloch diaspora communities....
beluga (whale)
a small, toothed whale found mainly in the coastal waters of the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas but also in rivers and deep offshore waters. It is an extremely vocal cetacean and thus has also been referred to as the “canary of the sea.” This whale can also proficiently mimi...
beluga (fish)
large species of sturgeon....
beluga caviar (food)
Caviar is graded according to the size of the eggs and the manner of processing. Grades are named for the types of sturgeon from which the eggs are taken: beluga, the largest, is black or gray; the smaller osetrova grayish, gray-green, or brown; sevruga, the smallest, is greenish black. The rarest caviar, made from the golden eggs of the sterlet, was formerly reserved for......
Belukha, Gora (mountain, Russia)
one of the Katun Mountains, a series of snowcapped peaks in Russia. The highest mountain in the Russian portion of the Altai Mountains, Belukha reaches a height of 14,783 feet (4,506 m) in one of its twin peaks. Glaciers cover some 27 square miles (70 square km) of its surface; the largest, Berel, ascends to a height of 6,396...
Belukha, Mount (mountain, Russia)
one of the Katun Mountains, a series of snowcapped peaks in Russia. The highest mountain in the Russian portion of the Altai Mountains, Belukha reaches a height of 14,783 feet (4,506 m) in one of its twin peaks. Glaciers cover some 27 square miles (70 square km) of its surface; the largest, Berel, ascends to a height of 6,396...
Belu’u er a Belau
country in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of some 340 coral and volcanic islands perched on the Kyushu-Palau Ridge. The Palau (also spelled Belau or Pelew) archipelago lies in the southwest corner of Micronesia, with Guam 830 miles (1,330 km) to the northeast, New Guinea...
Belváros (district, Budapest, Hungary)
The heart of Pest is the Belváros (Inner Town), an irregular pentagon with its longest side running parallel to the Danube; only traces of the original town walls remain. The district accommodates offices, parts of the Loránd Eötvös University, and shops. The Váci utca, a narrow street turned pedestrian thoroughfare, is the most fashionable shopping centre of......
Belvárosi plébániatemplom (church, Budapest, Hungary)
...(Fővárosi Tanács), a Baroque building erected between 1724 and 1747, is in the northeast corner of the Belváros next to Pest County Hall (Pest megyei Tanács). The Inner Town Parish Church (Belvárosi plébániatemplom) is the oldest building in Pest. Rebuilt in the Baroque style in the 18th century, as were many other churches in Pest and......
belvedere (architecture)
(Italian: “beautiful view”), architectural structure built in an elevated position to provide lighting and ventilation and to command a fine view. Roofed but open on one or more sides, a belvedere may be located in the upper part of a building or may stand as a separate structure. It often assumes the form of a loggia, or open gallery....
Belvedere Castle (castle, Weimar, Germany)
...tens of thousands of volumes, including first editions of the works of Schiller and William Shakespeare. Other notable landmarks include the Wittums Palace (1767), Weimar Castle (1790–1803), Belvedere Castle (1724–32), Tiefurt Castle, and the Church of Saints Peter and Paul (with an altarpiece by Lucas Cranach the Elder and his son), sometimes called the Herder Church for its......
Belvedere court (courtyard, Vatican City, Europe)
Perhaps as early as 1505, Bramante designed the immense courtyard of the Belvedere, extending the nucleus of the older Vatican palaces to the north and connecting them with the pre-existing villa of Innocent VIII. Many aspects of the complex were conceived on Classical models; for example, the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian arrangement of orders for the three-level lower terrace echoed the......
Belvedere cypress (plant)
genus of annual plants with about 20 species, of the amaranth family (Amaranthaceae), native primarily to Eurasia. The commonly cultivated garden species is summer cypress (B. scoparia), sometimes known as standing, or Belvedere, cypress. The most widely grown variety is the red summer cypress, also called firebush or burning bush (B. scoparia forma trichophylla), an erect, often......
Belvedere Palace (palace, Vienna, Austria)
Another noble structure is the Belvedere, which is actually two Baroque palaces at either end of a terraced garden. It was built by Hildebrandt for the soldier and statesman Prince Eugene of Savoy. The Lower Belvedere (1714–16) was a summer garden palace, and the Upper (1721–24) was designed as a place of entertainment. Both now house museums of Austrian art. The Austrian State......
Belvedere Palace (palace, Rome, Italy)
...Perhaps it was this new imaginative synthesis of the colour, splendour, and ritualistic power of ancient Rome that brought about Pope Innocent VIII’s commission to decorate his private chapel in the Belvedere Palace in Rome (destroyed 1780), which Mantegna carried out in 1488–90....
Belvedere Torso (Greek sculpture)
Hellenistic sculpture fragment of a male nude (5 feet 2 58 inches [1.59 m] high) in the Vatican Museum; the work is signed by the Athenian sculptor Apollonius the son of Nestor and was long thought to be a 1st-century-bc original. It is now believed that Apollonius copied a 2nd-century original. The dynamic pose of the torso influenced the developme...
Belvedere villa (villa, Vatican City, Europe)
...St. Peter’s, Bramante added two important features. The great Belvedere court (begun 1505) was planned to bring together the two disparate elements of the older palace attached to the church and the Belvedere villa of Innocent VIII on the hill above the palace. Bramante gave the new court a neo-antique flavour recalling the imperial palaces on the hills of Rome and the ......
Belvidere (Illinois, United States)
city, seat (1837) of Boone county, northern Illinois, U.S. It lies on the Kishwaukee River, about 75 miles (120 km) northwest of downtown Chicago. The area was settled in 1835 and was originally named Elysian Fields. The city was founded in 1836 and renamed Belvidere (Latin: “Beautiful View”). Belvidere was an important stopping place on the Chic...
Bely, Andrey (Russian poet)
leading theorist and poet of Russian Symbolism, a literary school deriving from the Modernist movement in western European art and literature and an indigenous Eastern Orthodox spirituality, expressing mystical and abstract ideals through allegories from life and nature....
Bely Gorod (fort, Moscow, Russia)
fortress and settlement comprising the third defense belt around Moscow, which joined the Kremlin and Kitay-gorod on the left bank of the Moskva River. Built between 1585 and 1593 of stone walls, the fortifications of Bely Gorod were important in providing defense for the Moscow settlement. In the 1770s and ’80s its w...
Belyayev, Pavel (Soviet cosmonaut)
cosmonaut who served as the pilot of the Voskhod 2 spacecraft during the Soviet Union’s eighth manned space mission, launched March 18, 1965, the flight on which Aleksey Leonov, Belyayev’s copilot, became the first man to walk in space....
Belyayev, Pavel Ivanovich (Soviet cosmonaut)
cosmonaut who served as the pilot of the Voskhod 2 spacecraft during the Soviet Union’s eighth manned space mission, launched March 18, 1965, the flight on which Aleksey Leonov, Belyayev’s copilot, became the first man to walk in space....
Belyi Gorod (fort, Moscow, Russia)
fortress and settlement comprising the third defense belt around Moscow, which joined the Kremlin and Kitay-gorod on the left bank of the Moskva River. Built between 1585 and 1593 of stone walls, the fortifications of Bely Gorod were important in providing defense for the Moscow settlement. In the 1770s and ’80s its w...
Belzec (concentration camp, Poland)
Nazi German complex of concentration camps and an extermination camp in and near the village of Bełżec along the Lublin-Lviv railway line in the Lublin province of German-occupied Poland. At the extermination camp—one of the most gruesome sites of the Holocaust—the Nazis killed at least 600,000 ...
Bełżec (Poland)
Nazi German complex of concentration camps and an extermination camp in and near the village of Bełżec along the Lublin-Lviv railway line in the Lublin province of German-occupied Poland. At the extermination camp—one of the most gruesome sites of the Holocaust—the Nazis killed at least 600,000 Jews....
Bełżec (concentration camp, Poland)
Nazi German complex of concentration camps and an extermination camp in and near the village of Bełżec along the Lublin-Lviv railway line in the Lublin province of German-occupied Poland. At the extermination camp—one of the most gruesome sites of the Holocaust—the Nazis killed at least 600,000 ...
Belzoni, Giovanni Battista (Italian archaeologist)
excavator of Egyptian archaeological sites....
Bem, Józef Zachariasz (Polish general)
Polish army general whose military feats in Transylvania and the region of Banat made him a hero of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848–49. He was the author of treatises on artillery, mathematics, and history....
Bema (Manichaean festival)
...fixed to the walls, like the formerly mobile minbar (domed boxes in mosques). In Manichaeism (a dualistic religion founded by the Persian prophet Mani in the 3rd century ce), the Bēma Feast was centred on the exaltation of a reconstructed pulpit (Bēma), which symbolically represented the rostrum from which Mani spread his teachings. Another important element o...
bema (architecture)
(Greek bēma, “step”), raised platform; in antiquity it was probably made of stone, but in modern times it is usually a rectangular wooden platform approached by steps. Originally used in Athens as a tribunal from which orators addressed the citizens as well as the courts of law, the bema later became a standard fixture in Christian churches. In Early Christian basilica...
Bemba (people)
Bantu-speaking people inhabiting the northeastern plateau of Zambia and neighbouring areas of Congo (Kinshasa) and Zimbabwe. The Bantu language of the Bemba has become the lingua franca of Zambia....
Bembé, Carl August (German architect)
...Breuhaus de Groot created the interiors of the steamship Bremen (1929) and the airship Hindenburg (1931–35), and in the 1930s Gropius protégé Carl August Bembé designed motorboats for Maybach, a company that built internal-combustion engines for airplanes and boats and automobiles for the German car manufacturers Opel and Adler....
Bemberg, Maria Luisa (Argentine director)
Argentine motion-picture director (b. April 14, 1922, Buenos Aires, Arg.--d. May 7, 1995, Buenos Aires), challenged tradition when she embarked on a directing career after expressing disappointment at the way her semiautobiographical screenplays were interpreted by male directors and later emerged as Latin America’s foremost female director. Bemberg, who was raised in a patrician family, ma...
Bemberg rayon (textile)
...was simple and involved a minimum of waste, it was slow, expensive, and potentially dangerous. In 1890 another French chemist, Louis-Henri Despeissis, patented a process for making fibres from cuprammonium rayon. This material was based on the Swiss chemist Matthias Eduard Schweizer’s discovery in 1857 that cellulose could be dissolved in a solution of copper salts and ammonia and, after...
Bembicini (insect)
any of a group of wasps in the subfamily Bembicinae (family Crabronidae, order Hymenoptera) that are solitary, stout-bodied insects about 2 to 2.5 cm (about 0.8 to 1 inch) long....
bembismo (literary term)
...poetry of formal excellence and then turned to the vernacular, modeling his poetry on that of Petrarch. His way of making direct imitations of Petrarch was widely influential and became known as bembismo. A collected edition of his Italian poems, Rime, appeared in 1530. His other vernacular works include: Gli Asolani (1505), dialogues on platonic love, the systemization of....
Bembix carolina (insect)
The horse-guard (Bembix carolina) of the southern United States often hunts for flies around horses. It is about 2.5 cm in length and is black with yellow or yellowish green markings. Microbembex monodonta is found along the seashore. Many sand wasps are black with white, yellow, or green markings. A distinguishing character is their elongated triangular labrum (upper lip), which......
Bembo (typeface)
...intelligent use that mechanical composition could be used to produce books at once handsome and functional. Among these types were Garamond, based upon a 17th-century French letter (see above); Bembo, after an Aldine roman; Centaur, an adaptation of Rogers’ foundry face; and Baskerville and Bell, based upon English models. Italics included Arrighi, a version of the letter used by ...
Bembo, Pietro (Italian cardinal and writer)
Renaissance cardinal who wrote one of the earliest Italian grammars and assisted in establishing the Italian literary language....
Bembridae (fish)
...(17 inches). Found in moderately deep water in Indo-Pacific region. 1 genus, Hoplichthys, with about 11 species.Family Bembridae (deepwater flatheads) Small bottom fishes living on the continental shelf at depths of from about 150 to 650 metres (about 500 to 2,100 feet), with large, depress...
Bemelmans, Ludwig (American author)
...literature. The small child was far better served by a dozen talented writer-illustrators, such as Wanda Gág, with her classic Millions of Cats (1928) and other delightful books; and Ludwig Bemelmans, with Madeline (1939) and its sequels. Other distinguished names in the important and growing picture-book field were Marjorie Flack, Hardie Gramatky, James Daugherty, the......
Bement, Alon (American educator)
While with her family in 1912 O’Keeffe attended a summer course for art teachers at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, which was taught by Alon Bement of Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York City. Bement acquainted her with the then-revolutionary thinking of his colleague at Teachers College, artist and art educator Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow believed in the Modernist id...
Bement, Arden (American metallurgical engineer and science administrator)
American metallurgical engineer who became director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2004....
Bement, Arden Lee, Jr. (American metallurgical engineer and science administrator)
American metallurgical engineer who became director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2004....
Bemer, Robert William (American computer programmer)
American computer programmer (b. Feb. 8, 1920, Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.—d. June 22, 2004, Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas), was instrumental in helping to develop ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), a system that, upon becoming operational in 1963, greatly facilitated the exchange of data between various makes of computers. Bemer’s contribution—as part of the...
Bemidbar (Old Testament)
the fourth book of the Bible. The English title is a translation of the Septuagint (Greek) title referring to the numbering of the tribes of Israel in chapters 1–4....
Bemidji (Minnesota, United States)
city, seat (1897) of Beltrami county, north-central Minnesota, U.S. It lies on Lake Bemidji, about 150 miles (240 km) northwest of Duluth. Bemidji was established in 1888. Its name, first applied to the lake and then to the Ojibwa chief who in 1883 became the area’s first permanent resident, is from an Ojibwa word meaning “a la...
Bemidji State Normal School (university, Bemidji, Minnesota, United States)
coeducational institution of higher learning, situated on Lake Bemidji in Bemidji, Minnesota, U.S. It is one of seven institutions in the Minnesota State University system. Bemidji State University was founded in 1919 as Bemidji State Normal School. All the normal (teacher-training) schoo...
Bemidji State University (university, Bemidji, Minnesota, United States)
coeducational institution of higher learning, situated on Lake Bemidji in Bemidji, Minnesota, U.S. It is one of seven institutions in the Minnesota State University system. Bemidji State University was founded in 1919 as Bemidji State Normal School. All the normal (teacher-training) schoo...
Bemis Heights, Battle of (United States history)
coeducational institution of higher learning, situated on Lake Bemidji in Bemidji, Minnesota, U.S. It is one of seven institutions in the Minnesota State University system. Bemidji State University was founded in 1919 as Bemidji State Normal School. All the normal (teacher-training) schoo...
Bemis module (architecture)
An increasing amount of attention was devoted to modules after the development in the 1930s of the Bemis 4-inch (10-centimetre in Europe) cubical module. In the 1950s an effort was made to combine into a single “number pattern” several of these modular systems to offer the designer a larger range of approved dimensions. Most architects and producers of building materials continued,.....
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. (American company)
...Many companies have achieved success in adopting societal marketing. Two companies that were among the pioneers of societal marketing are The Body Shop International PLC, based in England, and Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., which produces ice cream and is based in the U.S. state of Vermont. Body Shop’s cosmetics and personal hygiene products, based on natural ingredients, are...
Ben Ali, Zine al-Abidine (president of Tunisia)
army officer and politician who served as president of Tunisia (1987–2011)....
Ben Ali, Zine el-Abidine (president of Tunisia)
army officer and politician who served as president of Tunisia (1987–2011)....
Ben Badis, Sheikh ʿAbd al-Hamid (Algerian leader)
...refusal of demands by the reform-minded Young Algerians for French citizenship cleared the way for the radical separatist movement of Ahmed Messali Hadj and the Arab Islamic nationalist movement of Sheik ʿAbd al-Hamid Ben Badis. After the war the French were on the defensive, conceding independence to Tunisia and Morocco in 1956 in order to concentrate their efforts on Algeria, where a.....
Ben Barek, Larbi (Moroccan athlete)
...southern capital of Lagos following suit in 1931. Enterprising clubs and leagues developed across French West Africa in the 1930s, especially in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. Moroccan forward Larbi Ben Barek became the first African professional in Europe, playing for Olympique de Marseille and the French national team in 1938....
Ben Barka, Mehdi (Moroccan politician)
Moroccan revolutionary politician exiled to Paris whose abduction and presumed murder in October 1965 caused a political crisis for the government of French President Charles de Gaulle and led to ruptured diplomatic relations between France and Morocco for almost four years....
Ben Bella, Ahmed (president of Algeria)
principal leader of the Algerian War of Independence against France, the first prime minister (1962–63) and first elected president (1963–65) of the Algerian republic, who steered his country toward a socialist economy....
Ben Casey (American television show)
...and nurses (The Nurses; CBS, 1962–65). Similar dramas that were being developed at the time of Minow’s speech—the medical dramas Ben Casey (ABC, 1961–66) and Dr. Kildare (NBC, 1961–66) and the courtroom drama The Defenders (CBS,......
Ben Cruachan (mountain, Scotland, United Kingdom)
mountain in the Highlands, Argyll and Bute council area, Scot., culminating in several peaks, the highest of which is 3,689 feet (1,124 metres). It is situated between Loch (“Lake”) Etive on the north and Loch Awe on the south. The Cruachan...
Ben Day process (printing)
An entirely mechanical procedure for production of a halftone image on a metal printing plate is the benday process (1879), named after its inventor, Benjamin Day, a New York newspaper engraver. This process utilizes a series of celluloid screens bearing raised images of dot and line patterns. The screen surface is covered with a waxy ink and the ink transferred, by pressure and rolling, to......
Ben Djellab (North African dynasty)
...mud or clay-stone buildings, winding streets, and dazzlingly white archways. A massive fortress minaret and the Casbah’s clock tower rise above low houses; and the tombs of the Touggourt kings (the Ben Djellab) are clustered under a large dome. The oasis, fed by artesian wells, grows date palms, cereals, and vegetables. Located at the junction of ancient trans-Saharan caravan routes, Tou...
Ben ha-Mizraḥ (people)
the approximately 1,500,000 Diaspora Jews who lived for several centuries in North Africa and the Middle East and whose ancestors did not reside in either Germany or Spain. They are thus distinguished from the two other major groups ...
Ben Jelloun, Tahar (Moroccan author)
Moroccan-French novelist, poet, and essayist who wrote expressively about Moroccan culture, the immigrant experience, human rights, and sexual identity....
Ben Khedda, Benyoussef (Algerian leader)
Algerian independence leader (b. Feb. 23, 1920, Berrouaghia, Alg.—d. Feb. 4, 2003, Algiers, Alg.), negotiated Algeria’s independence from France in 1962, but he was forced from power shortly thereafter. In 1943, after he protested against French attempts to recruit Algerians in World War II, Ben Khedda was impr...
Ben Lomond (plateau, Tasmania, Australia)
mountain mass in northeastern Tasmania, Australia, comprising a plateau of 30 square miles (78 square km) made up of igneous rock. It mostly lies above 4,500 feet (1,400 m), making it the highest land in the state. The loftiest portion stretches 7 miles (11 km) from Legge Peak (Legges Tor; 5,161 feet [1,57...
Ben Macdui (mountain, Scotland, United Kingdom)
...in the Highlands of Scotland between the Spey and Dee river valleys. The mountains are divided among the Highland, Moray, and Aberdeenshire council areas, whose borders radiate from the massif. Ben Macdui, the highest mountain in the massif, with an elevation of 4,296 feet (1,309 metres), is the second highest mountain (after Ben Nevis) in the British Isles. A winter-sports industry in the......
Ben Matthias, Joseph (Jewish priest, scholar, and historian)
Jewish priest, scholar, and historian who wrote valuable works on the Jewish revolt of 66–70 and on earlier Jewish history. His major books are History of the Jewish War (75–79), The Antiquities of the Jews (93), and Against Apion....
Ben Ner, Yitzḥak (Israeli author)
...work examines the alienated Israeli, but Ha-Yehudi ha-aḥaron (1981; The Last Jew) explores the Israeli experience as a response to the Holocaust. The realistic stories of Yitzḥak Ben Ner are set in rural and urban communities (Sheḳiʿah kefarit [1976; “A Rustic Sunset”] and Ereẓ reḥokah [1981; “A......
Ben Nevis (mountain, Scotland, United Kingdom)
highest mountain of the British Isles, in the Highland council area, Scotland. Its summit, reaching an elevation of 4,406 feet (1,343 metres), is a plateau of about 100 acres (40 hectares), with a slight slope to the south and a sheer face to the northeast. Snow lies in some parts all year, and permafrost conditions are almost reached. The mountain consists of a superstructure of ...
ben oil
...angled daggerlike fruits sometimes grow to 45 cm (18 inches) long. Flowers, pods, leaves, and even twigs are cooked and eaten. A horseradish-flavoured condiment is prepared from the crushed roots. Ben oil, extracted from the seeds, is used by watchmakers. Perfume makers value it for its retention of scents....
ben plantada, La (work by Ors y Rovira)
...[1892; “The Catalan Tradition”]). One of the best and most influential writers in prose was the essayist Eugenio d’Ors (pseudonym “Xenius”), whose philosophical novel La ben plantada (1911; “Firmly Rooted”) was one of the most notable works in modern Catalan literature....
Ben Rinnes (mountain, Scotland, United Kingdom)
mountain in the Moray council area, Scotland, situated 15 miles (24 km) southwest of Keith and about 5 miles (8 km) east of the confluence of the Rivers Avon and Spey. It reaches an elevation of 2,759 feet (841 metres). One of the notable sights associated with Ben Rinnes is the Linn of Ruthie, a waterfall on one of the many streams descending from the......
Ben Salah, Ahmad (Tunisian government official)
...areas of education, the liberation of women, and legal reforms. Economic development was slower, but the government paid considerable attention to the more impoverished parts of the country. In 1961 Ahmad Ben Salah took charge of planning and finance. His ambitious efforts at forced-pace modernization, especially in agriculture, were foiled, however, by rural and conservative opposition.......
Ben Sira (ancient Hebrew author)
The text is the only apocryphal work whose author is known. It was written in Hebrew in Palestine around 180–175 bc by Ben Sira, who was probably a scribe well-versed in Jewish law and custom....
Ben Slimane (Morocco)
town, north-central Morocco. The town, a local market centre, is situated 12 miles (20 km) inland from the Atlantic Ocean between the cities of Rabat and Casablanca. It lies at an elevation of roughly 1,000 feet (300 metres) above sea level, at the e...
Ben Thuy (Vietnam)
town, northern Vietnam, on the Ca River, just southeast of the urban centre of Vinh. Just upstream from where the Ca River enters the Gulf of Tonkin where it meets the South China Sea...
Ben Tre (Vietnam)
city on the flat Mekong River delta, southern Vietnam. Ben Tre is linked by highway and ferry boat to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) 53 miles (85 km) to the northeast. It is served by a commercial airfield and functions as a link on the My Tho-Phu ...
Ben Vorlich (hills, Scotland, United Kingdom)
...The larger western section is an area of steep hills descending to the shores of Loch Lomond, the River Clyde, Gare Loch, and Loch Long. The highest of these, northwest of Loch Lomond, is Ben Vorlich, with an elevation of 3,092 feet (942 metres). The eastern section lies on the lowland plain that extends between the River Clyde and the Firth of Forth. The council area of West......