Gumbo

A gumbo begins with a roux, a mixture of fat and flour slowly browned over low heat. To this base are

Costello, Frank

Arriving in New York City at the age of four with his immigrant Calabrian parents, Costello grew up in East Harlem and became head of the 104th Street Gang, a group of young Italian hoodlums. In 1915 he went to prison for a year for

Armco Inc.

Originally a manufacturer of sheet iron and steel, the company diversified, and its activities now

Fabius Ambustus, Quintus

He and two other Fabii were sent as ambassadors to the Gauls while a Gallic army was besieging Clusium. After Quintus Fabius involved his group in a skirmish, the offended Gauls demanded that Rome surrender the culprits to them. By

Byron, John

The second son of the 4th Baron Byron, he was a midshipman on board the Wager in 1741 when it was wrecked off the coast of Chile during George Anson's voyage round the world. After unparalleled hardships Byron eventually reached

Cheke, Sir John

Cheke also spelled �Cheek � English humanist and supporter of the Protestant Reformation who, as the poet John Milton said, �taught Cambridge and King Edward Greek� and who, with his friend Sir Thomas Smith, discovered the proper pronunciation of ancient Greek. Through his teaching he made the University of Cambridge the centre of the �new learning� and the Reformed religion.

Proboscis Monkey

(Nasalis larvatus)� long-tailed arboreal monkey, family Cercopithecidae, found in the swampy mangrove forests of Borneo. The proboscis monkey is red-brown with pale underparts. The nose is long and pendulous in the male, smaller in the female, and upturned in the young. The male is about 56 - 72 cm (22 - 28 inches) long without the 66 - 75-centimetre (26 - 29-inch) tail and weighs 12 - 24 kg (26 - 53 pounds); the female is

Epidendrum

Genus of tropical orchids, family Orchidaceae, with about 1,000 species that are distributed from southeastern North America to central South America. Epidendrum species are primarily epiphytic (supported by other plants and having aerial roots exposed to the humid atmosphere), but some grow on rocks or in soil. Flowers are usually borne on a terminal

Black Sabbath

Osbourne, Butler, Iommi, and Ward, schoolmates in Birmingham in the late 1960s, formed the

Race, The persistence of �race�

Race also continues to be the focus of discourse on specific topics. Among these are IQ, as in Steven Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (1981); Mark Snyderman and Stanley Rothman, The IQ Controversy: The Media and Public Policy (1988); and Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (1994); and sports, as in John Hoberman, Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race (1997); and Jon Entine, Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It (2000).

Schleicher, August

German linguist whose work in comparative linguistics was a summation of the achievements up to his time and whose methodology provided the direction for much subsequent research. He was influenced by the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel, which he espoused during his student days at the University of T�bingen, and, later, by

Kadoma

City, Osaka fu (urban prefecture), Honshu, Japan, bordering Osaka city. The city is located on the left bank of the Yodo River and is known for its cultivation of lotus flowers. After the establishment of a railway connection to Osaka in 1909, industrialization was rapid. The Matsushita Electric Industrial Company moved to Kadoma in 1933 to establish factories producing electrical

Vecchio, Palazzo

The Tuscan Gothic design of the Palazzo Vecchio has been

Abdullah, Sheikh Muhammad

Abdullah was educated at the Prince of Wales College (Jammu) and the Islamia College (Lahore) and received an M.S. degree in physics from Aligarh

Ch'i-lien Mountains

Wade - Giles romanization �Ch'i-lien Shan, �Pinyin �Qilian Shan, � rugged mountain range on the border of Tsinghai and Kansu provinces, west central China. It forms part of the Nan Shan, the eastern outlier of the Kunlun Mountains. Heavily glaciated in many places, the mountains rise to 18,194 ft (5,547 m), and most peaks exceed 13,000 ft. Snow covers the mountain tops; herds graze in the well-watered valleys. Impassable throughout, the range forms the southern

Andrew Of Caesarea

Andrew's exposition of the book of Revelation is marked by a specific Christian interpretation of history which

Chiang Rai

Chiang Rai lies at an elevation of 1,150 feet (350 m) in the basin of the Kok River, near the Khun Tan Range. It has an airport with scheduled flights, and road connections lead south to Lampang and north to Myanmar (Burma) and the Laotian border. It is a trading centre dealing in teak, coffee, and rice. The town was once the walled capital city of an independent principality.

Disasters

May 30, Minsk, Belarus. A stampede occurred in a passageway

Gruffydd, William John

Educated at the University of Oxford, Gruffydd was appointed professor of Celtic at University College in Cardiff, Wales, a position

Dorsey, Thomas Andrew

U.S. songwriter, singer, and pianist (b. July 1, 1899, Villa Rica, Ga.--d. Jan. 23, 1993, Chicago, Ill.), as the "father of gospel music," blended elements of soulful blues with the traditional sacred music of his religious upbringing to create a new genre called gospel, which infused an uplifting, foot-stomping sound into black congregations, primarily of Baptist and Holiness churches. Dorsey, the

Earth

The blankets of volatile gases and liquids near and above the surface of the Earth are of prime importance, along with solar energy, to the sustenance of life on Earth. They are distributed and recycled throughout the atmosphere and hydrosphere of the planet.

Hyacinth

Also spelled �Jacinth, � a red, orange, or yellow variety of the gemstone zircon (q.v.).

Arron, Henck

Arron worked in banks in The Netherlands and Dutch Guiana before entering politics in 1963. He was elected to the Staten (Suriname legislature) that

Han T'o-chou

Pinyin �Han Tuozhou � minister to the Chinese emperor Ning Tsung (reigned 1194 - 1224) of the Sung dynasty (960 - 1279). Han tried to recover territory in northern China that had been taken from the Sung several generations earlier by the Juchen tribes of Inner Asia. The ensuing war proved disastrous. More Sung territory was lost and a large indemnity was demanded by the

Blois

City, capital of Loir-et-Cher d�partement, Centre region, central France, on the Loire River, northeast of Tours. First mentioned in the 6th century by Gregory of Tours, it was by the early Middle Ages seat of the powerful counts of Blois, from whom descended the Capetian kings of France. At the end of the 14th century, Blois was acquired by Louis de France, duc d'Orl�ans. Joan of

Pacifism

In the ancient world, war was taken for granted as a necessary evil by some societies, while in others it was not even regarded as an evil. Individual

Xenophon

Born of a well-to-do Athenian family, Xenophon grew up during the great war between Athens and Sparta (431 - 404 BC) and served in the elite force of Athenian cavalry. He and his well-to-do contemporaries sat at the feet of Socrates, were critical of the extreme form of democracy under which they lived, and sympathized with the right-wing revolutionaries who seized power for short

Cynghanedd

(Welsh: �harmony�), Welsh poetic device, a complicated system of alliteration and internal rhyme, obligatory in the 24 strict metres of Welsh bardic verse. Cynghanedd had developed by the 13th century from the prosodic devices of the early bards and was formally codified at the Caerwys Eisteddfod (Assembly of Bards) of 1524. The device became an obligatory adornment of poems in

Abolitionism

Also called �abolition movement� (c. 1783 - 1888), in western Europe and the Americas, the movement chiefly responsible for creating the emotional climate necessary for ending the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery. With the decline of Roman slavery in the 5th century, the institution waned in western Europe and by the 11th century had virtually disappeared. Portuguese exploration of the west coast