Kazakhstan: Health and welfare: …especially in Qyzylorda (Kzyl-Orda) and Aqtöbe provinces, Kazakhs suffer from the pollution and salinization of the sea. Its waters are contaminated with pesticides, especially DDT, and with chemical fertilizer fed into it by various rivers. The contraction of the Aral Sea has left a toxic dust in the newly formed…

Mount Athos: The Aktí promontory, 30 miles (50 km) long and 6.5 miles (10.5 km) wide at its broadest point, has a mountainous spine thickly wooded on the north and culminating in the marble peak of Athos (6,670 feet [2,033 metres]), which rises abruptly from the sea at…

Agfa-Gevaert NV: Agfa, an abbreviation for Aktiengesellschaft für Anilinfabrikation (“Corporation for Aniline Manufacture”), was founded as a dye company in 1867 at Rummelsburger See near Berlin; it began producing photographic film in 1908. From 1925 to 1945 it was a part of the German cartel IG Farben; in 1951 it became…

Lufthansa, German airline organized in Cologne, W.Ger., on Jan. 6, 1953, jointly by the federal government, the German National Railway, and the state of North Rhine–Westphalia; later it accepted private investors. It was the successor to Deutsche Luft Hansa, or DLH, which was founded in 1926,

AG Cologne Zoological Garden, one of the major zoological gardens in Germany. Opened in 1860, the zoo occupies 20 hectares (49 acres) along the Rhine River in Cologne. About 6,000 specimens of 650 species are exhibited on its attractively kept grounds. The zoo specializes in primates and has an

Kazakhstan: Health and welfare: …especially in Qyzylorda (Kzyl-Orda) and Aqtöbe provinces, Kazakhs suffer from the pollution and salinization of the sea. Its waters are contaminated with pesticides, especially DDT, and with chemical fertilizer fed into it by various rivers. The contraction of the Aral Sea has left a toxic dust in the newly formed…

Pan-Turkism: In 1911 Yussuf Aktshura Oghlu founded in Constantinople (Istanbul) a similar paper, Türk Yurdu (“The Turkish Homeland”). At the same time, prominent Turkish writers such as Ziya Gökalp and Halide Edib Adıvar, author of the novel Yeni Turan (1912; “The New Turan”), glorified the common legendary past…

Kazakhstan: Health and welfare: …especially in Qyzylorda (Kzyl-Orda) and Aqtöbe provinces, Kazakhs suffer from the pollution and salinization of the sea. Its waters are contaminated with pesticides, especially DDT, and with chemical fertilizer fed into it by various rivers. The contraction of the Aral Sea has left a toxic dust in the newly formed…

Aqtöbe, city, northwestern Kazakhstan, on the Ilek River. It was founded in 1869 as Aktyube (“White Hill”), a small Russian fort; the first Russian peasant settlers arrived in 1878. In 1891 it became the capital of an uyezd (canton) and in 1932 of an oblysy (region). During World War II a

African art: Asante, Fante, and Baule: …and terra-cotta “portrait” heads; and akuaba, wooden figures commissioned and cared for by women who desire a successful pregnancy.

Akan languages: Fante (Fanti), Brong (Abron), and Akuapem. The Akan cluster is located primarily in southern Ghana, although many Brong speakers live in eastern Côte d’Ivoire. Altogether speakers of Akan dialects and languages number more than seven million. Written forms of Asante and Akuapem (both formerly considered to be Twi), as well…

Jerry J. Rawlings: Frederick W.K. Akuffo, were tried and executed. Rawlings then yielded power to a freely elected civilian president, Hilla Limann, who promptly retired Rawlings from the air force.

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is a Ghanaian lawyer and politician affiliated with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) who became president of Ghana in January 2017. He was reelected in 2020 and served until January 2025. Akufo-Addo was born and raised in Accra, the son of Edward and Adeline Akufo-Addo. He

Teso: …an omnipotent but remote god, Akuj, and a god of calamity, Edeke.

submarine: Attack submarines: These were carried by the Akula-class submarines, 7,500-ton, 111.7-metre (366-foot) vessels that continued to enter service with the Russian navy through the 1990s. In 2010 Russia launched its first Yasen-class submarine (called Graney by NATO), which carried the mixed armament of the Akula vessels—antisubmarine and antiship torpedoes and missiles as…

akund floss, downy seed fibre obtained from Calotropis procera and C. gigantea, milkweed plants of the Apocynaceae family (formerly in Asclepiadaceae). Small trees or shrubs, these two species are native to southern Asia and Africa and were introduced to South America and the islands of the

Akure, town, capital of Ondo state, southwestern Nigeria. It lies in the southern part of the forested Yoruba Hills and at the intersection of roads from Ondo, Ilesha, Ado-Ekiti, and Owo. Akure is an agricultural trade centre for cassava, corn (maize), bananas, rice, palm oil and kernels, okra,

Akureyri, town, northern Iceland. It lies at the southern end of Eyja Fjord. Akureyri is the chief centre of the north and is one of the island’s most populous urban centres outside the Reykjavík metropolitan area. While primarily a commercial and distributing centre, Akureyri is also a fishing

Ghana: Soils of Ghana: …black earths, known locally as Akuse clays, most of these soils are of little importance agriculturally. The Akuse clays fill a broad zone across the coastal savanna plains; although heavy and intractable, they respond well to cropping under irrigation and mechanical cultivation.

Akutagawa Prize, Japanese literary prize awarded semiannually for the best work of fiction by a promising new Japanese writer. The prize is generally considered, along with the Naoki Prize (for the best work of popular fiction), Japan’s most prestigious and sought-after literary award. Novellas win

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke was a prolific Japanese writer known especially for his stories based on events in the Japanese past and for his stylistic virtuosity. As a boy Akutagawa was sickly and hypersensitive, but he excelled at school and was a voracious reader. He began his literary career while

Akutagawa Prize, Japanese literary prize awarded semiannually for the best work of fiction by a promising new Japanese writer. The prize is generally considered, along with the Naoki Prize (for the best work of popular fiction), Japan’s most prestigious and sought-after literary award. Novellas win

Japan: Decline of Kamakura society: Termed akutō by the authorities, they included many different elements: frustrated local warriors, pirates, aggrieved peasants, and ordinary robbers. Cultivators as well took advantage of unsettled times to rise up against jitō or shōen proprietors.

Russia: The 20th century: …native voice in the band Akvarium (“Aquarium”), led by charismatic songwriter and vocalist Boris Grebenshikov. The band’s “concerts,” played in living rooms and dormitories, were often broken up by the police, and, like Vysotsky, the band circulated its illegal music on bootleg cassettes, becoming the legendary catalyst of an underground…

aquavit, flavoured, distilled liquor, clear to pale yellow in colour, dry in flavour, and ranging in alcohol content from about 42 to 45 percent by volume. It is distilled from a fermented potato or grain mash, redistilled in the presence of flavouring agents, filtered with charcoal, and usually

Akwa Ibom, state, southeastern Nigeria. Its area formed part of Cross River state until 1987, when Akwa Ibom state was created. Akwa Ibom is bounded by Cross River state on the east, by the Bight of Biafra of the Atlantic Ocean on the south, by Rivers state on the west, by Abia state on the west

northern Mexican Indian: …Tiipay (Tipai; of the Diegueño), Paipai (Akwa’ala), and Kiliwa—live in ranch clusters and other tiny settlements in the mountains near the U.S. border. Speaking Yuman languages, they are little different today from their relatives in U.S. California. A small number of Cocopa in the Colorado River delta in like manner…

Akwamu, Akan state (c. 1600–1730) of the Gold and Slave coasts of western Africa. At its apogee in the early 18th century, it stretched more than 250 miles (400 km) along the coast from Whydah (now Ouidah, Benin) in the east to beyond Winneba (now in Ghana) in the west. Its founders, an Akan people

Akwamu: …1681 under their king (Akwamuhene), Ansa Sasraku. They also extended their influence over the state of Ladoku in the east (1679) and, under Ansa’s successor, over the Fante state of Agona in the west (1689). In 1702 they crossed the Volta River to occupy Whydah, a coastal state of…

African art: Ekoi: …circles of large stones (akwanshi) from 1 to 6 feet (30 to 180 cm) high, carved in low relief to represent human figures. They are thought to be no earlier than the 16th century.

Akwapim-Togo Ranges, narrow belt of ridges and hills in Ghana, western Africa. They extend in a southwest-northeast line for about 200 miles (320 km) from the Densu River mouth (near Accra) on the Atlantic coast to the boundary with Togo. Averaging 1,500 feet (460 meters) in height, the hills

Sittwe, town, western Myanmar (Burma). It is the chief settlement of the Arakan region. Situated on the Bay of Bengal at the mouth of the Kaladan River, Sittwe occupies the eastern side of a hilly ridge affording shelter from the southwest monsoon. After the cession of Arakan to the British in

Akwamu: Pressured by the Asante, the Akyem peoples retreated upon Akwamu’s borders and, after a long war, succeeded in infiltrating them. The Akwamuhene was forced to flee, and by 1731 the state had ceased to exist.

AkzoNobel: …formed from the merger of Akzo NV and the Swedish firm Nobel Industries AB in 1994. Its headquarters are in Amsterdam.

AkzoNobel, diversified Dutch manufacturer of paints, coatings, and chemicals. The company was formed from the merger of Akzo NV and the Swedish firm Nobel Industries AB in 1994. Its headquarters are in Amsterdam. Akzo NV had its origins in the German chemical manufacturer Vereinigte

aluminum (Al), chemical element, a lightweight silvery white metal of main Group 13 (IIIa, or boron group) of the periodic table. Aluminum is the most abundant metallic element in Earth’s crust and the most widely used nonferrous metal. Because of its chemical activity, aluminum never occurs in the

American League (AL), one of the two associations in the United States and Canada of professional baseball teams designated as major leagues. It was founded as a minor league association in 1893 and was initially called the Western League. The Western League changed its name to the American League

Nicaragua: Nicaragua from 1990 to 2006: …and the newly formed right-wing Liberal Alliance (Alianza Liberal; AL), a coalition of three liberal parties, were the main contenders in the 1996 national elections. Daniel Ortega was the FSLN’s presidential candidate, and his party campaigned for expanded social services and civil liberties, national unity, and, in contrast to its…

Lucy, nickname for a remarkably complete (40 percent intact) hominin skeleton found by American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson at at the fossil site Hadar in Ethiopia on Nov. 24, 1974, and dated to 3.2 million years ago. (The nickname stems from the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky With

Australopithecus: Australopithecus afarensis and Au. garhi: …the same time (the “First Family”). The animal fossils found in association with Au. afarensis imply a habitat of woodland with patches of grassland.

Donald Johanson: …Johanson oversaw the discovery of AL 444-2, the most complete A. afarensis skull known, which supported the idea that A. afarensis was separate from other hominid species.

Critic and historian Nelson George called Al Benson, who worked at several Chicago radio stations beginning in the mid-1940s, one of the most influential black deejays of all time. While many of his African-American peers were indistinguishable from white deejays over the airwaves, Benson, who was

United Arab Emirates: History of the United Arab Emirates: …Abu Dhabi (members of the Āl Bū Falāḥ tribe), the Banū Yās have been the most powerful element in the region since the mid-19th century. The principal sheikhs along the coast signed a series of agreements during that century—a general treaty of peace in 1820, the perpetual maritime truce in…

Āl Bū Saʿīd dynasty, Muslim dynasty of Oman, in southeastern Arabia (c. 1749 to the present), and of Zanzibar, in East Africa (c. 1749–1964). Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd, who had been governor of Ṣuḥār, Oman, in the 1740s under the Persian Yaʿrubids, managed to displace the Yaʿrubids by about 1749 and become

pasta: …resilient to the bite (al dente) or until very tender. Prepared Italian style, they may be tossed with butter, cheese, and seasoning (nutmeg, pepper) or served with a variety of sauces—tomato, cream, seafood, or meat-based mixtures such as Bolognese sauce. Shaped pastas

Agustín Yáñez: The Edge of the Storm), his masterpiece, presents life in a typical Mexican village just before the Mexican Revolution. Its use of stream of consciousness, interior monologue, and complex structure anticipates many traits of the Latin American new novel of the 1950s and 1960s. La…

Al Franken: …the Air America radio program The Al Franken Show (originally called The O’Franken Factor, which was a play on Bill O’Reilly’s conservative show, The O’Reilly Factor). Conceived by Franken as a weapon in the fight to get Republican Pres. George W. Bush “unelected,” the program used interviews and commentary to…

Luigi Nono: Al Gran Sole Carico d’Amore (1972–75; “In the Great Sun of Blooming Love”) took its title from a poem by Arthur Rimbaud, “Les Mains de Jeanne-Marie,” and is about the Paris Commune of 1871. Its theme was devoted to the class struggle, with no conventional…

Qatar: Early history and British protectorate: …families from Kuwait, notably the Khalifah family. Their settlement at the new town of Al-Zubārah grew into a small pearl-diving and trade center. In 1783 the Khalifah family led the conquest of nearby Bahrain, where they remained the ruling family throughout the 20th century. Following the departure of the Khalifah…

Azorín: Azorín’s literary criticism, such as Al margen de los clásicos (1915; “Marginal Notes to the Classics”), helped to open up new avenues of literary taste and to arouse a new enthusiasm for the Spanish classics at a time when a large portion of Spanish literature was virtually unavailable to the…

Salwa Al Neimi is a Syrian journalist and author whose works often focused on themes that were traditionally taboo in Arab culture, notably female sexuality. Neimi, whose name is spelled al-Nuʿaymī in English transliteration though it is published as Al Neimi, earned a bachelor’s degree from the

William Carlos Williams: In Al Que Quiere! (1917; “To Him Who Wants It!”) his style was distinctly his own. Characteristic poems that proffer Williams’s fresh, direct impression of the sensuous world are the frequently anthologized “Lighthearted William,” “By the Road to the Contagious Hospital,” and “The Red Wheelbarrow.”

Sultan ibn Salman Al Saud is an astronaut who was the first Saudi Arabian citizen, the first Arab, the first Muslim, and the first member of a royal family to travel into space. Educated in the United States, Sultan received a degree in mass communications from the University of Denver (Colorado)

Profiat Duran: Duran’s response, the celebrated letter ʿAl tehi ka-ʾavotekha (“Be Not like Thy Fathers”), portrayed with subtle irony what he saw as the irrationality of Christian doctrine and summarized with feigned naiveté the worst abuses of the contemporary church. So artful was the satire that the epistle, widely circulated in Spain,…

Āl Wahībah Dunes, sandy desert, east-central Oman. It fronts the Arabian Sea on the southeast and stretches along the coast for more than 100 miles (160 km). The desert consists of honey-coloured dunes that are dark red at their base and rise to heights of 230 feet (70 m). The sands are

Almetyevsk, city, Tatarstan republic, Russia, on the left bank of the Stepnoy (Steppe) Zay River. It was founded in 1950 in connection with the discovery of petroleum in the area. Crude oil is sent from Almetyevsk to refineries at Perm and Kstovo (near Nizhny Novgorod) through pipelines completed

al-, Arabic definite article, meaning “the.” It often prefixes Arabic proper nouns, especially place-names; an example is Al-Jazīrah (Arabic: “The Island”), the name of an interfluvial region in Sudan. The article is often used in lowercase form, hence al-Jazīrah. Reference works, including the

Saif al-Adel is an Egyptian militant Islamist who served as a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda and head of Osama bin Laden’s personal security force. He was indicted by the U.S. for his alleged participation in the bombing of U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998. Little is known about al-Adel’s

Al-Ahly, Egyptian professional football (soccer) club based in Cairo. Al-Ahly is one of Africa’s most successful and best-supported football clubs. The team is nicknamed the “Red Devils” for its red jerseys. In December 2000 the Confédération Africaine de Football (CAF) awarded Al-Ahly the title of

alcoholism: Social treatment: …allied but independent organizations, including Al-Anon, for spouses and other close relatives and friends of alcoholics, and Alateen, for their adolescent children. The aim of such related groups is to help the members learn how to be helpful and to forgive alcoholic relatives.

Mahdist, (Arabic: “Helper”), follower of al-Mahdī (Muḥammad Aḥmad ibn al-Sayyid ʿAbd Allāh) or of his successor or descendants. Ansar is an old term applied to some of the companions of the prophet Muḥammad; it was revived for the followers and descendants of al-Mahdī, the Sudanese who in the late

Al-Aqṣā Martyrs Brigades, coalition of Palestinian West Bank militias that became increasingly violent during the period of the Al-Aqṣā intifada in the early 2000s. Unlike Hamas and other militant Palestinian Islamist groups, the brigades’ ideology was based on secular Palestinian nationalism

Alaa al-Aswany is an Egyptian author known for his best-selling novels and for his vocal criticism of the Egyptian government, especially its former president Hosni Mubarak. Aswany was the son of Abbas al-Aswany, a lawyer enamoured of literature who was credited with reviving the maqāmah (anecdotes

Alaa al-Aswany is an Egyptian author known for his best-selling novels and for his vocal criticism of the Egyptian government, especially its former president Hosni Mubarak. Aswany was the son of Abbas al-Aswany, a lawyer enamoured of literature who was credited with reviving the maqāmah (anecdotes

Second Battle of Fallujah, joint American, Iraqi, and British military campaign from November 7 to December 23, 2004, during the Iraq War that crushed the Islamic insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq, in the Sunni Muslim province of Al-Anbar. After the First Battle of Fallujah (April 4–May 1, 2004) left

Almaty: …institutions of higher education, including Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (founded 1934), and teacher-training, economics, polytechnic, agricultural, and medical institutes. The city houses Kazakhstan’s Academy of Sciences and its many subordinate research institutes, numerous museums, an opera house, theatres producing in Russian, Kazakh, and Uyghur, and the Pushkin State Public Library.…

chess: The pragmatists: …was a depreciation of the bishop: The Hypermoderns had attacked Tarrasch’s high opinion of an unobstructed bishop and said a bishop could profitably be traded for a knight. The post-Soviet players often traded bishop for knight for minimal compensation. They also often exchanged their good bishop, the one less encumbered…

Syria: Ottoman government, 16th–17th centuries: …al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī, as well as Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalabī, a systematic jurist.

Al-Ḥamrāʾ Plateau, desolate rocky plateau of the Sahara, northwestern Libya. Located mostly in Tripolitania, it occupies an area measuring about 275 miles (440 km) by 190 miles (305 km). Its bare rock outcrops reach a height of about 2,700 feet (825 metres). Wells are drilled for petroleum, which

ʿAlam al-Dīn al-Ḥanafī was an Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, and engineer. He wrote a treatise on Euclid’s postulates, built water mills and fortifications on the Orontes River, and constructed the second-oldest existing Arabic celestial

Temple Mount, site of the Temple of Jerusalem, which was destroyed by the Romans on the 9th/10th of Av in 70 ce (see Tisha be-Av). It consists of a raised platform that, since the 7th century, has been home to the Islamic holy sites of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque. The lower section of

Muḥammad al-Idrīsī was an Arab geographer and adviser to Roger II, the Norman king of Sicily. He wrote one of the greatest works of medieval geography, Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq (“The Pleasure Excursion of One Who Is Eager to Traverse the Regions of the World”). Al-Idrīsī traced

Idrīsid dynasty, Arab Muslim dynasty that ruled in Morocco from 789 until 921. The founder, Idrīs I (Idrīs ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥasan II), who reigned 789–791 at Walīla, was a sharif, or princely descendant of Muhammad, and was one of the few survivors of the battle of Fakhkh, in which many of the

Syria: Drainage: The largest is Al-Jabbūl, a seasonal saline lake that permanently covers a minimum area of about 60 square miles (155 square km) southeast of Aleppo. Other major salt lakes are Jayrūd to the northeast of Damascus and Khātūniyyah to the northeast of Al-Hasakah. Lake Muzayrīb, a small body…

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), organization providing an institutional framework for militant organizations associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), notable for its Marxist-Leninist ideology and its hijacking of a number of aircraft between 1968 and 1974.

al-Jazarī was a Muslim inventor. He is remembered for his automaton designs, including water-operated automatons, many of which were moving peacocks. Most are decorative fanciful objects, though some also serve a function. Leonardo da Vinci is said to have been influenced by the classic automatons

El-Djouf, desert region in western Africa, at the western edge of the Sahara. It occupies the border region of eastern Mauritania and western

Karnak, village located in Al-Uqṣur muḥāfaẓah (governorate), Upper Egypt, which has given its name to the northern half of the ruins of Thebes on the east bank of the Nile River, including the ruins of the Great Temple of Amon. Karnak and other areas of ancient Thebes—including Luxor, the Valley of

Al-Lajāʾ, volcanic region in southern Syria known for its unique and rugged topography and for its numerous archaeological ruins. Al-Lajāʾ, some 30 miles (50 km) southeast of Damascus, is somewhat triangular in shape, with its apex near Burāq and its base drawn roughly between Izraʿ and Shahbā, to

Mahdia, town and fishing port located on Al-Sāḥil (Sahel), the coastal plain region in eastern Tunisia, about 125 miles (200 km) from Tunis. It lies on the narrow rocky peninsula of Cape Afrique (Cape Ifrīqīyā). The town owes its name to the mahdi (Arabic: mahdī, “the rightly guided one”) ʿUbayd

Manama, capital and largest city of Bahrain. It lies at the northeast tip of Bahrain island, in the Persian Gulf. About one-fifth of the country’s population lives in the city. First mentioned in Islamic chronicles about 1345 ce, it was taken by the Portuguese (1521) and by the Persians (1602). It

Al-Masry, Egyptian professional football (soccer) club based in Port Said. Al-Masry is one of Egypt’s oldest and best-supported football clubs. The team is nicknamed the Green Eagles for its green jerseys and its crest, which is composed of an eagle with a green ball between its two upraised wings.

Mocha, town, southwestern Yemen, on the Red Sea and the Tihāmah coastal plain. Yemen’s most renowned historic port, it lies at the head of a shallow bay between two headlands, with an unprotected anchorage 1.5 miles (2.5 km) offshore. It was long famous as Arabia’s chief coffee-exporting centre;

historiography: Ibn Khaldūn: …was dramatically illustrated by the Muqaddimah (“Introduction”) of the Arab historian Ibn Khaldūn (1332–1406). This introductory volume of a universal history reveals Khaldūn’s ideas about history—something chroniclers hardly ever did. The subjects Khaldūn considered in his work include historical method, geography, culture, economics, public finance, population, society and state, religion…

Salwa Al Neimi is a Syrian journalist and author whose works often focused on themes that were traditionally taboo in Arab culture, notably female sexuality. Neimi, whose name is spelled al-Nuʿaymī in English transliteration though it is published as Al Neimi, earned a bachelor’s degree from the

Battle of al-Qādisiyyah, (636/637), battle fought near Al-Ḥīrah (in present-day Iraq) between forces of the Sāsānian dynasty and an invading Arab army. The Arab victory over the army of Yazdegerd III (reigned 632–651) marked the end of his dynasty and the beginning of Arab and Islamic rule in

Battle of al-Qādisiyyah, (636/637), battle fought near Al-Ḥīrah (in present-day Iraq) between forces of the Sāsānian dynasty and an invading Arab army. The Arab victory over the army of Yazdegerd III (reigned 632–651) marked the end of his dynasty and the beginning of Arab and Islamic rule in

al-Bīrūnī: Works: …scientific work is the inimitable Al-Qānūn al-Masʿūdi (“The Masʿūdic Canon”), dedicated to Masʿūd, the son of Maḥmūd of Ghazna, in which al-Bīrūnī gathered together all the astronomical knowledge from such sources as Ptolemy’s Almagest and “Handy Tables” after having had these two particular works updated. Nevertheless, al-Bīrūnī’s original input is…

Jerusalem: Education of Jerusalem: Al-Quds University (1995), a Palestinian Arab institution with headquarters at Abu Dis, just outside the city limits in the West Bank, operates partly in buildings in East Jerusalem. Other institutes of higher learning are the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design (1906), the Samuel Rubin…

al-Takfīr wa al-Hijrah, name given by Egyptian authorities to a radical Islamic group calling itself the Society of Muslims. It was founded in 1971 by a young agronomist, Shukrī Muṣṭafā, who had been arrested in 1965 for distributing Muslim Brotherhood leaflets and was released from prison in 1971.

Young Tunisians: …including Ali Bash Hamba and ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Thaʿālibī (1912), and driving the Young Tunisians underground. At the end of World War I they emerged again as activists in the Tunisian nationalist movement and, led by al-Thaʿālibī, reorganized themselves (1920) into the Destour Party, which remained active until 1957.

al-Waleed bin Talal is a Saudi Arabian prince and entrepreneur, a grandson of the kingdom’s founder Ibn Saud and a nephew of each of the subsequent Saudi kings up through King Salman. Al-Waleed was raised in Riyadh and in Beirut, Lebanon, before attending Menlo College in Menlo Park, California,

al-Waleed bin Talal is a Saudi Arabian prince and entrepreneur, a grandson of the kingdom’s founder Ibn Saud and a nephew of each of the subsequent Saudi kings up through King Salman. Al-Waleed was raised in Riyadh and in Beirut, Lebanon, before attending Menlo College in Menlo Park, California,

Shaṭṭ Al-ʿArab, river in southeastern Iraq, formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers at the town of Al-Qurnah. It flows southeastward for 120 miles (193 km) and passes the Iraqi port of Basra and the Iranian port of Ābādān before emptying into the Persian Gulf. For about the last

Wadi Al-ʿArabah, topographic depression in southern Palestine extending about 100 miles (160 km) south from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba; it is part of the East African Rift System. Largely sandy desert, it is divided between Israel and Jordan. In the Old Testament, except in Deuteronomy 2:8,

oud, stringed musical instrument prominent in medieval and modern Islamic music. It is the parent of the European lute. The oud has a deep pear-shaped body, a fretless fingerboard, and a relatively shorter neck and somewhat less acutely bent-back pegbox than the European lute. The tuning pegs are

sacrum: …form wide lateral wings, or alae, and articulate with the centre-back portions of the blades of the ilia to complete the pelvic girdle. The sacrum is held in place in this joint, which is called the sacroiliac, by a complex mesh of ligaments. Between the fused transverse processes of the…

Caldecott Medal: …the annual conference of the American Library Association along with the Newbery Medal for children’s literature.

Sergey Prokofiev: Pre-Revolutionary period: Prokofiev wrote the ballet Ala and Lolli (1914), on themes of ancient Slav mythology, for Diaghilev, who rejected it. Thereupon, Prokofiev reworked the music into the Scythian Suite for orchestra. Its premiere, in 1916, caused a scandal but was the culmination of his career in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). The…

Alxa Plateau, southernmost portion of the Gobi (desert), occupying about 400,000 square miles (1,000,000 square km) in north-central China. Covering the western portions of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the northern part of Gansu province, it is bounded by the Huang He (Yellow River) and