• Nascimento, Edson Arantes do (Brazilian athlete)

    Pelé was a Brazilian football (soccer) player, in his time probably the most famous and possibly the best-paid athlete in the world. He was part of the Brazilian national teams that won three World Cup championships (1958, 1962, and 1970). After playing for a minor league club at Bauru, São Paulo

  • Nascimento, Francisco Manuel do (Portuguese poet)

    Francisco Manuel do Nascimento was the last of the Portuguese Neoclassical poets, whose conversion late in life to Romanticism helped prepare the way for that movement’s triumph in his country. Of humble birth and probably illegitimate, Nascimento was educated by Jesuits and ordained in 1754. In

  • NASD (American organization)

    NYSE Amex Equities: …Amex was part of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) from 1998 to 2004, when ownership of the Amex returned to private hands. Unlike many other exchanges around the world, it did not relinquish floor trading in favour of computer trading, and, at the beginning of the 21st century,…

  • NASDA (Japanese government agency)

    Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency: …the Japanese government founded the National Space Development Agency (NASDA), which subsequently undertook a comprehensive program of space technology and satellite development and built a large launch vehicle, called the H-II, for those satellites. NASDA selected the first Japanese astronauts in 1990 for flights on the U.S. space shuttle. In…

  • Nasdaq (American organization)

    Nasdaq, an American stock market that handles electronic securities trading around the world. It was developed by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) and is monitored by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange began in 1971. In 1992 it

  • Naseby (village, England, United Kingdom)

    Battle of Naseby: …met near the village of Naseby, south of Leicester. As at Edgehill, the Royalists, led by Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the king’s nephew, drew up on a ridge with their backs to the wind, the Parliamentary forces taking lower ground to their south where they would have to move…

  • Naseby, Battle of (English history [1645])

    Battle of Naseby, battle fought on June 14, 1645, between the Parliamentary New Model Army under Oliver Cromwell and Sir Thomas Fairfax and the royalists under Prince Rupert of the Palatinate. The civil war between king and Parliament reached its climax at this battle, which occurred about 20 miles

  • Naseem (film by Mirza [1995])

    Kaifi Azmi: …Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s award-winning film Naseem (1995; “Morning Breeze”), a powerful tale of a Muslim family’s fears as they witness the communal frenzy in the days before the demolition in 1992 of Ayodhya’s Babri Masjid (built in the 16th century by the Mughal emperor Babur). His daughter Shabana Azmi was…

  • Naseli, Alberto (Italian actor)

    Zan Ganassa was one of the most important and influential actors and company managers of the early Italian commedia dell’arte. Ganassa, who took his name from that of a character he invented, was perhaps the first to take a commedia company beyond the borders of Italy. Evidence exists of his

  • Naselli, Alberto (Italian actor)

    Zan Ganassa was one of the most important and influential actors and company managers of the early Italian commedia dell’arte. Ganassa, who took his name from that of a character he invented, was perhaps the first to take a commedia company beyond the borders of Italy. Evidence exists of his

  • Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh (Qājār shah of Iran)

    Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh was the Qājār shah of Iran (1848–96) who began his reign as a reformer but became increasingly conservative, failing to understand the accelerating need for change or for a response to the pressures brought by contact with the Western nations. Although a younger son of Moḥammad

  • Nāṣer od-Dīn Shāh (Qājār shah of Iran)

    Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh was the Qājār shah of Iran (1848–96) who began his reign as a reformer but became increasingly conservative, failing to understand the accelerating need for change or for a response to the pressures brought by contact with the Western nations. Although a younger son of Moḥammad

  • Nāṣer-e Khusraw (Persian author)

    Nāṣer-e Khusraw was a poet, theologian, and religious propagandist, one of the greatest writers in Persian literature. Nāṣer-e Khusraw came of a family of government officials who belonged to the Shīʿite branch of Islam, and he attended school for only a short while. In 1045 he went on a pilgrimage

  • Nash equilibrium (mathematics)

    Nash equilibrium, in game theory, an outcome in a noncooperative game for two or more players in which no player’s expected outcome can be improved by changing one’s own strategy. The Nash equilibrium is a key concept in game theory, in which it defines the solution of N-player noncooperative

  • Nash Papyrus (ancient scroll)

    biblical literature: The Qumrān texts and other scrolls: …known to scholars was the Nash Papyrus (c. 150 bce) from Egypt containing the Decalogue and Deuteronomy. Now, however, fragments of about 180 different manuscripts of biblical books are available. Their dates vary between the 3rd century bce and the 2nd century ce, and all but 10 stem from the…

  • Nash solution (mathematics)

    Nash equilibrium, in game theory, an outcome in a noncooperative game for two or more players in which no player’s expected outcome can be improved by changing one’s own strategy. The Nash equilibrium is a key concept in game theory, in which it defines the solution of N-player noncooperative

  • Nash, Anthony (British bobsledder)

    Eugenio Monti: …with the British team of Anthony Nash and Robin Dixon. When a faulty axle on the British sled was sure to lead to their withdrawal, Monti took a part from his own sled and allowed Nash and Dixon to use it on theirs. The British team went on to take…

  • Nash, Beau (British dandy)

    etiquette: …in Britain when exquisites like Beau Nash and Beau Brummell imposed their whims as rules upon polite society; even the Prince Regent would not leave his waistcoat unbuttoned to a greater degree than Brummell prescribed. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries those in the upper strata of society…

  • Nash, Diane (American civil rights activist)

    Diane Nash is an American civil rights activist who was a leading figure in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, especially known for her involvement in sit-ins and the Freedom Rides. Nash’s efforts contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of

  • Nash, Diane Judith (American civil rights activist)

    Diane Nash is an American civil rights activist who was a leading figure in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, especially known for her involvement in sit-ins and the Freedom Rides. Nash’s efforts contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of

  • Nash, Frederic Ogden (American poet)

    Ogden Nash was an American writer of humorous poetry who won a large following for his audacious verse. After a year at Harvard University (1920–21), Nash held a variety of jobs—advertising, teaching, editing, bond selling—before the success of his poetry enabled him to work full-time at it. He

  • Nash, Graham (British musician)

    Crosby, Stills & Nash: ), and Graham Nash (b. February 2, 1942, Blackpool, Lancashire, England).

  • Nash, John (British architect)

    John Nash was an English architect and city planner best known for his development of Regent’s Park and Regent Street, a royal estate in northern London that he partly converted into a varied residential area, which still provides some of London’s most charming features. Designed in 1811, this

  • Nash, John (American mathematician)

    John Nash was an American mathematician who was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize for Economics for his landmark work, first begun in the 1950s, on the mathematics of game theory. He shared the prize with John C. Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten. In 2015, Nash won (with Louis Nirenberg) the Abel Prize for

  • Nash, John Forbes, Jr. (American mathematician)

    John Nash was an American mathematician who was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize for Economics for his landmark work, first begun in the 1950s, on the mathematics of game theory. He shared the prize with John C. Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten. In 2015, Nash won (with Louis Nirenberg) the Abel Prize for

  • Nash, Ogden (American poet)

    Ogden Nash was an American writer of humorous poetry who won a large following for his audacious verse. After a year at Harvard University (1920–21), Nash held a variety of jobs—advertising, teaching, editing, bond selling—before the success of his poetry enabled him to work full-time at it. He

  • Nash, Paul (British painter)

    Paul Nash was a British painter, printmaker, illustrator, and photographer who achieved recognition for the war landscapes he painted during both world wars. Nash studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. In 1914 he enlisted in the Artists’ Rifles to serve in World War I. Appointed an

  • Nash, Richard Southwell Bourke, Lord (viceroy of India)

    Richard Southwell Bourke, 6th earl of Mayo was an Irish politician and civil servant best known for his service as viceroy of India, where he improved relations with Afghanistan, conducted the first census, turned a deficit budget into a surplus, and created a department for agriculture and

  • Nash, Rick (Canadian hockey player)

    Columbus Blue Jackets: …left wing and future All-Star Rick Nash with the first overall selection of the NHL draft. Nash’s presence helped Columbus escape the divisional cellar for the first time in 2003–04, and the team qualified for its first postseason berth (a first-round loss to the Detroit Red Wings) in the 2008–09…

  • Nash, Sir Walter (prime minister of New Zealand)

    Sir Walter Nash was a New Zealand statesman who was prime minister in 1957–60 and who earlier, as finance minister during the Great Depression and through World War II, guided the Labour Party’s economic recovery program and then directed the government’s wartime controls. While continuing his

  • Nash, Stephen John (Canadian basketball player)

    Steve Nash is a South African-born Canadian basketball player who is considered to be one of the greatest point guards in National Basketball Association (NBA) history. For three seasons (2004–05 to 2006–07), Steve Nash was the most important—if not the best—player in the NBA. In 2004 he joined the

  • Nash, Steve (Canadian basketball player)

    Steve Nash is a South African-born Canadian basketball player who is considered to be one of the greatest point guards in National Basketball Association (NBA) history. For three seasons (2004–05 to 2006–07), Steve Nash was the most important—if not the best—player in the NBA. In 2004 he joined the

  • Nash, Thomas (English writer)

    Thomas Nashe was a pamphleteer, poet, dramatist, and author of The Unfortunate Traveller; or, The Life of Jacke Wilton (1594), the first picaresque novel in English. Nashe was educated at the University of Cambridge, and about 1588 he went to London, where he became associated with Robert Greene

  • Nash, Timothy (American explorer)

    Appalachian Mountains: Study and exploration: …climb up Mount Washington (1642); Timothy Nash, discoverer of the Crawford Notch (1771), which made possible communication between the coast and the Connecticut River valley; and Sir William Logan, first director of Canada’s geologic survey, who made a cross section of the geologic formation of the Gaspé Peninsula in 1844…

  • Nashborough (Tennessee, United States)

    Nashville, city, capital (1843) of Tennessee, U.S., and seat (1784–1963) of Davidson county. Nashville lies on the Cumberland River in the north-central part of the state. It is the centre of an urbanized area that also embraces parts of seven surrounding counties. In 1963 the governments of the

  • Nashe’s Lenten Stuff (work by Nashe)

    Thomas Nashe: Lenten Stuffe, in praise of herrings, contains a charming description of the town of Yarmouth, Norfolk, a herring fishery. Nashe retreated to Yarmouth when he and Ben Jonson were prosecuted as a result of their satirical play The Isle of Dogs (1597).

  • Nashe, Thomas (English writer)

    Thomas Nashe was a pamphleteer, poet, dramatist, and author of The Unfortunate Traveller; or, The Life of Jacke Wilton (1594), the first picaresque novel in English. Nashe was educated at the University of Cambridge, and about 1588 he went to London, where he became associated with Robert Greene

  • Nasheed, Mohamed (president of Maldives)

    Mohamed Nasheed is a journalist, activist, and politician who was elected president of the Maldives in 2008 but resigned from office in early 2012 in what he characterized as a coup d’état. After his exile in 2015, he returned to the Maldives in 2018 and soon after served as Speaker of the People’s

  • nashiji (lacquerwork)

    nashiji, in Japanese lacquerwork, form of maki-e (q.v.) that is frequently employed for the background of a pattern. Gold or silver flakes called nashiji-ko are sprinkled onto the surface of the object (excluding the design), on which lacquer has been applied. Nashiji lacquer is then applied and

  • nashiji-ko (lacquerwork)

    nashiji: Gold or silver flakes called nashiji-ko are sprinkled onto the surface of the object (excluding the design), on which lacquer has been applied. Nashiji lacquer is then applied and burnished with charcoal, so that the gold or silver can be seen through the lacquer. The name nashiji is thought to…

  • Nashik (India)

    Nashik, city, northwestern Maharashtra state, western India. It lies in the Western Ghats along the Godavari River and is situated along major road and rail routes at a point about 110 miles (180 km) northeast of Mumbai (Bombay). Nashik is an important religious centre and attracts thousands of

  • Nashim (Judaism)

    Nashim, (Hebrew: “Women”), the third of the six major divisions, or orders (sedarim), of the Mishna (codification of Jewish oral laws), which was given its final form early in the 3rd century ad by Judah ha-Nasi. Nashim covers principally aspects of married life. The seven tractates (treatises) of

  • Nashīrī, ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al- (Saudi Arabian militant)

    USS Cole attack: …a Yemeni court tried Saudi-born ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Nashīrī in absentia for the USS Cole attack and sentenced him to death; U.S. military prosecutors filed charges against him in 2008. The U.S. proceedings were complicated by an admission by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that waterboarding—an interrogation tactic that simulates drowning,…

  • Nashoba (community, Tennessee)

    Frances Wright: …present-day Memphis) that she called Nashoba. She purchased slaves in 1825, freed them, and settled them at Nashoba with the promise of eventual freedom. The colony got off to a poor start, from which it never recovered.

  • Nashua (New Hampshire, United States)

    Nashua, city, seat of Hillsborough county, southern New Hampshire, U.S., lying along the Merrimack and Nashua rivers. It was settled about 1656 and was chartered in 1673 as Dunstable. It was a part of Massachusetts until a boundary settlement in 1741 placed it in New Hampshire. In 1803 the village

  • Nashville (Indiana, United States)

    Nashville, town, seat of Brown county, south-central Indiana, U.S., 40 miles (64 km) south of Indianapolis. It was founded in 1836 as the county seat and was called Jacksonburg, but it was renamed in 1837 for Nashville, Tennessee. It is headquarters for one of the Midwest’s most noted art colonies,

  • Nashville (Queensland, Australia)

    Gympie, city, southeastern Queensland, Australia, lying on Gympie Creek and the Mary River. It was first known as Nashville, after James Nash, who discovered gold there in 1867; its present name comes from gimpi-gimpi, the Aboriginal word for the stinging tree. Proclaimed a town in 1890, it was

  • Nashville (film by Altman [1975])

    Robert Altman: M*A*S*H and the 1970s: …narrative to another level in Nashville (1975), a wildly inventive profile of some two dozen characters who congregate in the city of Nashville over the course of a weekend—some to attend a political rally, some to break into the music business, and some for seemingly no real reason at all.…

  • Nashville (Tennessee, United States)

    Nashville, city, capital (1843) of Tennessee, U.S., and seat (1784–1963) of Davidson county. Nashville lies on the Cumberland River in the north-central part of the state. It is the centre of an urbanized area that also embraces parts of seven surrounding counties. In 1963 the governments of the

  • Nashville 1950s overview

    Rarely has a section of the pop market been as completely dominated by the major companies as country music was during the 1950s. Only five companies—RCA, Decca, Columbia, Capitol, and MGM—reached the top spot on the best-seller charts until independent Cadence claimed it for seven weeks at the end

  • Nashville 1960s overview

    From 1958 through 1962 some of the biggest international hits were made by country singers recording in Nashville, Tennessee, including the Everly Brothers, Jim Reeves, Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Leroy Van Dyke, Jimmy Dean, Patsy Cline, and Johnny Horton. Nevertheless, the market for “pure”

  • Nashville Basin (basin, Tennessee, United States)

    Tennessee: Relief: …Tennessee is dominated by the Nashville, or Central, Basin and the Highland Rim. About 60 miles (100 km) wide and running roughly north to south across the state, the basin floor is a slightly rolling terrain punctuated by small hills known as knobs. To the west the eastern Gulf Coastal…

  • Nashville Cats (song by Sebastian)

    the Lovin’ Spoonful: …liberating power, as did “Nashville Cats” (1966). Other hits included gentle ruminations on romance—“You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice” (1965), “Daydream” (1966), and “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?” (1966)—and the uncharacteristically boisterous “Summer in the City” (1966). Chief songwriter Sebastian (lead vocals, guitar, harmonica,…

  • Nashville Convention (United States history)

    Nashville Convention, (1850), two-session meeting of proslavery Southerners in the United States. John C. Calhoun initiated the drive for a meeting when he urged Mississippi to call for a convention. The resulting Mississippi Convention on Oct. 1, 1849, issued a call to all slave-holding states to

  • Nashville Dome (geological formation, Tennessee, United States)

    Nashville Dome, southward geologic extension of the Cincinnati Arch that is prominent in central Tennessee, U.S. Ordovician rocks (about 490 to 445 million years in age) constitute the oldest strata exposed in the core of the dome; they are surrounded by Carboniferous strata (roughly 360 to 300

  • Nashville Predators (American hockey team)

    Nashville Predators, American professional ice hockey team based in Nashville that plays in the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL) and has won one conference championship (2017). The Predators began play in 1998 as one of the four expansion teams (along with the Atlanta

  • Nashville Skyline (album by Dylan)

    Johnny Cash: …appear on his 1969 album, Nashville Skyline), brought to the general public his powerfully simple songs of elemental experiences.

  • Nashville West (California, United States)

    Bakersfield, city, seat (1875) of Kern county, south-central California, U.S. Located in the San Joaquin Valley, it was founded along the Los Angeles and Stockton road in 1869 by Thomas Baker, who reclaimed swamplands along the nearby Kern River. Bakersfield was an agricultural trade centre for the

  • Nashville, Battle of (American Civil War)

    Battle of Nashville, (December 15–16, 1864), American Civil War engagement in which Confederate Lieut. Gen. John B. Hood attempted to retake Nashville, Tennessee, from an occupying Federal army, despite having a significant numerical disadvantage. The decisive Union victory shattered Hood’s army

  • Nashville-Davidson (Tennessee, United States)

    Nashville, city, capital (1843) of Tennessee, U.S., and seat (1784–1963) of Davidson county. Nashville lies on the Cumberland River in the north-central part of the state. It is the centre of an urbanized area that also embraces parts of seven surrounding counties. In 1963 the governments of the

  • Nasi (people)

    Naxi, ethnic group of China who live mainly in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces; some live in Tibet. They speak a Tibeto-Burman language that is closely related to that of the Yi and were estimated in the early 21st century to number more than 300,000. The Naxi have two indigenous writing systems:

  • nasi (Jewish religious official)

    Judaism: Legal, judicial, and congregational roles: …the academy directed by the nasi, or patriarch, who was the head of the Jewish community in Palestine as well as a Roman imperial official. The curriculum of the school was Torah, written and oral, according to the Pharisaic tradition and formulation. The nasi appointed rabbis to the law court…

  • naṣī (grass)

    Arabian Desert: Plant life: …including a sweet grass called naṣī that provides the main forage for the now-rare oryx (a species of African antelope).

  • nasi goreng (rice dish)

    gastronomy: The Pacific and Southeast Asia: …the nationally popular preparations is nasi goreng, which originates in China’s fried-rice concept. In the Indonesian version, however, most of the meats, vegetables, and garnishes surround the pile of fried rice and only the diner mixes them while eating it, allowing many fascinating taste and texture combinations.

  • Nasi, Joseph (Jewish statesman)

    Joseph Nasi was a Jewish statesman and financier who rose to a position of power in the Ottoman Empire under the sultans Süleyman the Magnificent and Selim II. As a young man he gained a thorough knowledge of commercial and financial affairs in the service of his relatives, the bankers Mendes of

  • Näsi, Lake (lake, Finland)

    Lake Näsi, lake in southwestern Finland. It extends northward from the city of Tampere, northwest of Helsinki. Approximately 20 mi (32 km) long and 2 to 8 mi (3.2 to 13 km) wide, it is the largest of the Pyhä lakes and the central lake of the western branch of the system. Lake Vanka, the northern

  • naṣīb (Arabic literature)

    Arabic literature: Categories and forms: …an opening section, called the nasīb, the poem’s speaker comes across a deserted encampment and muses nostalgically about times past and especially about his absent beloved. Via a transition, a second section (the raḥīl) recounts a desert journey, thus affording the opportunity for descriptions of animals—especially the camel and horse…

  • Nasier, Alcofribas (French author)

    François Rabelais was known to his contemporaries as an eminent physician and humanist. Today, he is remembered as the French writer responsible for the comic masterpiece Gargantua and Pantagruel, which was published between 1532 and 1564. His creative exuberance, colorful and wide-ranging

  • Näsijärvi (lake, Finland)

    Lake Näsi, lake in southwestern Finland. It extends northward from the city of Tampere, northwest of Helsinki. Approximately 20 mi (32 km) long and 2 to 8 mi (3.2 to 13 km) wide, it is the largest of the Pyhä lakes and the central lake of the western branch of the system. Lake Vanka, the northern

  • Nasik (India)

    Nashik, city, northwestern Maharashtra state, western India. It lies in the Western Ghats along the Godavari River and is situated along major road and rail routes at a point about 110 miles (180 km) northeast of Mumbai (Bombay). Nashik is an important religious centre and attracts thousands of

  • Nasili

    Hittite language, most important of the extinct Indo-European languages of ancient Anatolia. Hittite was closely related to Carian, Luwian, Lydian, Lycian, and Palaic (see also Anatolian languages). Hittite is known primarily from the approximately 30,000 cuneiform tablets or fragments of tablets

  • Nāṣir ad-Dawlah al-Ḥasan (Muslim ruler)

    Ḥamdānid Dynasty: …course under ʿAbd Allāh’s son Nāṣir ad-Dawlah al-Ḥasan (reigned 929–969) and expanded westward into Syria. In 979 the Ḥamdānids were driven out of Mosul by the Būyid ʿAḍud ad-Dawlah, who was then annexing Iraq to his domains, and Abū Taghlib (reigned 969–979) was forced to seek refuge and help from…

  • Naṣīr ad-Dīn aṭ-Țūsī (Persian scholar)

    Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī was an outstanding Persian philosopher, scientist, and mathematician. Educated first in Ṭūs, where his father was a jurist in the Twelfth Imam school, the main sect of Shīʾite Muslims, al-Ṭūsī finished his education in Neyshābūr, about 75 kilometres (50 miles) to the west. This

  • Nāṣir ad-Dīn Maḥmūd (Zangid ruler)

    Zangid dynasty: …regent for the last Zangid, Nāṣir al-Dīn Maḥmūd (reigned 1219–22), marked the end of the dynasty. Luʾluʾ ruled Mosul as atabeg from 1222 to 1259; soon afterward the city fell to the Mongols.

  • Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad Shah (Mughal emperor)

    Muḥammad Shah was an ineffective, pleasure-seeking Mughal emperor of India from 1719 to 1748. Roshan Akhtar was the grandson of the emperor Bahādur Shah I (ruled 1707–12) and the son of Jahān Shah, Bahādur Shah’s youngest son. Jahān Shah was killed in 1712, early in the succession struggle

  • Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh (Qājār shah of Iran)

    Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh was the Qājār shah of Iran (1848–96) who began his reign as a reformer but became increasingly conservative, failing to understand the accelerating need for change or for a response to the pressures brought by contact with the Western nations. Although a younger son of Moḥammad

  • Nāṣir Jang (ruler of Hyderābād)

    India: The Anglo-French struggle, 1740–63: …nizam (now a hereditary title), Nāṣir Jang, ended with the nizam’s murder in December 1750. French troops conducted Muẓaffar Jang toward Hyderabad; when Muẓaffar in turn was murdered three months later, the French succeeded in placing the late nizam’s third son, Ṣalābat Jang, on the Hyderabad throne. Thenceforward, in the…

  • Nāṣir Khān (ruler of Baluchistan)

    Brahui: Under Naṣīr Khān, the confederacy attained its zenith in the 18th century. Their subsequent history centred on the state of Kalāt, which joined Pakistan in 1948.

  • Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh, al- (Umayyad caliph)

    ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III was the first caliph and greatest ruler of the Umayyad Arab Muslim dynasty of Spain. He reigned as hereditary emir (“prince”) of Córdoba from October 912 and took the title of caliph in 929. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān succeeded his grandfather ʿAbd Allāh as emir of Córdoba in October 912 at

  • Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh, al- (ʿAbbāsid caliph)

    al-Nāṣir was the 34th ʿAbbāsid caliph (reigned 1180–1225), the last powerful ʿAbbāsid caliph before the destruction of the dynasty by the Mongols. Al-Nāṣir devoted himself almost exclusively to restoring the former temporal power of the caliphate, turning his attention particularly to the east. In

  • Nāṣir ʿAlī Sirhindī (Indian poet)

    Islamic arts: Indian literature in Persian: …leading poets of this age, Nāṣir ʿAlī Sirhindī (died 1697) and Mīrzā Bēdil (died 1721), is convoluted and obscure, prompting the Persian poet Ḥazīn (died 1766), who went to India in the early 18th century, to write ironic comments about its incomprehensibility. Bēdil, however, was a very interesting writer. His…

  • Nāṣir, al- (ʿAbbāsid caliph)

    al-Nāṣir was the 34th ʿAbbāsid caliph (reigned 1180–1225), the last powerful ʿAbbāsid caliph before the destruction of the dynasty by the Mongols. Al-Nāṣir devoted himself almost exclusively to restoring the former temporal power of the caliphate, turning his attention particularly to the east. In

  • Nāṣir, al-Malik an- (Mamlūk sultan)

    Mūsā I of Mali: Pilgrimage to Mecca: …the Mamlūk sultans, Al-Malik al-Nāṣir. The Black emperor’s great civility notwithstanding, the meeting between the two rulers might have ended in a serious diplomatic incident, for so absorbed was Mansa Mūsā in his religious observances that he was only with difficulty persuaded to pay a formal visit to the…

  • Nāṣir, Buḥayrat (lake, Africa)

    Lake Nasser, reservoir on the Nile River, in Upper Egypt and northern Sudan. It was created by the impounding of the Nile’s waters by the Aswan High Dam, which was built in the 1960s and dedicated in 1971. Lake Nasser has a gross capacity of 136,927,000 acre-feet (168,900,000,000 cubic metres), and

  • Nāṣīr, Jamal ʿAbd al- (president of Egypt)

    Gamal Abdel Nasser was an Egyptian army officer, prime minister (1954–56), and then president (1956–70) of Egypt who became a controversial leader of the Arab world, creating the short-lived United Arab Republic (1958–61), twice fighting wars with Israel (1956, 1967), and engaging in such

  • Nāṣir, Muḥammad ibn Abī Yūsuf Yaʿḳūb al- (Almohad caliph)

    North Africa: The Maghrib under the Almoravids and the Almohads: The Almohad caliph al-Nāṣir (Muḥammad ibn Abī Yūsuf Yaʿqūb) restored the empire’s authority in the region with several large military campaigns from 1205 to 1207. Before returning to Marrakech, he appointed a Ḥafṣid to govern the reconquered eastern Maghrib. The Ḥafṣids were able to squelch the…

  • Nāṣir-al-Dīn Muḥammad (Mughal emperor)

    Humāyūn was the second Mughal ruler of India, who was more an adventurer than a consolidator of his empire. The son and successor of Bābur, who had founded the Mughal dynasty, Humāyūn ruled from 1530 to 1540 and again from 1555 to 1556. Humāyūn inherited the hope rather than the fact of empire,

  • Nāṣir-i Khusraw (Persian author)

    Nāṣer-e Khusraw was a poet, theologian, and religious propagandist, one of the greatest writers in Persian literature. Nāṣer-e Khusraw came of a family of government officials who belonged to the Shīʿite branch of Islam, and he attended school for only a short while. In 1045 he went on a pilgrimage

  • Nāṣira, an- (Israel)

    Nazareth, historic city of Lower Galilee, in northern Israel; it is the largest Arab city of the country. In the New Testament Nazareth is associated with Jesus as his boyhood home, and in its synagogue he preached the sermon that led to his rejection by his fellow townsmen. The city is now a

  • Nasirabad (Bangladesh)

    Mymensingh, city, north-central Bangladesh. It lies on the north bank of the Old Brahmaputra River. Once known for its glass-bangle manufacture, it now has textile and steel mills. It was incorporated as a municipality in 1869. Mymensingh is noted for its many educational institutions, including

  • Nāṣirīyah, An- (Iraq)

    Al-Nāṣiriyyah, city, capital of Dhī Qār muḥāfaẓah (governorate), southeastern Iraq. It lies along the Euphrates River in a flat date-growing area. Built largely of sun-dried brick and enclosed by a mud wall, the city is a local market and a rail terminus. Its traditional industries include

  • Nāṣiriyyah, Al- (Iraq)

    Al-Nāṣiriyyah, city, capital of Dhī Qār muḥāfaẓah (governorate), southeastern Iraq. It lies along the Euphrates River in a flat date-growing area. Built largely of sun-dried brick and enclosed by a mud wall, the city is a local market and a rail terminus. Its traditional industries include

  • Nasjonal Samling (political group, Norway)

    fascism: National fascisms: …led by Ante Pavelić; the National Union (Nasjonal Samling) in Norway, which was in power for only a week—though its leader, Vidkun Quisling, was later made minister president under the German occupation; and the military dictatorship of Admiral Tojo Hideki in Japan.

  • Nasjonalgalleriet (museum, Oslo, Norway)

    National Gallery, in Oslo, Norwegian national art museum, built in 1836 and enlarged in 1903–07, devoted primarily to Norwegian paintings and sculpture of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 2003 the National Gallery joined with three other Norwegian museums to become the National Museum of Art,

  • Naskapi (people)

    Innu: The northern Innu, or Naskapi, lived on the vast Labrador plateau of grasslands and tundra, hunted caribou for both food and skins to cover their wickiups, and supplemented their diet with fish and small game. The name Montagnais is French, meaning “mountaineers”; Naskapi is an indigenous name thought to…

  • naskhī script (calligraphy)

    naskhī script, Islāmic style of handwritten alphabet developed in the 4th century of the Islāmic era (i.e., the 10th century ad). From the beginning of Islāmic writing, two kinds of scripts existed side by side—those used for everyday correspondence and business and those used for copying the

  • NASL

    football: North and Central America and the Caribbean: The North American Soccer League (NASL) formed a year later and struggled until the New York Cosmos signed the Brazilian superstar Pelé in 1975. Other aging international stars soon followed, and crowds grew to European proportions, but a regular fan base remained elusive, and NASL folded…

  • Naslund, Markus (Swedish hockey player)

    Vancouver Canucks: …various seasons) of left wing Markus Naslund, goaltender Roberto Luongo, and identical-twin forwards Daniel and Henrik Sedin, the Canucks failed to advance beyond the second round of the playoffs over that span. In 2010–11 Vancouver captured the Presidents’ Trophy for posting the NHL’s best regular-season record that season, which the…

  • Nasmyth, James (Scottish engineer)

    James Nasmyth was a British engineer known primarily for his invention of the steam hammer. Nasmyth showed an extraordinary mechanical inclination while still a schoolboy in Edinburgh, building successful model steam engines. For two years he worked in Henry Maudslay’s machine shop in London and

  • Naso (fish, genus Naso)

    unicorn fish, any of certain exclusively marine fishes belonging to the genus Naso, in the family Acanthuridae (order Perciformes), occurring in the tropical Indo-Pacific region. The 17 species are herbivorous algae eaters. Unicorn fishes have a pair of sharp forward-pointing spines that protrude