Blenheim, town, northeastern South Island, New Zealand. It is located on the Wairau Plain at the confluence of the Omaka and Opawa rivers. About 1830 the entire plain was sold by the local Maoris to a whaling captain. First settled in 1847, it grew rapidly following the discovery of gold (1864) and

Whirlaway: Breeding and early years: …purchase of a nine-year-old stallion, Blenheim II. During his racing days the horse had won the Epsom Derby and later had sired the Derby winner Mahmoud. Blenheim II was sent to Claiborne Farm in Kentucky, where, on April 2, 1938, one of his mates, Dustwhirl, gave birth to a blaze-faced…

Blenheim Palace, residence near Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England, built (1705–24) by the English Parliament as a national gift to John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough. During the War of the Spanish Succession, he had led the English to victory over the French and Bavarians at the Battle of

Battle of Blenheim, (Aug. 13, 1704), the most famous victory of John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, and Eugene of Savoy in the War of the Spanish Succession. The first major defeat that the French army suffered in over 50 years, it saved Vienna from a threatening Franco-Bavarian army,

John Blenkinsop was an English inventor, designer of the first practical and successful railway locomotive. Blenkinsop’s two-cylinder, geared steam locomotive utilized the tooth-rack rail system of propulsion. Four Blenkinsop engines (built 1812–13) hauled coal over cast-iron rails from Middleton,

Parkersburg: …south, was the home of Harman Blennerhassett, a wealthy Irishman who supposedly plotted with Aaron Burr to seize the Southwest and set up an empire. Inc. city, 1911. Pop. (2000) 33,099; Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna Metro Area, 164,624; (2010) 31,492; Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna Metro Area, 162,056.

perciform: Annotated classification: Family Blenniidae (combtooth blennies) Eocene to present. Resemble clinids in fins and body shape but differ in being scaleless and in having a steep forehead and only a single row of teeth in both jaws, the teeth being close-set, long, comblike. Sometimes a pair of large to…

perciform: Annotated classification: Family Blenniidae (combtooth blennies) Eocene to present. Resemble clinids in fins and body shape but differ in being scaleless and in having a steep forehead and only a single row of teeth in both jaws, the teeth being close-set, long, comblike. Sometimes a pair of large to…

blenny, any of the numerous and diverse fishes of the suborder Blennioidei (order Perciformes). Blennies are mostly small, usually marine fishes found from tropical to cold seas. They are slim, ranging in form from moderately elongated, as in some of the tropical species, to very long and eel-like,

blenny, any of the numerous and diverse fishes of the suborder Blennioidei (order Perciformes). Blennies are mostly small, usually marine fishes found from tropical to cold seas. They are slim, ranging in form from moderately elongated, as in some of the tropical species, to very long and eel-like,

antineoplastic antibiotic: include doxorubicin, daunorubicin, bleomycin, mitomycin, and dactinomycin, all of which are derived from species of Streptomyces bacteria. While these drugs may have antibacterial activity, they are generally too dangerous and toxic for that use. Antineoplastic antibiotics are associated with blood cell damage, hair loss, and other toxicities common…

Acanthaceae: (140), Dicliptera (150), Blepharis (130), Lepidagathis (100), Hygrophila (100), Thunbergia (90), and Dyschoriste (80). The small genus Avicennia contains at least eight species of ecologically important mangroves.

blepharitis, common inflammation of the eyelids that is marked by red, scaly, crusting eyelids and a burning, itching, grainy feeling in the eye. The eye itself often has some redness. There are two forms of blepharitis: anterior, which affects the exterior edge of the eyelid, and posterior, which

protist: Features unique to protists: …with the basal bodies, or kinetosomes, of many ciliates and flagellates, and nonhomologous endoskeletal and exoskeletal structures have developed in many protists. Conspicuous food-storage bodies are often present, and pigment bodies apart from, or in addition to, chloroplasts are found in some species. In the cortex, just under the pellicle…

ptosis, drooping of the upper eyelid. The condition may be congenital or acquired and can cause significant obscuration of vision. In congenital ptosis the muscle that elevates the lid, called the levator palpebrae superioris, is usually absent or imperfectly developed. If severe and not corrected

Blériot XI, monoplane built and first flown by the French aviation pioneer Louis Blériot in 1909. Blériot took to the air with his model number XI for the first time at Issy-les-Moulineaux (near Paris) on Jan. 23, 1909. Principally designed by Raymond Saulnier, the Blériot XI was a tractor

Louis Blériot was a French airplane manufacturer and aviator who made the first flight of an airplane between continental Europe and Great Britain. Blériot, a graduate of the École Centrale in Paris, met and married Alice Vedène while performing military service as a lieutenant of artillery. He

blesbok, (Damaliscus pygargus phillipsi), one of the gaudiest of the antelopes, a South African version of the closely related sassaby. The blesbok ranged the treeless Highveld in countless thousands throughout the mid-19th century but was hunted nearly to extinction. It has been reintroduced,

blesmol, (family Bathyergidae), any of about a dozen species of burrowing African rodents that live in arid regions south of the Sahara (desert). Blesmols are highly adapted to a subterranean lifestyle. They appear virtually neckless, having strong, blunt heads with incisor teeth protruding forward

Jefferson Airplane: …onstage document of their approach, Bless Its Pointed Little Head, was one of two albums released in 1969; the other, Volunteers, was a call for youth revolt, a reaction to the police riots of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In addition to its agitprop title song, the album…

Rudolfo Anaya: Bless Me, Ultima (1972; film 2013), Anaya’s acclaimed first novel, concerns a young boy growing up in New Mexico in the late 1940s and an elderly healer who changes his life. Heart of Aztlán (1976) follows a family’s move from rural to urban surroundings and…

Stanley Kramer: Final films: Moviegoers also avoided Bless the Beasts and Children (1972), a fable about six social misfits who try to free a herd of buffalo, although it later attained the status of cult classic, thanks in large measure to the presence of child actors Bill Mumy and Miles Chapin. After…

Lucinda Williams: …by Little Honey (2008) and Blessed (2011), both of which also found acclaim. In 2014 Williams resolved her problems working with commercial record labels by founding her own label, Highway 20 Records, and that same year she released the double album Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone. A second…

Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Early life and works: …force of his poem “The Blessed Damozel,” published in 1850 in the first issue of The Germ, the Pre-Raphaelite magazine. When it was exhibited in 1850, Ecce Ancilla Domini received severe criticism, which Rossetti could never bear with equanimity. In consequence, he ceased to show in public and gave up…

Roy Del Ruth: Early films: Blessed Event (1932) was a crackling comedy, with Lee Tracy at arguably his best as a gossip columnist willing to do anything to increase circulation, and Employees’ Entrance (1933) starred Warren William as an unscrupulous department-store manager who wreaks havoc on the lives of those…

Mother Teresa ; canonized September 4, 2016; feast day September 5) was the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of women dedicated to the poor, particularly to the destitute of India. She was the recipient of numerous honours, including the 1979 Nobel

Peter the Venerable was an outstanding French abbot of Cluny whose spiritual, intellectual, and financial reforms restored Cluny to its high place among the religious establishments of Europe. Peter joined Bernard of Clairvaux in supporting Pope Innocent II, thereby weakening the position of the

St. Katharine Drexel: …Indians and Colored People (now Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament), a congregation of missionary nuns dedicated to the welfare of American Indians and African Americans. She is the patron saint of racial justice and of philanthropists.

St. Katharine Drexel: …Indians and Colored People (now Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament), a congregation of missionary nuns dedicated to the welfare of American Indians and African Americans. She is the patron saint of racial justice and of philanthropists.

Mother Teresa ; canonized September 4, 2016; feast day September 5) was the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of women dedicated to the poor, particularly to the destitute of India. She was the recipient of numerous honours, including the 1979 Nobel

Mary was the mother of Jesus, venerated in the Christian church since the apostolic age and a favorite subject in Western art, music, and literature. Mary is known from biblical references, which are, however, too sparse to construct a coherent biography. The development of the doctrine of Mary can

Hereford: The Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Aethelberht exemplifies all architectural styles from Norman to Perpendicular. The see was detached from that of Lichfield in 676, Putta being its first bishop. After the body of Aethelberht, a slain English leader, had been brought…

Candlemas, Christian festival on February 2 commemorating the occasion when the Virgin Mary, in obedience to Jewish law, went to the Temple in Jerusalem both to be purified 40 days after the birth of her son, Jesus, and to present him to God as her firstborn (Luke 2:22–38). The festival was

novena: Some Marian novenas, most notably the 54-day miraculous novena, involve the recitation of an entire rosary. In addition to novenas that culminate on specific feast days, novena prayers for the dead and novenas for specific petitions or as a form of thanksgiving are also common practices.

benediction, a verbal blessing of persons or things, commonly applied to invocations pronounced in God’s name by a priest or minister, usually at the conclusion of a religious service. The Aaronic benediction (Num. 6:24–26) was incorporated by Luther into his German Mass and is preserved by modern

biblical literature: Concluding exhortation and traditions about the last days of Moses: The second poem, “The Blessing of Moses” (chapter 33), blesses each of the tribes of Israel, one by one, and the blessings are associated with God’s love, the law commanded by Moses, and the kingship of God over his people. There are indications in both poems of a considerably…

Medford: …Medford began in 1631 with Blessing of the Bay, one of the first oceangoing ships to be built in America. Later, the city’s merchants were active in the triangular trade by which rum made from West Indian sugar was traded for African slaves, who in turn were sold to the…

Lucille Clifton: (1991), The Terrible Stories (1996), Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988–2000 (2000), and Mercy (2004). Generations: A Memoir (1976) is a prose piece celebrating her origins, and Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir, 1969–1980 (1987) collects some of her previously published verse. The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton:…

Tony Hillerman: Joe Leaphorn (introduced in The Blessing Way [1970], Hillerman’s debut novel) and Sgt. Jim Chee (who first appeared in People of Darkness [1980]) use the latest police crime-solving methods coupled with traditional Navajo beliefs (hozro, or harmony) in their detection. The lyrical novels, which were prized for their authenticity,…

Marguerite Gardiner, countess of Blessington was an Irish writer chiefly remembered for her Conversations of Lord Byron and for her London salon. Her father sold her into marriage at 15 to Captain Maurice St. Leger Farmer, a sadist from whom she fled after three months. He died in a drunken brawl

Blessingway, central ceremony of a complex system of Navajo healing ceremonies known as sings, or chants, that are designed to restore equilibrium to the cosmos. Anthropologists have grouped these ceremonies into six major divisions: the Blessingways, Holyways, Lifeways, Evilways, War Ceremonials,

Jean Charbonneau: In 1912 Charbonneau wrote Les Blessures (“The Wounds”), the first of several volumes of poetry that dealt primarily with philosophical speculation and myth. Sur la borne pensive (1952; “On the Bounds of Thought”), which invites his readers into a garden of delights where life is a spectacle of Persian…

Alberto Blest Gana was a novelist who founded the Chilean social novel. Blest Gana began his education at the Santiago military academy, and, while studying military engineering in France, he came under the influence of the French realists, especially Honoré de Balzac. He returned to Chile in 1852

Bletchley Park, British government cryptological establishment in operation during World War II. Bletchley Park was where Alan Turing and other agents of the Ultra intelligence project decoded the enemy’s secret messages, most notably those that had been encrypted with the German Enigma and Tunny

medlar: …undergo a process known as bletting (i.e., the flesh turns soft and brown); it then takes on an agreeable acidic and somewhat astringent flavour. Several varieties are cultivated.

Krzysztof Kieślowski: …the French flag: Bleu (1993; Blue), Blanc (1994; White), and Rouge (1994; Red); respectively, they explored the themes of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The films were released several months apart and, although each can stand on its own, they were designed to be seen as a single entity. One theme,…

Low Countries: …in economic integration, forming the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union (BLEU) in 1921, followed after World War II by Benelux. That union allows for the free movement of people, goods, capital, and services between the three countries; coordinates their policy in economic, financial, and social fields; and pursues a common foreign-trade policy.…

Eugen Bleuler was one of the most influential psychiatrists of his time, best known today for his introduction of the term schizophrenia to describe the disorder previously known as dementia praecox and for his studies of schizophrenics. Bleuler studied medicine at the University of Bern and later

Expressionism: Birth and development: Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Fritz Bleyl. These painters were in revolt against what they saw as the superficial naturalism of academic Impressionism. They wanted to reinfuse German art with a spiritual vigour they felt it lacked, and they sought to do this through an elemental, highly personal and spontaneous…

Steen Steensen Blicher was a Danish poet and short-story writer who portrayed the people of Jutland with humour and irony and with a realism well in advance of his time. An unhappily married, impoverished country parson, Blicher led an outdoor life—walking, shooting game, and talking to peasants,

attention: 19th-century roots: …awareness (which he called the Blickfeld) within which lay the more limited focus of attention (the Blickpunkt). He suggested that the range of the Blickpunkt was about six items or groups. He also speculated that attention is a function of the frontal lobes of the brain.

attention: 19th-century roots: …limited focus of attention (the Blickpunkt). He suggested that the range of the Blickpunkt was about six items or groups. He also speculated that attention is a function of the frontal lobes of the brain.

Blida, town, northern Algeria. It lies on the southern edge of the Mitidja plain at the base of the Tell Atlas Mountains and is about 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Algiers. French in character, the town is surrounded by orchards, trades in oranges and flour, and has light manufacturing. The Wadi

Mary J. Blige is an American singer-songwriter and actress who has been called the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul. A major artist of the late 20th and early 21st centuries who redefined music genres, Blige is especially known for soulful ballads and infectious dance hits. Blige’s childhood was divided

Mary J. Blige is an American singer-songwriter and actress who has been called the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul. A major artist of the late 20th and early 21st centuries who redefined music genres, Blige is especially known for soulful ballads and infectious dance hits. Blige’s childhood was divided

William Bligh was an English navigator, explorer, and commander of the HMS Bounty at the time of the celebrated mutiny on that ship. The son of a customs officer, Bligh joined the Royal Navy in 1770. After six years as a midshipman, he was promoted to sailing master of the Resolution and served

ackee, (Blighia sapida), tree of the soapberry family (Sapindaceae) native to West Africa, widely cultivated throughout tropical and subtropical regions for its edible fruit. Ackee and salt fish is a popular dish in the Caribbean and is the national dish of Jamaica. Taken to the Caribbean area with

blight, any of various plant diseases whose symptoms include sudden and severe yellowing, browning, spotting, withering, or dying of leaves, flowers, fruit, stems, or the entire plant. Most blights are caused by bacterial or fungal infestations, which usually attack the shoots and other young,

Royal Rotterdam Zoological Garden Foundation, zoological garden in Rotterdam, Netherlands, that was opened in 1887 by a private zoological society. It was essentially the outgrowth of the private collection of two railway workers who kept exotic animals as a hobby. Because of the need for

blimp, nonrigid or semirigid airship dependent on internal gas pressure to maintain its form. The origin of the name blimp is uncertain, but the most common explanation is that it derives from “British Class B airship” plus “limp”—i.e., nonrigid. Blimps were used by navies during World War I in

History of film: Conversion to sound: …camera housings known as “blimps.” Within several years, smaller, quieter, self-insulating cameras were produced, eliminating the need for external soundproofing altogether. It even became possible again to move the camera by using a wide range of boom cranes, camera supports, and steerable dollies. Microphones too became increasingly mobile as…

Ernest B. Schoedsack: King Kong and other films of the early 1930s: …Rose, they also collaborated on Blind Adventure, with Armstrong and Helen Mack (the leads in Son of Kong) paired as amateur detectives in London’s West End. (Cooper was not involved; his career as a director was over, although for another two decades, he would continue to produce films successfully, including…

Charles Vidor: Early work: …studio was the film noir Blind Alley (1939), an early attempt to add psychoanalysis to the crime picture. It centres on a psychologist (played by Ralph Bellamy) who, after being taken hostage by an escaped killer (Chester Morris), tries to uncover the roots of the man’s criminal behaviour. Vidor closed…

Canadian literature: Fiction: …while Alias Grace (1996) and The Blind Assassin (2000), winner of the Booker Prize, are situated in a meticulously researched historical Ontario and expose the secret worlds of women and the ambiguous nature of truth and justice. Set in Montreal, London, and Paris, Mordecai Richler’s novels The Apprenticeship of Duddy…

Tasman: …Bay beyond Separation Point into Tasman Bay/Te Tai-o-Aorere; the latter appeared landlocked, and Cook named it Blind Bay. In 1772–73 Cook returned to Blind Bay and renamed it Tasman Bay, mistaking it for Tasman’s Murderers’ Bay. In 1827 J.-S.-C. Dumont d’Urville reached Tasman Bay/Te Tai-o-Aorere; from that time the nucleus…

Blake Edwards: Later films: …Kim Basinger in the farce Blind Date (1987) and as the cowboy actor Tom Mix investigating a murder in 1920s Hollywood in Sunset (1988). With Skin Deep (1989), Edwards returned to the world of the sexual farce, this time with John Ritter playing the role of a novelist with writer’s…

R.L. Stine: His first scary novel, Blind Date, was released in 1986 and launched Stine’s career as a horror writer. His Fear Street series of stories for young teens began with The New Girl (1989), and the Goosebumps series for age 8 to 11 was launched with Welcome to Dead House…

Ginger Baker: Cream, Blind Faith, and later career: …Grech to form the supergroup Blind Faith. Their album, Blind Faith (1969), reached number one in the United Kingdom and the United States and included the hits “Can’t Find My Way Home” and “Presence of the Lord.” It ended up being their only album because the band broke up after…

Ben Elton: Published novels and other works: …Society (2002), Chart Throb (2006), Blind Faith (2007), Two Brothers (2012), and Identity Crisis (2019).

Louis MacNeice: MacNeice’s first book of poetry, Blind Fireworks, appeared in 1929, followed by more than a dozen other volumes, such as Poems (1935), Autumn Journal (1939), Collected Poems, 1925–1948 (1949), and, posthumously, The Burning Perch (1963). An intellectual honesty, Celtic exuberance, and sardonic humour characterized his poetry, which combined a charming…

blind fish, any of various eyeless fishes, among them several unrelated cave-dwelling species of the families Amblyopsidae, Characidae, and others. See cave

John Everett Millais: …of his greatest public successes, The Blind Girl—a tour de force of Victorian sentiment and technical facility.

perciform: Interspecific relationships: The blind goby, Typhlogobius californiensis, depends entirely upon holes dug by the ghost shrimp (Callianassa) for a home and is unable to live without its help. Other gobies are known to share holes with burrowing worms, pea crabs, and snapping shrimps.

Harry The Minstrel was the author of the Scottish historical romance The Acts and Deeds of the Illustrious and Valiant Champion Sir William Wallace, Knight of Elderslie, which is preserved in a manuscript dated 1488. He has been traditionally identified with the Blind Harry named among others in

Erich von Stroheim: …played the leading role in Blind Husbands (1919), his first independently directed picture. As an early exemplar of the changing postwar morality, it intimated that a woman had the right to seek love outside of an unsatisfying marriage. Stroheim’s growing obsession with painstaking detail was reflected in The Devil’s Passkey…

Paula Gunn Allen: Background and education: …her first book of poetry, The Blind Lion (1974). Married and divorced once more, Allen had two more children (one of whom died in infancy) and began to identify as a lesbian. Later in life she would call herself a “serial bisexual.”

Louis Hémon: Blind Man’s Bluff), Battling Malone, pugiliste (1925; Eng. trans. Battling Malone, and Other Stories), and Monsieur Ripois et la Némésis (1925; Monsieur Ripois and Nemesis). In 1980 Nicole Deschamps published a new edition of Maria Chapdelaine based on Hémon’s original manuscript.

blindman’s buff, children’s game played as early as 2,000 years ago in Greece. The game is variously known in Europe: Italy, mosca cieca (“blind fly”); Germany, Blindekuh (“blind cow”); Sweden, blindbock (“blind buck”); Spain, gallina ciega (“blind hen”); and France, colin-maillard (named for a

Pablo Picasso: Blue Period of Pablo Picasso: …in 1902–03 (Crouching Woman [1902]; Blind Man’s Meal [1903]; Old Jew and a Boy [1903]). The subject of maternity (women were allowed to keep nursing children with them at the prison) also preoccupied Picasso at a time when he was searching for material that would best express traditional art-historical subjects…

blind mole rat, (subfamily Spalacinae), any of eight species of burrowing rodents living in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. Among the several rodents referred to as “mole rats” (see zokor), the blind mole rat is among the most molelike in form, having a furred, cylindrical body,

Olafur Eliasson: …the 50th Venice Biennale with The Blind Pavilion, an architectural structure made of alternating black opaque and transparent glass panels that created disorienting reflections for visitors walking through. That same year at Tate Modern in London, he exhibited The Weather Project, a 50-foot (15-metre) in diameter orb resembling a dark…

speakeasy, place where alcoholic beverages are illegally sold, especially such establishments in the United States during Prohibition (1920–33). In more recent years the term has also applied to legal bars that are modeled on historical speakeasies. According to some accounts, the word speakeasy

printmaking: Relief etching: …a popular method of making inkless intaglio prints (shallow bas-reliefs on paper).

Sandra Bullock: Academy Award: …mother in the sports drama The Blind Side; she won numerous accolades for her performance, including an Academy Award for best actress. Another maternal role followed in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011), a film about a boy coping with the death of his father in the September 11 attacks.…

Michael Lewis: From page to screen: Moneyball, The Blind Side, and The Big Short: ” For his next book, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game (2007), Lewis wrote a history of American football offensive strategy interwoven with the story of Michael Oher, then one of the hottest prospects in high-school football. Lewis had a personal connection with Oher: his adoptive parents were Lewis’s…

blind snake, (superfamily Typhlopoidea), any of several nonvenomous snakes characterized by degenerate eyes that lie beneath opaque head scales. Blind snakes belong to the families Anomalepidae, Leptotyphlopidae, and Typhlopidae in superfamily Typhlopoidea. Since these three families are the only

blind spot, small portion of the visual field of each eye that corresponds to the position of the optic disk (also known as the optic nerve head) within the retina. There are no photoreceptors (i.e., rods or cones) in the optic disk, and, therefore, there is no image detection in this area. The

blind staggers, symptom of several unrelated animal diseases, in which the affected animal walks with an unsteady, staggering gait and seems to be blind. The many possible causes include poisoning from ingesting plants containing a high level of selenium or from ingesting grasses infected with the

Asian tree mouse: …Asian tree mice are called blind tree mice (genus Typhlomys): the Chinese blind tree mouse (T. cinereus) and the Chapa blind tree mouse (T. chapensis). They are probably nocturnal and arboreal, inhabiting mountain forests of southern China and northern Vietnam, respectively. Aside from their physical traits, little is known of…

polje, (Serbo-Croatian: “field”), elongated basin having a flat floor and steep walls; it is formed by the coalescence of several sinkholes. The basins often cover 250 square km (about 100 square miles) and may expose “disappearing streams.” Most such basins have steep enclosing walls that range

Richard Dawkins: …including The Extended Phenotype (1982), The Blind Watchmaker (1986), which won the Royal Society of Literature Award in 1987, and River Out of Eden (1995). Dawkins particularly sought to address a growing misapprehension of what exactly Darwinian natural selection entailed in Climbing Mount Improbable (1996). Stressing the gradual nature of…

Haruki Murakami: Works: …collections The Elephant Vanishes (1993), Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2006), Men Without Women (2017), and First Person Singular (2021) translate Murakami’s stories into English. His memoir, Hashiru koto ni tsuite kataru toki ni boku no kataru koto (2007; What I Talk About When I Talk About Running), centers on his…

history of the blind, the experience of persons affected by blindness and the development of blind education and organization through time. The history of the blind is difficult to chart. There are few examples before the 19th century of sustained organized efforts by the blind to act in concert to

blindman’s buff, children’s game played as early as 2,000 years ago in Greece. The game is variously known in Europe: Italy, mosca cieca (“blind fly”); Germany, Blindekuh (“blind cow”); Sweden, blindbock (“blind buck”); Spain, gallina ciega (“blind hen”); and France, colin-maillard (named for a

Friedrich Dürrenmatt: In it, as in Der Blinde (1948; “The Blind Man”) and Romulus der Grosse (1949; Romulus the Great), Dürrenmatt takes comic liberties with the historical facts. Die Ehe des Herrn Mississippi (1952; The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi), a serious play in the guise of an old-fashioned melodrama, established his…

blindman’s buff, children’s game played as early as 2,000 years ago in Greece. The game is variously known in Europe: Italy, mosca cieca (“blind fly”); Germany, Blindekuh (“blind cow”); Sweden, blindbock (“blind buck”); Spain, gallina ciega (“blind hen”); and France, colin-maillard (named for a

Rembrandt: Rembrandt and Rubens: …could have been either the Blinding of Samson or the Danaë (both from 1636) in its original form. It seems that Huygens did not accept the gift.

blindman’s buff, children’s game played as early as 2,000 years ago in Greece. The game is variously known in Europe: Italy, mosca cieca (“blind fly”); Germany, Blindekuh (“blind cow”); Sweden, blindbock (“blind buck”); Spain, gallina ciega (“blind hen”); and France, colin-maillard (named for a

Portuguese literature: After 1974: Blindness), one of the greatest allegories in 20th-century world literature, is a chilling and macabre moral tale of iniquity and goodness.