history of baseball, overview of notable events and people in the history of baseball. Long known as “America’s Pastime,” the sport was not actually created in the United States and has been passed over in popularity by American football. Nevertheless, baseball remains, to many, inextricably tied

Roman Polanski: …D’après une histoire vraie (2017; Based on a True Story).

Blake Shelton: …Red River Blue (2011) and Based on a True Story… (2013), were both nominated for a Grammy for best country album. The songs “Honey Bee” (2011) and “Mine Would Be You” (2013) also received Grammy nods. His popularity continued, with his next three releases—Bringing Back the Sunshine (2014), If I’m…

Johann Bernhard Basedow was an influential German educational reformer who advocated the use of realistic teaching methods and the introduction of nature study, physical education, and manual training into the schools. He also called for an end to physical punishment and to rote memorization in

Basel, capital of the Halbkanton (demicanton) of Basel-Stadt (with which it is virtually coextensive), northern Switzerland. It lies along the Rhine River, at the mouths of the Birs and Wiese rivers, where the French, German, and Swiss borders meet, at the entrance to the Swiss Rhineland. It was

Switzerland: Expansion and position of power: …and along the Rhine from Basel to the Vorarlberg, peace was declared at Basel on September 22, 1499; the Swiss Confederation did not adhere to the decisions of Worms, but it remained a subject of the empire even though there was little effective control left. Within two years the strategic…

bank: The role of bank capital: …first (1988) and second (2004) Basel Accords (Basel I and Basel II), which were implemented within the European Union and, to a limited extent, in the United States, established minimum capital requirements for different banks based on formulas that attempted to account for the risks to which each is exposed.…

Swiss Bank Corporation, former Swiss bank, one of the largest banks in Switzerland until its merger with the Union Bank of Switzerland in 1998. The Swiss Bank Corporation was established in 1872 as the Basler Bankverein, specializing in investment banking. In an 1895 merger with Zürcher Bankverein,

Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, committee of the Bank for International Settlements, an institution that promotes financial and monetary cooperation among the world’s central banks. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision was created in 1974 as an ongoing forum to discuss banking

20th-century international relations: The peace movements: ” The 1912 Basel Conference declared the proletariat “the herald of world peace” and proclaimed “war on war.” Sober observers like George Bernard Shaw and Max Weber doubted that any putative sense of solidarity among workers would outweigh their nationalism, but the French government kept a blacklist of…

international payment and exchange: The Basel Group: In 1930 a Bank for International Settlements was established at Basel, Switz.; its main duty was to supervise and organize the transfer of German reparations to the recipient countries. This “transfer problem” had caused much trouble during the 1920s. There may also have…

Novartis AG: …to form a cartel, the Interessengemeinschaft Basel (“Basel Syndicate”), or Basel IG, in order to compete with the German chemical cartel IG Farben. All three companies also established or acquired factories in various European countries and in the United States. In 1929–32 the Basel IG joined with IG Farben and…

Sam Francis: His 20-foot-long Basel Mural 1 (1956–58), with its rich blues, oranges, yellows, and reds and its evocative drips and splatters, seems positively jubilant. In the 1960s, perhaps in response to the minimalism then in full swing, Francis left much of his canvas unpainted, restricting his application of…

Theodor Herzl: The First Zionist Congress: …to be known as the Basel Program, declaring Zionism’s aspiration “to create a publicly guaranteed homeland for the Jewish people” in Palestine. It also set up the Zionist Organization with Herzl as president.

Basel Zoological Garden, privately owned zoological garden in Basel, Switzerland, noted for its outstanding work in the breeding of the Indian rhinoceros and the pygmy hippopotamus. The zoo was founded in 1874 for the purpose of exhibiting local wildlife. (It opened with about 100 mammals and

Confession of Basel, moderate Protestant Reformation statement of Reformed doctrine composed of 12 articles. It was first drafted by John Oecolampadius, the reformer of Basel, and was compiled in fuller form in 1532 by his successor at Basel, Oswald Myconius. In 1534 it was adopted by the Basel

Council of Basel, (1431), a general council of the Roman Catholic Church held in Basel, Switzerland. It was called by Pope Martin V a few weeks before his death in 1431 and then was confirmed by Pope Eugenius IV. Meeting at a time when the prestige of the papacy had been weakened by the Western

Maximilian I: Consolidation of power: …its virtual independence by the Peace of Basel (September 22). At the same time, the French moved back into Italy, in cooperation with Spain, and occupied the imperial fief of Milan.

Maximilian I: Consolidation of power: …its virtual independence by the Peace of Basel (September 22). At the same time, the French moved back into Italy, in cooperation with Spain, and occupied the imperial fief of Milan.

Jacob Burckhardt: Life: The University of Basel awarded Burckhardt the degree of Ph.D. in absentia, and after his return from Berlin in 1843 he was quickly authorized to give private lectures. Lecture he did, but for two years he had to earn his living as the editor of the…

Basel-Landschaft, Halbkanton (demicanton), northern Switzerland, traversed by the Jura Mountains and drained by the Ergolz and Birs rivers. It was formed in 1833 by the division of Basel canton into two half cantons, or demicantons, and its early history is linked with Basel (q.v.) city. Its

Basel-Stadt, Halbkanton (demicanton), northern Switzerland, consisting of the city of Basel (q.v.) and two small villages north of the Rhine. Occupying an area of 14 square miles (37 square km), it was formed in 1833 by the division of Basel canton into two half cantons, or demicantons. Its present

baselevel, in hydrology and geomorphology, limit below which a stream cannot erode. Upon entering a still body of water, a stream’s velocity is checked and thus it loses its eroding power; hence, the approximate level of the surface of the still water body is the stream’s baselevel. If a stream

personality assessment: Behavioral assessment: …type of behavioral assessment called baseline observations is becoming increasingly popular. These are recordings of response frequencies in particular situations before any treatment or intervention has been made. They can be used in several ways. Observations might be made simply to describe a person’s response repertoire at a given time.…

Georg Baselitz is a German painter, printmaker, and sculptor who is considered to be a pioneering Neo-Expressionist. Baselitz was part of a wave of German painters from what was in their formative years East Germany who in the late 1970s rejected abstraction for highly expressive paintings with

nightshade: Malabar nightshade, also known as Malabar spinach, refers to twining herbaceous vines of the genus Basella (family Basellaceae).

Basellaceae, the Madeira-vine family of flowering plants in the order Caryophyllales, with 4 genera and 15 to 25 species of herbaceous perennial vines, distributed primarily in the New World tropics. Members of the family have fleshy, untoothed leaves, tuberous rootstocks, and red or white flowers

Basel-Landschaft, Halbkanton (demicanton), northern Switzerland, traversed by the Jura Mountains and drained by the Ergolz and Birs rivers. It was formed in 1833 by the division of Basel canton into two half cantons, or demicantons, and its early history is linked with Basel (q.v.) city. Its

British Association of Sport and Exercise Medicine (BASEM), organization founded in 1953 by a group of doctors, sports scientists, and those from allied disciplines who were involved in the care of athletes. The group’s main objectives include representing doctors working in the sport and exercise

cellar, room beneath ground level, especially one for storing fruits and vegetables, both raw and canned, on a farm. A typical cellar may be beneath the house or located outdoors, partly underground, with the upper part mounded over with earth to protect from freezing and to maintain fairly

Europe: Tectonic framework: The second is as basement to younger coverings of Phanerozoic sediments (i.e., deposits that have been laid down since the beginning of the Paleozoic). For example, the sediments of the Russian Platform are underlain by Precambrian basement, which extends from the Baltic Shield to the Ural Mountains, and Precambrian…

human cardiovascular system: The capillaries: A thin membrane, called a basement membrane, surrounds these cells and serves to maintain the integrity of the vessel.

Europe: Tectonic framework: The second is as basement to younger coverings of Phanerozoic sediments (i.e., deposits that have been laid down since the beginning of the Paleozoic). For example, the sediments of the Russian Platform are underlain by Precambrian basement, which extends from the Baltic Shield to the Ural Mountains, and Precambrian…

the Band: Meeting Bob Dylan: …then as the double album The Basement Tapes (1975).

Kate Millett: The Basement (1979) is a factual account of a young woman’s sexual abuse, torture, and murder at the hands of a group of teenagers led by an older woman who had been appointed her protector. Millett’s subsequent books dealt with the political oppression in Iran…

Basenji, ancient breed of hound native to Central Africa, where it has historically lived as a village dog (one that roams free and belongs to no one). Several of these native Basenjis were integrated into the domestic gene pool in the 1980s and ‘90s to help breed out a history of inherited health

Juan Bautista Alberdi: …Alberdi wrote his major book, Bases y puntos de partida para la organización política de la República Argentina (“Bases and Starting Points for the Political Organization of the Argentine Republic”), which was the decisive influence on the Argentine constitution of 1853. It emphasized the need for a federal government and…

Romania: New constitution: …Party (Partidul Democrat; PD), whose Traian Băsescu was elected president.

BASF Aktiengesellschaft, (German: BASF Limited-liability Company), German chemical and plastics manufacturing company originally founded in 1865 and today operating in some 30 countries. The BASF Group produces oil and natural gas, chemicals, fertilizers, plastics, synthetic fibres, dyes and

Kosovo: The arts: …the novelist, playwright, and poet Eqrem Basha; the poet and critic Sabri Hamiti; the poet Ali Podrimja; the scholar, novelist, and political figure Rexhep Qosja; the novelist Zejnullah Rrahmani; the poet Azem Shkreli; and the poet, doctor, and political activist Flora Brovina, who gained renown during her imprisonment by Yugoslav…

Bashan, country frequently cited in the Old Testament and later important in the Roman Empire; it is located in what is now Syria. Bashan was the northernmost of the three ancient divisions of eastern Palestine, and in the Old Testament it was proverbial for its rich pastures and thick forests. In

bashi-bazouk, (“corrupted head,” or “leaderless”), mercenary soldier belonging to the skirmishing or irregular troops of the Ottoman Empire, notorious for their indiscipline, plundering, and brutality. Originally describing the homeless beggars who reached Istanbul from the provinces of the Ottoman

origins of agriculture: Early history: …the Yangtze floodplain village of Bashidang, where a 100-square-meter (1,075-square-foot) area of wet deposits has yielded some 15,000 rice grains. Domesticated rice remains directly dated to 8500 bp are found at Bashidang and at another site, Pengtoushan. These sites belong to what Chinese archaeologists call the Pengtoushan culture, whose radiocarbon…

Young Tunisians: …by Ali Bash Hamba and Bashir Sfar, demanded complete Tunisian control of the government and administration of the country and full citizenship rights for both Tunisians and Frenchmen. The party attracted a following among the young, educated, professional Muslims, but the liberal attitudes and European ways of its members alienated…

Bashīr Shihāb II was a Lebanese prince who established hegemony over Lebanon in the first half of the 19th century and ruled it under Ottoman and, later, Egyptian suzerainty from 1788 to 1840. Although born into the princely Shihāb family, Bashīr grew up in poverty but married into great wealth. In

2002 Bali Bombings: …Indonesian police arrested Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah and one of its founders. He was apprehended in connection with a different series of terrorist attacks but was suspected of involvement in the Bali bombings. In March 2005 Bashir was found guilty of conspiracy for…

Martin Bashir is a British journalist who worked for various networks in both the United Kingdom and the United States but was best known for his BBC interview with Princess Diana in 1995. However, it was later revealed that Bashir had used deceptive measures to secure her cooperation. Bashir was

Omar al-Bashir is a Sudanese military officer who led a revolt that overthrew the elected government of Sudan in 1989. He served as president of Sudan from 1993 until 2019, when he was ousted in a military coup. Bashir was born into a peasant family that later moved to Khartoum, where he received

Omar al-Bashir is a Sudanese military officer who led a revolt that overthrew the elected government of Sudan in 1989. He served as president of Sudan from 1993 until 2019, when he was ousted in a military coup. Bashir was born into a peasant family that later moved to Khartoum, where he received

Omar al-Bashir is a Sudanese military officer who led a revolt that overthrew the elected government of Sudan in 1989. He served as president of Sudan from 1993 until 2019, when he was ousted in a military coup. Bashir was born into a peasant family that later moved to Khartoum, where he received

Rwanda: The Habyarimana era: …the principal factions were the Bashiru and Bagoyi elements, respectively identified with the Bushiru and Bugoyi subregions. Habyarimana sided with the Bashiru faction and was the target of an abortive Bagoyi-inspired coup in April 1980. Habyarimana remained in power, reelected in 1983 and 1988 when, as the sole candidate, voters…

Mehmed II: Mehmed’s empire: …leader Uzun Ḥasan at the Battle of Bashkent in Erzincan (August 11, 1473) marked in Mehmed’s life a turning point as important as the capture of Constantinople, and it sealed his domination over Anatolia and the Balkans.

Bashkir, member of a Turkic people, numbering more than 1,070,000 in the late 20th century, settled in the eastern part of European Russia, between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains, and beyond the Urals. Their main territory is Bashkortostan, where they are far outnumbered by Russians. The

Bashkortostan, republic in Russia, extending from the western slopes of the southern Ural Mountains in the east to the rolling hills of the Bugulma-Belebey Upland in the west. From Mount Yamantau, the highest peak in the southern Urals, elevation generally decreases southward and westward, with the

Ural Mountains: Geology: …west of it, is the Bashkir Anticlinorium. Both are composed of layers (sometimes four miles thick) of ancient metamorphic (heat-altered) rocks—gneisses (metamorphic rocks separable into thin plates), quartzites, and schists—that are between 570 and 395 million years old.

Bashkirian Stage, first of four internationally defined stages of the Pennsylvanian Subsystem of the Carboniferous System, encompassing all rocks deposited during the Bashkirian Age (323.2 million to 315.2 million years ago). The name is derived from Gornaya Bashkiriya in the southern Ural

Bashkortostan, republic in Russia, extending from the western slopes of the southern Ural Mountains in the east to the rolling hills of the Bugulma-Belebey Upland in the west. From Mount Yamantau, the highest peak in the southern Urals, elevation generally decreases southward and westward, with the

Marie Bashkirtseff was a Russian émigré best known for her sensitive and girlishly candid autobiography in French, Journal de Marie Bashkirtseff, avec un portrait, 2 vol. (1887). Though her diary is justly responsible for her reputation, she was also a highly talented visual artist and a

Marie Bashkirtseff was a Russian émigré best known for her sensitive and girlishly candid autobiography in French, Journal de Marie Bashkirtseff, avec un portrait, 2 vol. (1887). Though her diary is justly responsible for her reputation, she was also a highly talented visual artist and a

Bashkortostan, republic in Russia, extending from the western slopes of the southern Ural Mountains in the east to the rolling hills of the Bugulma-Belebey Upland in the west. From Mount Yamantau, the highest peak in the southern Urals, elevation generally decreases southward and westward, with the

Coptic language: …dialects of Lower Egypt were Bashmūric, about which little is known (only a few glosses in the dialect are extant), and Bohairic (from Arabic, al-Buḥayrah), originally spoken in the western part of Lower Egypt including the cities of Alexandria and Memphis. Bohairic has been used for religious purposes since the…

Bashō was the supreme Japanese haiku poet, who greatly enriched the 17-syllable haiku form and made it an accepted medium of artistic expression. Interested in haiku from an early age, Bashō at first put his literary interests aside and entered the service of a local feudal lord. After his lord’s

Japan: Commerce, cities, and culture: …developing a new style called shōfū or “Bashō style.” Bashō proclaimed what he called makoto no (“true”) haiku, seeking the spirit of this poetic form in sincerity and truthfulness. He also introduced a new beauty to haiku by using simple words. Bashō essentially grafted the aristocratic conceptions of medieval poetry…

Islamic arts: The Abbasids: Bashshār ibn Burd (died c. 784), the son of an enslaved Persian, was the first representative of the new style. This ugly blind workman excelled as a seductive love poet and also as a biting satirist—“Nobody could be secure from the itch of his tongue,”…

Ken Saro-Wiwa: …reached his largest audience with Basi and Company, a comedic television series that ran for some 150 episodes in the 1980s. He was also a journalist and wrote poetry and children’s stories.

Solomon Islands: Establishment of colonial rule: …with some of his associates, Basiana, the leader of the tax collectors’ killers, was hanged, and his young sons were forced to witness the execution.

bashi-bazouk, (“corrupted head,” or “leaderless”), mercenary soldier belonging to the skirmishing or irregular troops of the Ottoman Empire, notorious for their indiscipline, plundering, and brutality. Originally describing the homeless beggars who reached Istanbul from the provinces of the Ottoman

BASIC, computer programming language developed by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College in the mid 1960s. One of the simplest high-level languages, with commands similar to English, it can be learned with relative ease even by schoolchildren and novice programmers. It had simple

basic action, In action theory, an action that is not performed by performing any other action. If someone turns on the light by flipping the switch, flipping the switch is more basic than turning on the light (because one cannot flip the switch by turning on the light), but moving one’s finger is

aids for activities of daily living (AADLs), products, devices, and equipment used in everyday functional activities by the disabled or the elderly. A form of assistive technology, aids for activities of daily living (AADLs) include a wide range of devices. Potential categories of equipment may

Bessemer process: …what is now called the Thomas-Gilchrist converter, which was lined with a basic material such as burned limestone rather than an (acid) siliceous material, overcame this problem. Another drawback to Bessemer steel, its retention of a small percentage of nitrogen from the air blow, was not corrected until the 1950s.…

Pakistan: Military government: …initiated a plan for “basic democracies,” consisting of rural and urban councils directly elected by the people that would be concerned with local governance and would assist in programs of grassroots development. Elections took place in January 1960, and the Basic Democrats, as they became known, were at once…

Daniel Handler: …on the literary scene with The Basic Eight (1999), a critically acclaimed novel about a high-school student bludgeoned with a croquet mallet wielded by a classmate. Watch Your Mouth (2000), written in the form of an opera, was a satiric work centred on the theme of incest.

C.K. Ogden: His Basic Vocabulary (1930) and Basic English (1930) were followed by The System of Basic English (1934). General interest in Basic English did not develop until after 1943, however, when Winston Churchill, with the support of Franklin D. Roosevelt, appointed a committee to study the extension of its use. Ogden’s…

Basic English, simplified form of English developed between 1926 and 1930 by the British writer and linguist Charles Kay Ogden. Intended for use as an international second language, it enjoyed some popularity for more than a decade, but subsequently the language was little used. Basic English

fundamental force, in physics, any of the four basic forces—gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, and weak—that govern how objects or particles interact and how certain particles decay. All the known forces of nature can be traced to these fundamental forces. The fundamental forces are

minimum wage: …unconditional social-security system known as basic income, which periodically provides citizens with a lump sum of money.

BIOS, computer program that is typically stored in EPROM and used by the CPU to perform start-up procedures when the computer is turned on. Its two major procedures are determining what peripheral devices (keyboard, mouse, disk drives, printers, video cards, etc.) are available and loading the

Paul Verhoeven: The erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992), with the lead roles filled by Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone, was another box-office hit and contains a notoriously provocative shot of Stone recrossing her legs. Verhoeven’s streak ended with the widely panned Showgirls (1995), set in Las Vegas.

Palestinian Authority: Administration: …interim constitution known as the Basic Law, which may be amended by the legislature by a two-thirds majority. The president is elected directly to a four-year term, with a limit of two terms. The president is the commander in chief of the security forces, manages foreign relations, has the power…

constitution: Europe: Under the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, Parliament cannot delegate its legislative function to the chancellor, and civil rights cannot be suspended without continuous parliamentary surveillance. The president has been turned into a figurehead on the model of the French presidents of the Third…

basic law, in Israel, any of several laws intended to serve as a guiding principle of government. As a concept, the basic law originated as a political compromise among Israel’s early political actors. After the country’s independence in 1948, its legislative body, the Knesset, was unable to agree

environmental law: Historical development: …first such overarching law, the Basic Law for Environmental Pollution Control. Not until the end of the 20th century was Minamata declared mercury-free.

Saudi Arabia: Constitutional framework: …a document known as the Basic Law of Government (Al-Niẓām al-Asāsī li al-Ḥukm), which provides guidelines for how the government is to be run and sets forth the rights and responsibilities of citizens. The king combines legislative, executive, and judicial functions. He has typically taken on the role of prime…

Hong Kong: Constitutional framework: …territory in July 1997, the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (promulgated by the National People’s Congress of China in 1990) went into effect. The guiding principle of the Basic Law was the concept of “one country, two systems,” under which Hong Kong was allowed to maintain…

Macau: Government and society: …the territory to China, the Basic Law of the Macau Special Administrative Region, which outlined a policy of “one country, two systems,” went into effect. For a period of 50 years, Macau will thus retain its capitalist economy and some political autonomy, but foreign policy and defense matters will remain…

Serbia: The Yugoslav road to socialism: …in June 1950 of the Basic Law on the Management of State Economic Enterprises in Workers Collectives. Largely the creation of the party’s leading ideologist, the Slovene Edvard Kardelj, the initial law virtually abolished the huge agency for central planning. Through the 1950s the decentralized authority theoretically allocated to the…

Gottlob Frege: System of mathematical logic.: , Basic Laws of Arithmetic), in which Frege presented, in a modified version of the symbolic system of the Begriffsschrift, a rigorous development of the theory of Grundlagen. This, too, received only a single review (by Peano). The neglect of what was to have been his…

bioinformatics: Goals of bioinformatics: An example is the program BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool). A development of BLAST, known as position-specific iterated- (or PSI-) BLAST, makes use of patterns of conservation in related sequences and combines the high speed of BLAST with very high sensitivity to find related sequences.

microbiology: Basic microbiology: The study of the biology of microorganisms requires the use of many different procedures as well as special equipment. The biological characteristics of microorganisms can be summarized under the following categories: morphology, nutrition, physiology, reproduction and growth,

motivation: Motives are often categorized into primary, or basic, motives, which are unlearned and common to both animals and humans; and secondary, or learned, motives, which can differ from animal to animal and person to person. Primary motives are thought to include hunger, thirst, sex, avoidance of pain, and perhaps aggression…

Hans Kelsen: …law is some assumption (Grundnorm) that is accepted by a substantial proportion of the community. Kelsen nevertheless admitted the relevance of sociology and ethics to the lawmaking process and to the content of laws.

Serbia: Economy of Serbia: …Yugoslav worker belonged to a Basic Organization of Associated Labour (BOAL) that was based on the precise role played by the worker in the production process. The BOALs elected representatives to workers’ councils, which in turn created management boards and determined pay levels, investment policies, and specific goals for production.…

oxide: Metal oxides: …these compounds are often called basic oxides. In accord with their basic behaviour, they react with acids in typical acid-base reactions to produce salts and water; for example, M2O + 2HCl → 2MCl + H2O (where M = group 1 metal). These reactions are also often called neutralization reactions. The…

basic oxygen process: A typical top-blown basic oxygen furnace is a vertical cylindrical vessel with a closed bottom and an open upper cone through which a water-cooled oxygen lance can be raised and lowered. The vessel is lined with a refractory such as magnesite and is mounted on trunnions so that…

basic oxygen process: A typical top-blown basic oxygen furnace is a vertical cylindrical vessel with a closed bottom and an open upper cone through which a water-cooled oxygen lance can be raised and lowered. The vessel is lined with a refractory such as magnesite and is mounted on trunnions so that…

basic oxygen process (BOP), a steelmaking method in which pure oxygen is blown into a bath of molten blast-furnace iron and scrap. The oxygen initiates a series of intensively exothermic (heat-releasing) reactions, including the oxidation of such impurities as carbon, silicon, phosphorus, and

Agrippina Vaganova: …was published in English as Basic Principles of Classical Ballet (trans. 1946, reissued incorporating all the material from the 4th Russian ed., 1969). In 1934 Vaganova was made People’s Artist of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, and in 1946 she was given the Stalin Prize of the U.S.S.R. Her…

research and development: Introduction and definitions: Basic research is defined as the work of scientists and others who pursue their investigations without conscious goals, other than the desire to unravel the secrets of nature. In modern programs of industrial research and development, basic research (sometimes called pure research) is usually not…

mafic rock, in geology, igneous rock that is dominated by the silicates pyroxene, amphibole, olivine, and mica. These minerals are high in magnesium and ferric oxides, and their presence gives mafic rock its characteristic dark colour. Mafic rock is commonly contrasted with felsic rock, in which