comma, in music, slight difference in frequency (and therefore pitch) occurring when a note of a scale, say E in the scale of C, is derived according to different systems of tuning. There are two commonly cited commas, the Pythagorean comma and the comma of Didymus, or syntonic comma. In

Commagene, region in northern ancient Syria (modern south-central Turkey) bounded by Cilicia on the west and Cappadocia on the north. Its eastern boundary on the Euphrates River, at the conjunction of several routes over the Taurus Mountains, gave Commagene a strategic position between the Roman

general staff: …of officers that assists the commander of a division or larger unit by formulating and disseminating his policies, transmitting his orders, and overseeing their execution. Normally a general staff is organized along functional lines, with separate sections for administration, intelligence, operations, training, logistics, and other categories. In many countries a…

Command & Conquer, real-time war strategy electronic game series first released in 1995 by the American game developer Westwood Studios. Initially using the engaging Dune II (1992) as its model, the groundbreaking Command & Conquer franchise has produced a number of primary spin-offs and sequels,

Command & Conquer: …original release in the series, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn, pitted the Global Defense Initiative of the United Nations against the rogue Brotherhood of Nod. Both factions were after Tiberium, an otherworldly resource that sucked up nutrients in the ground and formed large crystals that could be harvested. Players gathered…

police: Methods of crowd policing: …strategy of crowd control, called command and control, emerged in the United States. Spearheaded by the New York City Police Department, the strategy was basically an updated version of the escalation of force paradigm, with advanced technological underpinnings. The strategy involves the fragmentation of crowds before they may become rioting…

Tom Clancy: …Dead or Alive (2010), and Command Authority (2013) are subsequent novels.

Sam Wood: Later films: Command Decision (1948) was a solid version of a William Wister Haines play. Gable gave a notable performance as a conscience-racked flight commander who sends his men on a deadly mission, and Walter Pidgeon, John Hodiak, and Van Johnson appeared in supporting roles. The Stratton…

servomechanism: …components: a controlled device, a command device, an error detector, an error-signal amplifier, and a device to perform any necessary error corrections (the servomotor). In the controlled device, that which is being regulated is usually position. This device must, therefore, have some means of generating a signal (such as a…

command economy, economic system in which the means of production are publicly owned and economic activity is controlled by a central authority that assigns quantitative production goals and allots raw materials to productive enterprises. In such a system, determining the proportion of total

Patricio Aylwin: …became the spokesperson for the Coalition of Parties for Democracy (Concertación de los Partidos por la Democracia; CPD). The CPD was a grouping of political parties created in February 1988, originally under the name Command for No (Comando por el No). After the resounding “no” vote that paved the way…

MS-DOS: …MS-DOS was limited to a command line interface, in contrast to the user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) of the early Macintosh computer from Apple Inc. Although MS-DOS ceased to be marketed as a stand-alone operating system, the relatively simple, stable platform is still used in some embedded computer systems.

Apollo: The conical command module (CM) carried three astronauts. The service module (SM) was attached to the back of the CM and carried its fuel and power to form the command/service module (CSM). Docked to the front of the CSM was the lunar module (LM). One astronaut stayed…

Giulio Douhet: …is Il dominio dell’aria (1921; The Command of the Air, 1942). He challenged the violent opposition it aroused until strategic air power became an accepted part of military thinking. Although technological developments have made some of his ideas obsolete, his theory of the important role of strategic bombing in disorganizing…

radio: American radio goes to war: The main AFRS series were Command Performance and Mail Call, variety shows with a heavy emphasis on music and comedy that were virtually interchangeable. Among the most celebrated Command Performance shows was Dick Tracy in B-flat, a special hour-long musical spoof of the comic strip performed on February 5, 1945,…

general staff: …of officers that assists the commander of a division or larger unit by formulating and disseminating his policies, transmitting his orders, and overseeing their execution. Normally a general staff is organized along functional lines, with separate sections for administration, intelligence, operations, training, logistics, and other categories. In many countries a…

20th-century international relations: Industry, technology, and trade: …in the 1850s and ’60s, command technology—the collaboration of state and industry in the invention of new armaments—was widely practiced by the turn of the century, adding to the insecurity that inevitably propelled the arms races. The demographic, technical, and managerial revolutions of the 19th century, in sum, made possible…

Max von Sydow: …The Command (2018; also called Kursk).

environmental law: Command-and-control legislation: Most environmental law falls into a general category of laws known as “command and control.” Such laws typically involve three elements: (1) identification of a type of environmentally harmful activity, (2) imposition of specific conditions or standards on that activity, and (3) prohibition…

naval warfare: The study of trends: Third is command itself—or command and control (C2) in modern parlance—which assimilates the information, decides which actions are called for, and directs forces to act accordingly.

rocket and missile system: Command: Command guidance involved tracking the projectile from the launch site or platform and transmitting commands by radio, radar, or laser impulses or along thin wires or optical fibres. Tracking might be accomplished by radar or optical instruments from the launch site or by radar or…

improvised explosive device: Components: …fall into two basic categories: command-initiated and autonomously initiated. Command-initiated IEDs are detonated through human interaction with the triggering mechanism. Typically, a receiver on the explosive triggers detonation when an electronic impulse is sent over a wire circuit or via wireless signal. Common examples of command initiators are cell phones,…

commandant, commander of a single place or body of men, such as a military school or training unit, or of a larger organization such as a naval district in the United States. The rank of a commandant depends upon the size and importance of his command: in the British Army a colonel commandant is

Geena Davis: …in the 2005–06 TV drama Commander in Chief, for which she won a 2006 Golden Globe Award. Davis was also a cast member (2014–18) on the medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, and she appeared (2016) in the horror series The Exorcist. In addition, she appeared in the third season (2019) of…

Komandor Islands, group of four islands, Kamchatka oblast (province), extreme eastern Russia. Geographically part of the Aleutian Islands, the group is situated in the southwestern part of the Bering Sea, about 110 miles (180 km) east of Kamchatka Peninsula. Both the group and its largest island

Edén Pastora was a Nicaraguan guerrilla leader and legendary fighter. A military commander of the Sandinista movement, Pastora led the assault on the national palace in Managua, Nicaragua, on August 22, 1978. Twenty-three men under his command took some 1,000 hostages, about half of them

Gūr-e Amīr, mausoleum of the 14th-century Mongol conqueror Timur, or Tamerlane, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Though it has suffered from time and earthquakes, the monument is still sumptuous. Completed in 1404, it was originally intended to be the tomb of Timur’s grandson Muhammad Shah, but after

China: Prelude to the Han: …name the governors of the commanderies (provinces) collected taxes, recruited men for the labor corps and army, and dispensed justice. And it was the Han emperors who invested some of their kinsmen with powers to rule as kings over certain territories or divested them of such powers in order to…

limited liability: …amounts of capital in industry, limited partnerships became popular. Known as the société en commandite in France and Kommanditgesellschaft in Germany, the limited-partnership arrangement required at least one partner to be totally liable as in a regular partnership and allowed other partners to be liable only for the amounts invested…

commando, military unit—roughly equivalent to an infantry battalion—consisting of men especially trained to employ guerrilla-like shock tactics ranging from hand-to-hand combat to hit-and-run raids. A member of such a unit is also called a commando. In general usage, the term also refers to

Lillian Gish: …appear in movies, among them The Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942), Miss Susie Slagle’s (1946), Duel in the Sun (1946), The Night of the Hunter (1955), The Unforgiven (1960), The Comedians (1967), A Wedding (1978), Hambone and Hillie

Bernardo Bertolucci: …film, La commare secca (The Grim Reaper), which he filmed on location in Rome. The film brought him recognition as a promising young director but was a box office failure. His second feature, Prima della rivoluzione (1964; Before the Revolution), fared no better commercially but won notice at the…

The Divine Comedy, long narrative poem written in Italian circa 1308–21 by Dante. It is considered to be one of the world’s great works of literature. Divided into three major sections—Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso—the poem traces the journey of Dante from darkness and error to the revelation

commedia dell’arte, Italian theatrical form that flourished throughout Europe from the 16th through the 18th century. Outside Italy, the form had its greatest success in France, where it became the Comédie-Italienne. In England, elements from it were naturalized in the harlequinade in pantomime and

Giovanni Boccaccio: Early works: …to 1345 he worked on Il ninfale d’Ameto (“Ameto’s Story of the Nymphs”), in prose and terza rima; L’amorosa visione (“The Amorous Vision”; 1342–43), a mediocre allegorical poem of 50 short cantos in terza rima; the prose Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta (1343–44); and the poem Il ninfale fiesolano (perhaps 1344–45;…

commedia erudita, (Italian: “learned comedy”), 16th-century Italian dramatic form that, unlike its theatrical contemporary, the vernacular and improvisational commedia dell’arte, followed scripts written in Latin or Italian that were based on the scholarly works of earlier Italian and ancient Roman

Italo Svevo: … (1954; “Essays and Scattered Pages”); Commedie (1960), a collection of dramatic work; and Further Confessions of Zeno (1969), an English translation of his incomplete novel. Svevo’s correspondence with Montale was published as Lettere (1966). Svevo ultimately has been recognized as one of the most important figures in modern Italian literary…

dayflower, any member of the genus Commelina (family Commelinaceae), which includes about 100 species of weak-stemmed herbs of wide distribution, only a few of which are of horticultural interest. Commelina coelestis, C. diffusa, and C. erecta are often grown as ground covers because of their

dayflower: Commelina coelestis, C. diffusa, and C. erecta are often grown as ground covers because of their sprawling habit and their small blue flowers. Especially in moist shady places, they spread easily by cuttings and seed and by rooting of their prostrate stems. As the common…

dayflower: Commelina coelestis, C. diffusa, and C. erecta are often grown as ground covers because of their sprawling habit and their small blue flowers. Especially in moist shady places, they spread easily by cuttings and seed and by rooting of their prostrate stems. As the common name implies,…

dayflower: diffusa, and C. erecta are often grown as ground covers because of their sprawling habit and their small blue flowers. Especially in moist shady places, they spread easily by cuttings and seed and by rooting of their prostrate stems. As the common name implies, the flowers fade…

Commelinales: Commelinaceae, or the spiderwort family, is the largest family of the order, containing 652 species. Members are terrestrial herbs and climbers with a few epiphytes. Some are grown as garden and indoor ornamentals, such as members of Tradescantia, or the spiderwort genus (70 species), including…

Commelinales, the spiderwort and pickerelweed order of flowering plants, comprising more than 800 species of mostly tropical and subtropical herbs in five families: Commelinaceae, Pontederiaceae, Haemodoraceae, Philydraceae, and Hanguanaceae. Commelinaceae, or the spiderwort family, is the largest

angiosperm: Annotated classification: Commelinids An assemblage of 4 related monocot orders. Order Arecales Families: Arecaceae, Dasypogonaceae. Order Commelinales Families: Commelinaceae, Haemodoraceae, Hanguanaceae, Philydraceae,

philately: Early postage stamps: Commemorative stamps are regular postage stamps issued to honour some event, activity, or person of national importance; unlike other regular postage stamps (known as definitives), they are printed only once and are allowed to go out of circulation as their supply is used up. The…

Tacoma, city, seat (1880) of Pierce county, western Washington, U.S., on Commencement Bay of Puget Sound, 30 miles (48 km) south of Seattle. The bay was the starting point (1841) of a U.S. surveying party led by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, who named it Commencement Bay. Settled in 1864, the site was

D. Wayne Lukas: In 2000 Commendable won the Belmont, and two years later Lukas primed Orientate for a win at the Breeder’s Cup. He guided the filly Folklore to a Breeder’s Cup win in 2005. He held the Breeder’s Cup record with 20 wins. In 2013 Lukas claimed an unprecedented…

France: Diffusion of political power: …took one of two forms: commendation (a freeman placed himself under the protection of a more powerful lord for the duration of his life) and precarious contract (a powerful lord received certain services in return for the use of his land for a limited time under advantageous conditions). In the…

commensalism, in biology, a relationship between individuals of two species in which one species obtains food or other benefits from the other without either harming or benefiting the latter. The commensal—the species that benefits from the association—may obtain nutrients, shelter, support, or

Islamic caste: …principal indexes of Hindu caste, commensality and endogamy (principles governing eating and marital arrangements), do not appear as strongly in Islamic castes. Commensality is prohibited between ashrāf and non-ashrāf, between Muslim and Hindu, and between the various castes of the non-ashrāf. The principle of endogamy is altered by the Muslim…

Pierre-Joseph van Beneden: …animals and culminated with his Les Commensaux et les parasites dans le règne animal (1875; “Commensals and Parasites in the Animal Kingdom”). About 1859 he began a study of fossil and recent whales, which resulted in a major work, written in collaboration with the Belgian anatomist Paul Gervais, Ostéographie des…

celestial mechanics: Orbital resonances: …then said to be nearly commensurate, and an asteroid that is trapped near such a mean motion commensurability is said to be in an orbital resonance with Jupiter. For example, the Trojan asteroids librate (oscillate) around the 1:1 orbital resonance (i.e., the orbital period of Jupiter is in a 1:1…

Canadian literature: The cosmopolitan culture of French Canada and Quebec: …nègre sans se fatiguer [1985; How to Make Love to a Negro]); from Brazil, novelist Sergio Kokis (Le Pavillon des miroirs [1994; Funhouse]); from Egypt, poet Anne-Marie Alonzo (Bleus de mine [1985; Lead Blues]); from Lebanon, playwright and novelist Abla Farhoud (Le Bonheur a la queue glissante [1998; “Happiness Has…

Yasmina Reza: Reza’s later plays include Comment vous racontez la partie (2011; “How You Talk the Game”) and Bella figura (2015; “Beautiful Figure”), which she wrote for the Schaubühne in Berlin and later directed in a 2017 Paris production.

Blaise de Lasseran-Massencôme, seigneur de Monluc: …military skill and for his Commentaires, an autobiography that contained his reflections on the art of war.

Traiano Boccalini: A weightier work was Commentari sopra Cornelio Tacito (first published 1677; “Comments upon Cornelius Tacitus”), a discussion of politics and government, offering Machiavellian advice to princes. Religione e ragione di stato (first published 1933; “Religion and State Law”) is a dialogue concerned with the attitude of the Holy Roman…

Philipp Melanchthon: Theology: …epistolam Pauli ad Colossenses (1527; Commentary on Colossians) implied a rejection of predestination, and by 1532 in the Commentarii in epistolam Pauli ad Romanos (Commentary on Romans) he spoke of the human struggle to accept or reject the love of God. In the 1535 edition of Loci communes he pointed…

Philipp Melanchthon: Theology: …epistolam Pauli ad Romanos (Commentary on Romans) he spoke of the human struggle to accept or reject the love of God. In the 1535 edition of Loci communes he pointed out that the individual must at least accept the gift of God’s salvation and that individuals are therefore responsible…

commentarii: …when Julius Caesar published his Commentarii for propagandistic purposes, his elegant Latin transformed them into a literary form in their own right.

James Kent: …he revised and elaborated as Commentaries on American Law, 4 vol. (1826–30). This work deals with international law; the U.S. Constitution and the federal system; the law of various U.S. states; personal rights; and the law of property, both real and personal. In content and in organization it bears little…

common law: Influence of Blackstone: His most influential work, the Commentaries on the Laws of England, was published between 1765 and 1769 and consisted of four books: Of the Rights of Persons dealt with family and public law; Of the Rights of Things gave a brilliant outline of real-property law; Of Private Wrongs covered civil…

commentarii, in Roman history, memoranda and notes that were later used by historians as source materials. Originally, commentarii were simply informal personal notes written by people to assist their memory in regard to personal, household, or public business. The typical Roman household, for

Celtic religion: The Celtic gods: … is the passage in Caesar’s Commentarii de bello Gallico (52–51 bc; The Gallic War) in which he names five of them together with their functions. Mercury was the most honoured of all the gods and many images of him were to be found. Mercury was regarded as the inventor of…

commentarii: …system of records known as ephemerides.

Publius Nigidius Figulus: …comprehensive work on Roman religion; Commentarii grammatici, in at least 29 books, a loose collection of notes concerned with, among other matters, synonyms, inflection, orthography, word formation, syntax, and etymology; De extis (“Concerning Sacrificial Meats”); Augurium privatum, a work on augury; De ventis (“Concerning Winds”), in at least four books;…

Étienne Dolet: …humanist, scholar, and printer whose Commentarii linguae Latinae contributed notably to Latin scholarship. He is often described as “the first martyr of the Renaissance.”

commentarii: Provincial governors also kept commentarii, which they consulted when writing their reports to the Senate.

art criticism: Renaissance art criticism: Lorenzo Ghiberti’s I Commentarii (c. 1447; “Commentaries”) includes a discussion of artists’ lives (painters and two sculptors, himself included), and also traces the trajectory of artistic progress, which for Ghiberti begins with the proto-Renaissance artist Giotto, who returned to ancient models of art. Ghiberti also summarizes the…

Nicolaus Copernicus: Copernicus’s astronomical work: In the Commentariolus, Copernicus postulated that, if the Sun is assumed to be at rest and if Earth is assumed to be in motion, then the remaining planets fall into an orderly relationship whereby their sidereal periods increase from the Sun as follows: Mercury (88 days), Venus…

commentarii, in Roman history, memoranda and notes that were later used by historians as source materials. Originally, commentarii were simply informal personal notes written by people to assist their memory in regard to personal, household, or public business. The typical Roman household, for

Francis Bacon: Career in the service of James I: …a notebook has survived, the Commentarius Solutus (“Loose Commentary”), which is revealing. It is a jotting pad “like a Marchant’s wast booke where to enter all maner of remembrance of matter, fourme, business, study, towching my self, service, others, eyther sparsim or in schedules, without any maner of restraint.” This…

Commentary, monthly American opinion journal examining Jewish affairs worldwide. Although frequently controversial, the magazine significantly influenced the political and intellectual culture of the United States in the post-World War II period. Commentary was founded by the American Jewish

motion-picture technology: Dialogue: …from photography is narration or commentary. Although images may be edited to fit the commentary, as in a documentary using primarily archival footage, most narration is added as a separate track and mixed like sound effects and music.

patristic literature: Late 2nd to early 4th century: …marriage with the Logos, his Commentary on Canticles provides an attractive introduction.

Philipp Melanchthon: Theology: …epistolam Pauli ad Colossenses (1527; Commentary on Colossians) implied a rejection of predestination, and by 1532 in the Commentarii in epistolam Pauli ad Romanos (Commentary on Romans) he spoke of the human struggle to accept or reject the love of God. In the 1535 edition of Loci communes he pointed…

Apologist: Latin Apologists: His Commentary on Daniel (c. 204) is the oldest Christian biblical commentary to survive in its entirety.

mathematics: The pre-Euclidean period: Proclus, in his Commentary on Euclid, observes that geometry—literally, “measurement of land”—first arose in surveying practices among the ancient Egyptians, for the flooding of the Nile compelled them each year to redefine the boundaries of properties. Similarly, arithmetic started with the commerce and trade of Phoenician merchants. Although…

Averroës: Averroës’ defense of philosophy: …to whom he dedicated his Commentary on Plato’s Republic. Yet Averroës pursued his philosophical quest in the face of strong opposition from the mutakallimūn, who, together with the jurists, occupied a position of eminence and of great influence over the fanatical masses. This may explain why he suddenly fell from…

Philipp Melanchthon: Theology: …epistolam Pauli ad Romanos (Commentary on Romans) he spoke of the human struggle to accept or reject the love of God. In the 1535 edition of Loci communes he pointed out that the individual must at least accept the gift of God’s salvation and that individuals are therefore responsible…

William Sanday: …particularly through his principal writings, Commentary on Romans (1895, with Arthur C. Headlam), and Outlines of the Life of Christ (1905).

Nicholas Cabasilas: Cabasilas’ work Commentary on the Divine Liturgy is one of the foremost explanations of Christian sacramental worship that exist.

Luigi Galvani: Electrical nature of nerve impulse: …in Motu Musculari Commentarius (Commentary on the Effect of Electricity on Muscular Motion). He concluded that animal tissue contained a heretofore neglected innate, vital force, which he termed “animal electricity,” which activated nerve and muscle when spanned by metal probes. He believed that this new force was a form…

Louis Ginzberg: …Jews (1909–38) and his three-volume Commentary on the Palestinian Talmud (1941; in Hebrew). Into the first he gathered all the folklore in Jewish tradition bearing on Scripture and traced these legends to their sources. The second work, of which only the commentary on the first treatise of the Talmud was…

legal glossator: …14th century, the commentators or postglossators, to effect a closer liaison between the revived Roman law and the law of the Italian cities and to find a way to apply Roman law to the practical legal needs of the day.

Averroës was an influential Islamic religious philosopher who integrated Islamic traditions with ancient Greek thought. At the request of the Almohad caliph Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf, he produced a series of summaries and commentaries on most of Aristotle’s works (1169–95) and on Plato’s Republic, which

Nauvoo, city, Hancock county, western Illinois, U.S. It lies along the Mississippi River, about 30 miles (50 km) southwest of Burlington, Iowa. The area was long inhabited by Sauk and Fox Indians before American settlement. Permanent settlement was begun in 1824 by Captain James White, and the area

international payment and exchange: Assessing the balance: …monetary and nonmonetary items, the Liquidity Balance included any increase in the holding of short-term dollar securities abroad as part of the U.S. deficit during the period; but it did not include as counterweight any increase in short-term foreign claims held by U.S. resident banks or others (apart from official…

Canton, city, seat (1867) of Lincoln county, southeastern South Dakota, U.S. It lies along the Big Sioux River at the Iowa border, about 20 miles (30 km) southeast of Sioux Falls. It was founded in 1866 and was first called Commerce City but was renamed (1868) by settlers who believed that its

commerce clause, provision of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8) that authorizes Congress “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with Indian Tribes.” The commerce clause has been the chief doctrinal source of Congress’s regulatory power over the

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac: …views, which were presented in Le Commerce et le gouvernement, were based on the notion that value depends not on labour but rather on utility. The need for something useful, he argued, gives rise to value, while prices result from the exchange of valued items.

Lisbon: City layout: …water to the vast arcaded Commerce Square (Praça do Comércio). The three landward sides of the square are surrounded by uniform buildings dating from the 18th century. That formal Baroque-inspired layout is pierced by a monumental archway, built a century later, marking the entry north into the central city. In…

France: The stock exchange: …were historically centred on the Bourse de Paris (Paris Stock Exchange), a national system that in the late 20th century incorporated much smaller exchanges at Lyon, Bordeaux, Lille, Marseille, Nancy, and Nantes. Share dealings and stock market activity increased greatly beginning in the early 1980s, corresponding with a period of…

chamber of commerce, any of various voluntary organizations of business firms, public officials, professional people, and public-spirited citizens. They are primarily interested in publicizing, promoting, and developing commercial and industrial opportunities in their areas; they also seek to

maritime law: Historical development: …very closely followed in the Code de Commerce, whose adoption in 1807 meant that the maritime law was thereafter considered simply as a branch of commercial law, with consequent diminution of the weight previously given to custom and usage. Furthermore, abolition of the Admiralty Court resulted in the trial of…

interstate commerce, in U.S. constitutional law, any commercial transactions or traffic that cross state boundaries or that involve more than one state. The traditional concept that the free flow of commerce between states should not be impeded has been used to effect a wide range of regulations,

U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), executive division of the U.S. federal government responsible for programs and policies relating to international trade, national economic growth, and technological advancement. Established in 1913, it administers the Bureau of the Census, the National Oceanic and

at sign, symbol (@) used primarily to direct electronic communication to specified entities, most notably in email addresses and social media handles. Before the late 20th century its primary use was commercial, where it signified “at the rate of.” The symbol has long been used to represent the

agency: Commercial agent (German Handelsvertreter; French agent commercial, or voyageur, or représentant et placier; Italian agente): The commercial agent negotiates and concludes contracts on behalf of his principal. Although the degree of his independence from the principal varies, he is never totally independent. While Italian law…

trade agreement, any contractual arrangement between states concerning their trade relationships. Trade agreements may be bilateral or multilateral—that is, between two states or more than two states. For most countries international trade is regulated by unilateral barriers of several types,

airplane: Civil aircraft: Commercial airliners are used to haul passengers and freight on a scheduled basis between selected airports. They range in size from single-engine freight carriers to the Airbus A380 and in speed from below 200 miles per hour to supersonic, in the case of the Anglo-French…