Maureen Connolly was an American tennis player who in 1953 became the first woman to win the Grand Slam of tennis: the British (Wimbledon), United States, Australian, and French singles championships. Connolly began playing tennis at the age of 10. After a few months of training under a

Lupita Nyong’o: Films: 12 Years a Slave, Black Panther, and Us: …doppelgängers, and the zombie comedy Little Monsters. Also that year she reprised her role as Maz Kanata in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Williston, city, seat (1891) of Williams county, northwestern North Dakota, U.S. It lies on the Missouri River, 20 miles (30 km) east of the Montana state line and 65 miles (105 km) south of the Canadian border. The Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through the area in 1804–05. Assiniboin, Crow,

Alan Arkin: …and acted in the film Little Murders (1971), having earlier (1969) directed an Off-Broadway revival of that play, written by Jules Feiffer. He later received a Tony Award (1973) for his staging of Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys (1972–74). He also appeared in the 1972 film adaptation of the Simon’s…

ballad: Crime: …sweetheart poisons “Lord Randal”; “Little Musgrave” is killed by Lord Barnard when he is discovered in bed with Lady Barnard, and the lady, too, is gorily dispatched. The murders of “Jim Fisk,” Johnny of “Frankie and Johnny,” and many other ballad victims are prompted by sexual jealousy. One particular…

Namaqualand: …by the Orange River into Little Namaqualand in South Africa and Great Namaqualand in Namibia. The region is primarily desert, with annual precipitation averaging between 2 and 8 inches (50 and 200 mm).

John McGraw was an American professional baseball player and manager who led the New York Giants to 10 National League championships. During the 1890s McGraw was a star infielder for the Baltimore National League club. (Both the American and the National League Baltimore teams of this era were

Little Nell, fictional character, a frail child who is a major figure in Charles Dickens’s novel The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–41). Dickens’s account of her death after many vicissitudes is often considered the apotheosis of Victorian

animation: Early history: Winsor McCay, whose elegant, surreal Little Nemo in Slumberland and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend remain pinnacles of comic-strip art. McCay created a hand-colored short film of Little Nemo for use during his vaudeville act in 1911, but it was Gertie the Dinosaur, created for McCay’s 1914 tour, that transformed…

Stephen Sondheim: …that includes many pastiche songs; A Little Night Music (1973; film 1977), based on Ingmar Bergman’s film Smiles of a Summer Night (1955); and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979; film 2007), a macabre tale set in Victorian-era London. All were either produced or directed by Harold…

River Phoenix: Career: …he starred in the thriller Little Nikita opposite Sidney Poitier. Later that year Phoenix played Danny Pope, the teenage son of a fugitive family, in the drama Running on Empty. His sensitive performance in Running on Empty drew praise from critics, and he was nominated for an Academy Award for…

Enid Blyton: Works: … Written in the 1950s, Blyton’s Noddy series, featuring the adventures of Noddy, Mr. Plod the policeman, Big-Ears (a brownie), and other characters of Toyland, enjoyed enormous popularity and made her a household name, thanks to the lovable characters and the well-marketed books and merchandise. The Magic Faraway Tree: This series…

Northern Dvina River, river formed by the junction of the Sukhona and Yug rivers at the city of Velikiy Ustyug, in Vologod oblast (province) of Russia. The Northern Dvina is one of the largest and most important waterways of the northern European portion of Russia. It flows 462 miles (744 km) in a

Omar Vizquel is considered one of the greatest fielding infielders in the history of baseball. The Venezuelan shortstop won 11 Gold Glove awards (1993–2001, 2005–06) during his 24 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). He was also named to three All-Star teams (1998–99, 2002). After playing

Ob River: Physiography: …from the right, and the Little (Malaya) Ob, which receives the Northern (Severnaya) Sosva, the Vogulka, and the Synya rivers from the left. These main channels are reunited below Shuryshkary into a single stream that is up to 12 miles (19 km) wide and 130 feet (40 metres) deep; but…

Little Octobrist, member of a Communist organization for children aged nine and under, closely associated with the Komsomol (q.v.) for youth aged 14 to

Brooklyn: The contemporary city: Little Odessa in Brighton Beach is the locus for expatriates from Russia and other countries of the former Soviet bloc. Indeed, Brooklyn is home for immigrant communities from Latin America, the Caribbean, China, Korea, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Despite its 21st-century renaissance, however, Brooklyn…

puppetry: Styles of puppet theatre: …in this tradition was the Theatre of the Little Ones of Vittorio Podrecca, which introduced the marionette pianist and the soprano with heaving bosom that have been widely copied ever since.

Oratorian: St. Philip Neri: Associated with it is the Brotherhood of the Little Oratory, a confraternity of clerics and laymen.

Little Orphan Annie, American newspaper comic strip depicting the adventures of a plucky street urchin. Little Orphan Annie enjoyed an extraordinarily long life in newspapers, on stage, and in film. Making her first appearance on Aug. 5, 1924, Annie—who was conceived as an 11-year-old escapee from

radio: Juvenile action and adventure series: …adventures for youngsters began with Little Orphan Annie, first broadcast over WGN radio in Chicago in 1930. Annie was first a comic strip, created in 1924 by Harold Gray for the Chicago Tribune, which owned WGN. The radio series graduated to NBC-Blue in April 1931. The show’s format set the…

Little Orphant Annie, one of the best-known poems of James Whitcomb Riley, first published under the pseudonym “Benj. F. Johnson, of Boone” in the popular collection The Old Swimmin’ Hole and ’Leven More Poems (1883). “Little Orphant Annie” was written in the Hoosier dialect of Riley’s native

Jan Švankmajer: …example, his film Otesánek (2000; Little Otik) is a dark comedy based on “The Wooden Baby” (1865) by Czech folklorist Karel Erben. The premise of the film follows that of the tale, which is about a wooden baby who comes to life and devours his parents. However, Švankmajer put a…

little owl, (Athene noctua), Old World burrowing owl about 20 cm (about 8 inches) long, belonging to the owl family Strigidae (order Strigiformes). Little owls occur in Europe, central Asia, and northern Africa and have been introduced into New Zealand and the United Kingdom. They are active during

Barebones Parliament, (July 4–Dec. 12, 1653), a hand-picked legislative group of “godly” men convened by Oliver Cromwell following the Puritan victory in the English Civil Wars. Its name was derived from one of its obscure members, Praise-God Barbon. After Cromwell expelled the Rump Parliament

surf music: Australian surf musicians included “Little Pattie” Amphlett (“He’s My Blonde-Headed, Stompie Wompie, Real Gone Surfer Boy” [1963]), the Delltones (“Hangin’ Five” [1963]), the Denvermen (“Surfside” [1963]) and, most prominently, the Atlantics (“Bombora” [1963]).

blue penguin, (Eudyptula minor), species of penguin (order Sphenisciformes) characterized by its diminutive stature and pale blue to dark gray plumage. It is the smallest of all known penguin species, and it is the only species of the genus Eudyptula. There are, however, six subspecies: E. minor

midget, in human anatomy, a person of very small stature whose bodily proportions, intelligence, and sexual development are within the normal range. Diminutive stature occurs sporadically in families the rest of whose members are of ordinary size. The children of midgets are usually of ordinary

Mary Lou Williams was a jazz pianist who performed with and composed for many of the great jazz artists of the 1940s and ’50s. Williams received early instruction from her mother, a classically trained pianist. Picking out simple tunes at age two, Mary Lou was a prodigy with perfect pitch and a

Argentia, former unincorporated community, southeastern Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is situated along the west coast of the Avalon Peninsula just to the north of the town of Placentia (into which Argentia was administratively incorporated in 1994) and overlooks Placentia

Paul and Lloyd Waner: …long balls (doubles and triples); Little Poison, who batted left-handed and threw right-handed, was known for the number of singles he hit.

Partitions of Poland: Austria acquired the regions of Little Poland (Małopolska) south of the Vistula River, western Podolia, and the area that subsequently became known as Galicia.

Little Poland Uplands, highland area, southern Poland, having an area of 10,000 square miles (25,000 sq km). Located south of the Polish Lowlands, it embraces the territory from the Kraków-Częstochowa scarplands (Polish Jura) to the Vistula River. The region includes the Silesian-Kraków uplands,

Polish language: and Pomeranian, Silesian, Little Polish, and Mazovian. Kashubian (Cassubian), often classified as a Polish dialect, is, historically, a separate language.

baseball: Origin: …in John Newbery’s children’s book A Little Pretty Pocket-Book. The book has a brief poem and an illustration depicting a game called base-ball. Interestingly, the bases in the illustration are marked by posts instead of the bags and flat home plate now so familiar in the game. The book was…

The Little Prince, fable and modern classic by French aviator and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry that was published with his own illustrations in French as Le Petit Prince in 1943. The simple tale tells the story of a child, the little prince, who travels the universe gaining wisdom. The novella

Walter Lang: Films of the 1920s and ’30s: The Little Princess (1939) was a handsomely mounted Technicolor version of the Frances Hodgson Burnett children’s classic, starring Shirley Temple as the waif who is cruelly treated in a boarding school until her father returns from the Boer War to rescue her.

quaking grass: media), and little quaking grass, or shivery grass (B. minor).

Gordon Douglas: Early work: …Our Gang (also known as Little Rascals) series, which centred on the antics of a group of children that included Spanky, Alfalfa, and Buckwheat. Douglas helmed more than 30 Our Gang shorts, including the Academy Award-winning Bored of Education (1936). He also codirected the Our Gang feature General Spanky (1936),…

Reba McEntire: Acting and later music: …in the films North and The Little Rascals; and won both a Grammy Award and a CMA Award for her collaboration with Linda Davis on “Does He Love You.” She starred in a number of made-for-television movies over the next few years before landing her own television sitcom, Reba, which…

China: Readjustment and reaction, 1961–65: …of the “Little Red Book,” Quotations from Chairman Mao—to popularize Maoist ideology among the relatively uneducated military recruits. As the military forces under Lin increasingly showed that they could combine ideological purity with technical virtuosity, Mao tried to expand the PLA’s organizational authority and its political role. Beginning in 1963,…

Edna O’Brien: Other novels: The Little Red Chairs (2015) was widely praised for its acutely observed characterization of an Irish villager who has an ill-fated affair with a war criminal in hiding. In 2019 O’Brien published Girl, which was inspired by the Nigerian schoolgirls who were kidnapped by members…

Prince: Crossover success and Purple Rain: “Little Red Corvette” (1983) was Prince’s first big crossover hit, gaining airplay on MTV at a time when virtually no Black artists appeared on the influential new medium. Purple Rain (1984) made him one of the major stars of the 1980s and remains his biggest-selling…

Little Red Riding Hood, fairy tale about a young girl who wears a red cloak and encounters a wolf on her way to visit her ailing grandmother. Depending on the version of the story, the girl is either eaten by the wolf or saved by a woodsman or hunter. Despite the grisly outcome in some versions,

Elisabeth Antoinette Irwin: …an experiment dubbed the “Little Red School House” (1921). This program continued for 10 years. It revised the standard curriculum, incorporating elements of play and group activities and varying the teaching methods, placing less emphasis on strictly academic learning. Financial considerations and other objections finally forced Irwin’s program out…

Kingston, village in South Kingstown town (township), Washington county, southern Rhode Island, U.S. It developed after 1700 at the crossroads of the Pequot Indian Trail and the road to Tower Hill settlement and served as the county seat from 1752 to 1900. Until 1885 it was known as Little Rest

Chicago literary renaissance: …by Harriet Monroe, and the Little Review (1914–29), founded by Margaret Anderson—published exciting new verse by Masters, Sandburg, and other local poets such as Vachel Lindsay. Dell, a journalist associated with the Friday Literary Review (1908), the weekly literary supplement to the Chicago Evening Post, was the center of a

Little Richard was a flamboyant American singer and pianist whose hit songs of the mid-1950s were defining moments in the development of rock and roll. Born into a family of 12 children, Penniman learned gospel music in Pentecostal churches of the Deep South. As a teenager, he left home to perform

Little Rock, city, capital of Arkansas, U.S. It is the seat of Pulaski county, on the Arkansas River in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains in the central part of the state. In 1722 Bernard de la Harpe, a French explorer, saw on the bank of the Arkansas River two conspicuous rock formations,

Little Rock Nine, group of African American high-school students who challenged racial segregation in the public schools of Little Rock, Arkansas. The group—consisting of Melba Pattillo, Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Minnijean Brown, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Jefferson Thomas, Gloria

George Roy Hill: Later work: …success with the charming comedy A Little Romance, featuring Diane Lane as an American teenager in Paris whose first romance is orchestrated by a roguish thief (Laurence Olivier).

Ukrainian language, East Slavic language spoken in Ukraine and in Ukrainian communities in Kazakhstan, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, and Slovakia and by smaller numbers elsewhere. Ukrainian is a lineal descendant of the colloquial language used in Kievan Rus (10th–13th century). It is

Little Saint Bernard Pass, pass (7,178 ft [2,188 m]) situated just southwest of the Italian border in Savoie département of southeastern France; it lies between the Mont Blanc Massif (north) and the Graian Alps (south-southeast). The road across the pass connects Bourg-Saint-Maurice (7 mi [11 km]

Citizen Genêt Affair: …dispatching of the prize ship Little Sarah (refitted as La Petite Démocrate), Washington and his cabinet demanded Genêt’s recall. With the radical Jacobins newly in power in France, his arrest was ordered, and he faced possible death if he returned home. Washington declined to extradite him, and in 1794 Genêt…

education: The teaching congregations: …a briefer career, were the Little Schools of Port-Royal. Their founder was Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, better known as the abbot of Saint-Cyran, who was one of France’s chief advocates of Jansenism, a movement opposed to Jesuitry and Scholasticism and favouring bold reforms of the church and a turn to…

Big Science: …an expression of nostalgia for “Little Science,” a world of independent, individual researchers free to work alone or with graduate students on problems of their own choosing. Whether or not the world of Little Science as imagined by Weinberg ever existed became irrelevant; high-technology warfare had turned support of scientific…

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Middle years: …Smith (1874), later revised as Cherevichki (1885; The Little Shoes), was similarly judged. In his early operas the young composer experienced difficulty in striking a balance between creative fervour and his ability to assess critically the work in progress. However, his instrumental works began to earn him his reputation, and,…

Steve Martin: …appeal in such films as Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Roxanne (1987), Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), Parenthood (1989), Father of the Bride (1991), and Father of the Bride Part II (1995).

Roger Corman: The Little Shop of Horrors: …and directed the cult classic The Little Shop of Horrors, which was shot in two days and one night on a leftover set, with a memorable cameo by Nicholson. At AIP, he sought out young (and thus inexpensive) filmmakers, many of whom went on to stellar careers. Coppola and Bogdanovich…

Elvis Presley: Military service, movies, and mainstreaming: …You Lonesome Tonight?” and “Little Sister” (both 1961), “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “Return to Sender” (both 1962), and “Viva Las Vegas” (1964). Presley was no longer a controversial figure: he had become one more predictable mass entertainer, a personage of virtually no interest to the rock audience…

hard-boiled fiction: …Lovely (1940; film 1944), and The Little Sister (1949). Featuring detective Philip Marlowe, Chandler’s novels deal with corruption and racketeering in Southern California.

skate: …little, or hedgehog, skate (Leucoraja erinacea) of the western Atlantic, for example, is adult at a length of 50–54 cm (20–21.3 inches) or less. In contrast, both the big skate (Beiringraja binoculata) of the eastern North Pacific Ocean and the common skate (Dipturus batis) of the western North Atlantic…

Jean-Luc Godard: Breathless and filmmaking style and themes: …notably Le Petit Soldat (1963; The Little Soldier), an ironically flippant tragedy, banned for many years, about torture and countertorture. Vivre sa vie (1962; My Life to Live), a study of a young Parisian prostitute, used, with ironical solipsism, pastiches of documentary form and clinical jargon. Godard’s 1963 film Le…

kiwi: …the Northern Fiordland tokoeka; the little spotted kiwi (A. oweni); the great spotted kiwi (A. haasti); the Okarito brown kiwi (A. rowi), also called the Rowi kiwi; and the brown kiwi (A. mantelli), also called the North Island brown kiwi.

Johannes Vermeer: Artistic training and early influences: 1658; also called The Little Street) is one such work: as with de Hooch’s courtyard scenes, Vermeer has here portrayed a world of domestic tranquility, where women and children go about their daily lives within the reassuring setting of their homes.

skunk: Spotted skunks (genus Spilogale) live from southwestern Canada to Costa Rica. Except for a white spot between the eyes, their spots are actually a series of interrupted stripes running down their back and sides. The spotted skunks are the smallest skunks, about the size of…

Paula Fox: Writing career: … (1969), The Western Coast (1972), The Little Swineherd, and Other Tales (1978), The Moonlight Man (1986), Western Wind (1993), and Amzat and His Brothers: Three Italian Tales (1993). Her book The Slave Dancer (1973), a dark but historically accurate work showing the horrors of the slave trade in the mid-19th…

Little Tennessee River, river rising in the Blue Ridge Mountains of northeastern Georgia, U.S., and flowing about 150 mi (240 km) north and northwest, through southwestern North Carolina and across Tennessee to the Tennessee River just below Fort Loudoun Dam. Tennessee Valley Authority dams on the

tern: The least, or little, tern (S. albifrons), under 25 cm (10 inches) long, is the smallest tern. It breeds on sandy coasts and river sandbars in temperate to tropical regions worldwide except South America. The sooty tern (S. fuscata), about 40 cm (16 inches) long, has…

Stratford, city, seat (1853) of Perth county, southeastern Ontario, Canada. It lies along the Avon River in the heart of dairy-farming country. The settlement was founded during the winter of 1831–32 by William Seargeant (or Sargint), who erected the Shakespeare Hotel near the Avon; both the river

puppetry: Styles of puppet theatre: …when Henri Signoret founded the Little Theatre; this theatre used rod puppets mounted on a base that ran on rails below the stage, the movement of the limbs being controlled by strings attached to pedals. The plays presented were pieces by classic authors—Cervantes, Aristophanes, Shakespeare—and new plays by French poets.…

little theatre, movement in U.S. theatre to free dramatic forms and methods of production from the limitations of the large commercial theatres by establishing small experimental centres of drama. The movement was initiated at the beginning of the 20th century by young dramatists, stage designers,

Jared Leto: Dallas Buyers Club and later roles: His credits from 2021 included The Little Things, in which he portrayed a serial killer, and House of Gucci, a true-crime drama about a family and its luxury fashion brand. Leto later appeared in the limited TV series WeCrashed (2022), which explores the rise and fall of WeWork, a company…

Trinidad and Tobago: Little Tobago lies about a mile off Tobago’s northeastern coast. Also called Bird of Paradise Island, Little Tobago was once noted as the only wild habitat of the greater bird of paradise outside of New Guinea; however, the bird is no longer found there.

Sholem Asch: …and with Dos Shtetl (1905; The Little Town, 1907) he began a career outstanding for both output and impact. His tales, novels, and plays filled 29 volumes in a collected Yiddish edition published in 1929–38. By their vitality and vigorous naturalism, his works attracted sizable reading publics in Europe and…

Heinrich Mann: …is Die kleine Stadt (1909; The Little Town).

The Kid: …film with his popular “Little Tramp” character. It elevated Jackie Coogan to the status of the film industry’s first child superstar.

Little Turtle was an American Indian, chief of the Miami, who achieved fame during the turbulent period when the U.S. Congress launched a punitive campaign against the Indians who were raiding settlers in the Northwest Territory. In 1790 he routed Gen. Josiah Harmar’s poorly trained militia. The

Little Walter was an American blues singer and harmonica virtuoso who was one of the most influential harmonica improvisers of the late 20th century. Raised on a Louisiana farm, Little Walter began playing harmonica in childhood, and by the time he was 12 he was playing for a living on New Orleans

Native American literature: Southwest: …pair of culture heroes, the Twins, also called the Little War Gods, who help stabilize the surface of the Earth and teach the people many features of their culture, including ceremonials. When the people were weary during the migration, powerful spirit-beings known as kachinas came and danced until someone made…

tank: World War I: …the first tank, called “Little Willie.” A second model, called “Big Willie,” quickly followed. Designed to cross wide trenches, it was accepted by the British Army, which ordered 100 tanks of this type (called Mark I) in February 1916.

Norah Jones: …Jones formed the side project Little Willies, a band of five friends who shared a taste for classic American music such as that of Willie Nelson and Hank Williams. Little Willies—comprising Jones, Lee Alexander, Richard Julian, Dan Rieser, and Jim Campilongo—performed mostly cover songs. An eponymous album appeared in 2006,…

Dull Knife: …out, Dull Knife, along with Little Wolf, a war chief of the northern Cheyenne, determined to go home, despite Army opposition. On Sept. 9, 1878, he and Little Wolf led what was left of their people from the reservation. Their combined band consisted of 89 warriors and 246 women and…

coyote, (Canis latrans), New World member of the dog family (Canidae) that is smaller and more lightly built than the wolf (Canis lupus). The coyote, whose name is derived from the Aztec coyotl, is found from Alaska southward into Central America but especially on the Great Plains. Historically,

Louisa May Alcott: … as Jo, and Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation. Alcott also wrote other domestic narratives drawn from her early experiences: An Old-Fashioned Girl (1870); Aunt Jo’s Scrap Bag, 6 vol. (1872–82); Eight Cousins (1875); and Rose in Bloom (1876).

Louisa May Alcott: …inspired numerous movies, including the 1933 classic, starring Katharine Hepburn as Jo, and Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation. Alcott also wrote other domestic narratives drawn from her early experiences: An Old-Fashioned Girl (1870); Aunt Jo’s Scrap Bag, 6 vol. (1872–82); Eight Cousins (1875); and

Little Women, novel for children by Louisa May Alcott, published in two parts in 1868 and 1869. Her sister May illustrated the first edition. It initiated a genre of family stories for children. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March are raised in genteel poverty by their loving mother, Marmee, in a quiet

Gillian Armstrong: …Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, Little Women (1994), starring Winona Ryder, Christian Bale, and Susan Sarandon. Oscar and Lucinda (1997), set in mid-19th-century Australia and based on a novel by Peter Carey, was also well received. Her later movies included the World War II drama Charlotte Gray (2001), which

Sutton Foster: …the roles of Jo in Little Women (2005), an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s novel, and the showgirl Janet Van De Graaff in The Drowsy Chaperone (2006), a spoof of early Broadway musicals. Both performances earned her Tony nominations. Foster then appeared in two new musicals that were based on…

Mervyn LeRoy: At Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: Random Harvest, Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, and Quo Vadis: LeRoy remade Little Women (1949) with Janet Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, June Allyson, and Margaret O’Brien as the March sisters.

Carol Ann Duffy: …Take My Husband (1982) and Little Women, Big Boys (1986). At the beginning of the 21st century, much of her work was written for children, including the picture books Underwater Farmyard (2002), The Tear Thief (2007), The Princess’s Blankets (2009), and Dorothy Wordsworth’s Christmas Birthday (2014), as well as the…

Little Women, novel for children by Louisa May Alcott, published in two parts in 1868 and 1869. Her sister May illustrated the first edition. It initiated a genre of family stories for children. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March are raised in genteel poverty by their loving mother, Marmee, in a quiet

Tom Sayers was a boxer who participated in the first international heavyweight championship match and was one of England’s best-known 19th-century pugilists. Standing 5 feet 8 12 inches and weighing 155 pounds, Sayers was known as the Little Wonder and the Napoleon of the Prize Ring. He often

Tessa Thompson: …and Ollie in Nia DaCosta’s Little Woods. She rejoined Thor costar Chris Hemsworth in the Men in Black reboot Men in Black: International (2019) and voiced the part of the cocker spaniel Lady in the live-action remake of Disney’s Lady and the Tramp (2019). In 2021 she starred alongside Ruth…

woodswallow: …examples are the 15-cm (6-inch) little woodswallow (Artamus minor) and the 22-cm (9-inch) white-browed woodswallow (A. superciliosus)—among the smallest and largest members of the family.

Gino Cervi: The Little World of Don Camillo (1951), a French-Italian screen venture costarring Cervi and the French comedian Fernandel, was so successful that five Don Camillo sequels were produced before the death of Fernandel in 1971. Cervi appeared in more than 110 motion pictures and played…

Antonio Fogazzaro: …work, Piccolo mondo antico (1896; The Little World of the Past), was highly acclaimed, even by critics unsympathetic to his religious and philosophical ideas.

Yenisey River: Physical features: …Mountains of Tyva, and the Little (Maly) Yenisey, or Ka-Khem, which rises in the Darhadïn Bowl of Mongolia. From the confluence the Yenisey River runs for 2,167 miles (3,487 km), mainly along the border between eastern and western Siberia, before emptying into the icy Kara Sea. If the Great Yenisey…

Tigris-Euphrates river system: Physiography of the Tigris: …with the Great Zab and Little Zab rivers. During flood time, in March and April, the two Zabs double the volume of the Tigris, but their flow is controlled by the Bakhma and Dukān dams. The rapids of Al-Fatḥah Gorge impede navigation.

chemical engineering: History: …by the American chemical engineer Arthur D. Little in 1915 and formed the basis for a classification of chemical engineering that dominated the subject for the next 40 years. The number of unit operations—the building blocks of a chemical plant—is not large. The complexity arises from the variety of conditions…