muscle disease: Inflammatory myopathies: An example of viral myositis is pleurodynia (also called Bornholm disease, epidemic myalgia, and devil’s grip), which is caused by the Coxsackie virus. Affected persons recover completely after a brief period of intense muscular pain and fever.

ear disease: Viral nerve deafness: Viral infections can cause severe degrees of sensorineural hearing loss in one ear, and sometimes in both, at any age. The mumps virus is one of the commonest causes of severe sensorineural hearing loss in one ear. The measles and influenza viruses…

pharyngitis: Viral pharyngitis can produce raised whitish to yellow lesions in the pharynx that are surrounded by reddened tissue. Symptoms of viral pharyngitis typically include fever, headache, and sore throat; symptoms last 4 to 14 days. Lymphatic tissue in the pharynx may also become involved.

livestock farming: Diseases: … in horses: virus abortion, specifically viral rhinopneumonitis, and the Salmonella type. The former, which produces an influenza with pinkeye, catarrh, general illness, and abortion, affects both mares and foals, but all surviving horses develop natural resistance soon after infection. Pregnant mares thought to be subjected to infection may be given…

viral vector, in molecular biology, a tool used to deliver genetic material to cells. Viruses are useful delivery tools, owing to their efficiency in locating and entering target cells. In addition, they are generally safe to use, because all viral genes are taken out and the remaining vector is

virus, infectious agent of small size and simple composition that can multiply only in living cells of animals, plants, or bacteria. The name is from a Latin word meaning “slimy liquid” or “poison.” The earliest indications of the biological nature of viruses came from studies in 1892 by the

Lingayat, member of a Hindu sect with a wide following in southern India that worships Shiva as the only deity. The followers take their name (“lingam-wearers”) from the small representations of a lingam, a votary object symbolizing Shiva, which both the men and the women always wear hanging by a

South Asian arts: Medieval temple architecture: North Indian style of central India: By contrast, the Virāṭeśvara temple at Sohāgpur, with an unusually tall and narrow śekharī spire, is covered with sculptural ornamentation as rich as that of Khajurāho.

Diana: …of childbirth, and the hero Virbius (the Roman counterpart of Hippolytus), who was said to have been the first priest of Diana’s cult at Aricia. A unique and peculiar custom dictated that this priest be a runaway slave and that he slay his predecessor in combat.

Rudolf Virchow was a German pathologist and statesman, one of the most prominent physicians of the 19th century. He pioneered the modern concept of pathological processes by his application of the cell theory to explain the effects of disease in the organs and tissues of the body. He emphasized

Rudolf Virchow was a German pathologist and statesman, one of the most prominent physicians of the 19th century. He pioneered the modern concept of pathological processes by his application of the cell theory to explain the effects of disease in the organs and tissues of the body. He emphasized

Rudolf Virchow: Early career: …Benno Reinhardt, a new journal, Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie, und für klinische Medizin (“Archives for Pathological Anatomy and Physiology, and for Clinical Medicine”). After Reinhardt’s death in 1852, Virchow continued as sole editor of the journal, later known as Virchows Archiv, until his own death 50 years later.

Virden, city, Macoupin county, west-central Illinois, U.S. Virden lies about 20 miles (30 km) south of Springfield. Laid out in 1852 along the Chicago and Mississippi Railroad, it was named for John Virden, a local innkeeper. A coal-mining town, Virden was the scene of a mine riot on October 12,

percussion instrument: Idiophones: …such as the German organologist Sebastian Virdung in 1511 and as such were restricted to popular entertainment or signaling. Written music of this period does not help to determine whether, or how, idiophones were played with voices or with other instruments.

AIDS: Condoms, vaccines, gels, and other prevention methods: …took a pill known as Viread, which contained only tenofovir; those individuals experienced 62 percent fewer infections relative to participants who did not take the pill. Truvada had been approved in 2004 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a combination therapy (used with other drugs) for HIV…

virelai, one of several formes fixes (“fixed forms”) in French lyric poetry and song of the 14th and 15th centuries (compare ballade; rondeau). It probably did not originate in France, and it takes on several different forms even within the French tradition. Similar forms can be found in most of

virelai, one of several formes fixes (“fixed forms”) in French lyric poetry and song of the 14th and 15th centuries (compare ballade; rondeau). It probably did not originate in France, and it takes on several different forms even within the French tradition. Similar forms can be found in most of

Lasse Virén is a Finnish distance runner who was the first athlete to win gold medals in both the 5,000- and 10,000-metre races at consecutive Olympic Games: at Munich, West Germany, in 1972 and at Montreal in 1976. At age 19 Virén dropped out of school to train under Rolf Haikkola, a follower of

vireo, (family Vireonidae), any of approximately 50 species of New World birds in the order Passeriformes. These include peppershrikes and, according to some authorities, the shrike-vireos. About 15 tropical forms are called greenlets, which used to be the common name for all vireos. New evidence

vireo: …in general appearance is the white-eyed vireo (V. griseus). In Bermuda, where it is common, it is known as “chick-of-the-village,” a moniker that repeats its snappy, distinctive song. The cheerful warbled song of the warbling vireo (V. gilvus) is a common sound in open woods throughout the North American summer.…

vireo: …species of vireo is the red-eyed vireo (Vireo olivaceus), which breeds from southern Canada to Argentina. It is 15 cm (6 inches) long, with a black-outlined white eye stripe that contrasts with the bird’s gray crown. Similar in general appearance is the white-eyed vireo (V. griseus). In Bermuda, where it…

shrike-vireo, (genus Vireolanius), any of about four species of tropical American songbirds, characterized by a stout, slightly hooked bill (like the true shrikes in the family Laniidae) but with anatomical features that ally them with the vireos (family Vireonidae; order Passeriformes).

shrike-vireo, (genus Vireolanius), any of about four species of tropical American songbirds, characterized by a stout, slightly hooked bill (like the true shrikes in the family Laniidae) but with anatomical features that ally them with the vireos (family Vireonidae; order Passeriformes).

vireo, (family Vireonidae), any of approximately 50 species of New World birds in the order Passeriformes. These include peppershrikes and, according to some authorities, the shrike-vireos. About 15 tropical forms are called greenlets, which used to be the common name for all vireos. New evidence

Pierre Viret was a champion of the Reformation in the Swiss canton of the Vaud and the most important native religious Reformer of French-speaking Switzerland. In 1531 Viret came under the influence of the fugitive French religious Reformer Guillaume Farel and began preaching in the Vaud soon

Nancy Huston: …subsequent novels included Virevolte (1994; Slow Emergencies), L’Empreinte de l’ange (1998; The Mark of the Angel), Dolce agonia (2001; Eng. trans. Dolce Agonia), and Danse noire (2013; Black Dance). She won the Prix Femina for Lignes de faille (2006), a translation into French of her novel Fault Lines, originally written…

thunderstorm: Downbursts: …precipitation is referred to as virga), and the microburst will be dry.

Trujillo: …is the site of the Monumento a la Virgen de la Paz, a statue of Mary that is one of the tallest monuments in Latin America, reaching a height of 150 feet (46 metres) and located at about 5,600 feet (1,700 metres) above sea level. The state is served by…

António Aurélio Gonçalves: … (1970; “Night of Wind”) and Virgens loucas (1971; “Crazy Virgins”) also have female protagonists. In the former, he created an extremely beautiful dark-skinned woman who follows her own desires, and in the latter, he paralleled the book of Matthew with a story about three prostitutes. Gonçalves’ world and his women…

satire: Historical definitions: (Virgidemiarum, V, 3, 1–4)

Virgil was a Roman poet, best known for his national epic, the Aeneid (from c. 30 bce; unfinished at his death). Virgil was regarded by the Romans as their greatest poet, an estimation that subsequent generations have upheld. His fame rests chiefly upon the Aeneid, which tells the story of Rome’s

travesty: …an imitation of the French Virgile travesty (1648–53) by Paul Scarron. (The use of the word travesty—literally, “dressed in disguise”—in the title of Scarron’s work gave rise to the English word, first as an adjective.) Later the French developed the féeries folies, a musical burlesque that travestied fairy tales.

Coriolanus: …brings with her Coriolanus’s wife, Virgilia, and his son—to make peace with Rome, and in the end he is killed at the instigation of his Volscian ally.

Virgilian series, major division of Late Carboniferous rocks and time in the United States (the Late Carboniferous epoch, approximately equivalent to the Pennsylvanian period, began about 318 million years ago and ended about 299 million years ago). Named for exposures studied in the region of

stained glass: 12th century: …Canterbury or like the well-known Virgin and Child known as La Belle Verrière at Chartres. The most important feature of the 12th century, however, was the development of the narrative window, consisting of a series of medallions painted with pictorial subjects. This type of window was, so far as is…

putto: …century, especially those of the Madonna and Child. With the revival of classical mythological subjects in the late 15th century, Cupid was commonly represented as a putto, and numbers of anonymous putti were frequently depicted in attendance on various immortals.

Fra Filippo Lippi: Life and works: …he returned from Padua: The Virgin and Child Between SS. Frediano and Augustin and the Madonna and Child. In both of these altarpieces, the influence of Masaccio is still evident, but it is absorbed into a different style, having the pictorial effect of bas-relief, rendered more evident by lines, so…

Guido da Siena: …large painting of the “Virgin and Child Enthroned,” once in the Church of San Domenico at Siena and later moved to the Palazzo Pubblico. It bears a rhymed Latin inscription, giving the painter’s name as “Gu . . . o de Senis,” with the date 1221. Certain critics argue…

Rosso Fiorentino: …commissioned to paint an altarpiece, Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Saints, for a Florentine church. When his patrons saw what they perceived as harsh, devilish depictions of the saints in the picture, they rejected it. After this incident, Rosso left Florence for Volterra, and there he painted Deposition (1521).…

Gerard David: 1502–07) at Bruges; the Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor (c. 1505); the Annunciation (1506) on two panels; and, above all, the documented altarpiece of the Madonna with Angels and Saints (1509). These are mature works—severe yet richly coloured, showing a masterful handling of light, volume, and space.…

Hans Memling: …that for the triptych of The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donors (sometimes called the Donne Triptych because Memling’s patron was Sir John Donne). Once dated very early—about 1468—because it was believed that the patron commissioned the work while visiting Bruges for the wedding of Charles the Bold (duke…

Leonardo da Vinci: The Mona Lisa and other works of Leonardo da Vinci: Even before it was completed, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne won the critical acclaim of the Florentines; the monumental three-dimensional quality of the group and the calculated effects of dynamism and tension in the composition made it a model that inspired Classicists and Mannerists in equal measure.

Masolino: …of Masaccio is a “Virgin and Child with St. Anne” (c. 1420; Uffizi, Florence). It is thought that this work may be the result of a collaboration of the two artists.

Astana: …Soviet period by the government’s Virgin and Idle Lands Campaign of the mid-1950s—Tselinograd was Russian for “City of the Virgin Lands”—and by the city’s role as capital of a kray (region) that united the five northern provinces of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic in 1960–65. There was much new construction…

Astana: …Soviet period by the government’s Virgin and Idle Lands Campaign of the mid-1950s—Tselinograd was Russian for “City of the Virgin Lands”—and by the city’s role as capital of a kray (region) that united the five northern provinces of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic in 1960–65. There was much new construction…

Richard Branson: …the airline that he renamed Virgin Atlantic Airways. Beginning with a single aircraft, the carrier succeeded despite fierce opposition from established airlines, and in 1992 Branson sold Virgin Records to raise additional money for Virgin Atlantic.

Steve Fossett: Piloting the GlobalFlyer, a specialized plane that featured 13 fuel tanks and a 7-foot (2-metre) cockpit, he took off from Salina, Kansas, on February 28 and returned there some 67 hours later, on March 3. On February 8, 2006, he undertook the longest nonstop airplane flight, taking…

Virgin Birth, doctrine of traditional Christianity that Jesus Christ had no natural father but was conceived by Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit. The doctrine that Mary was the sole natural parent of Jesus is based on the infancy narratives contained in the Gospel accounts of Matthew and

Carlo Crivelli: …apparent; a “Pietà” (1485); “The Virgin Enthroned with Child and Saints” (1491), the masterpiece of his mature style; and the eccentric and powerful late masterpiece “Coronation of the Virgin” (1493).

old-growth forest, a climax forest in the late stages of stand development containing large, old trees and a complex stand structure that has been generally undisturbed by human activities. The definition of an old-growth forest varies from country to country, but most definitions share an

Richard Branson: In 2004 Branson formed Virgin Galactic, a space tourism company that was working toward offering commercial suborbital passenger flights. In 2006 Branson sold Virgin Mobile, a wireless phone service, though he remained the largest shareholder of the company, which was later renamed Virgin Media, Inc. That same year he…

Virgin Gorda Island, one of the British Virgin Islands, in the West Indies, lying 80 miles (130 km) east of Puerto Rico. It forms two rectangles joined by a spit, or point, of land. The peninsula in the southwest is flat and strewn with enormous granite boulders, some more than 30 feet (9 metres)

A.S. Byatt: …publication of her highly acclaimed The Virgin in the Garden (1978). The novel is a complex story set in 1953, at the time of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. It was written as the first of a tetralogy that chronicles the lives of three members of one family from…

Virgin Islands, group of about 90 small islands, islets, cays, and rocks in the West Indies, situated some 40 to 50 miles (64 to 80 kilometres) east of Puerto Rico. The islands extend from west to east for about 60 miles and are located west of the Anegada Passage, a major channel connecting the

Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument, natural marine area lying off the island of St. John in the United States Virgin Islands, West Indies. The national monument was created in 2001 to further protect the resources of Virgin Islands National Park. It encompasses about 22 square miles (56

Virgin Islands: Cultural life: In 1965, however, the Virgin Islands Council of the Arts was created as an adjunct of the U.S. National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities. Community arts councils have been formed on all three American islands. They sponsor theatrical performances and provide training in the arts and crafts.

Virgin Islands National Park, conservation area covering some three-fifths of the island of St. John in the United States Virgin Islands, West Indies. The park was established in 1956 and now also includes waters surrounding St. John (added in 1962) and most of Hassel Island (1978) in the harbour

Virgin Islands: Climate: Thomas, where the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority, established in 1965, now operates several saltwater-distillation plants. A seawater desalination plant is located in Christiansted on St. Croix. Maximum use of salt water is made everywhere in the islands.

Philip Massinger: …in a French setting, and The Virgin Martyr (1620?, with Thomas Dekker), a historical play about the persecution of Christians under the Roman emperor Diocletian. Fifteen plays written solely by Massinger have survived, but many of their dates can only be conjectured. The four tragedies are The Duke of Milan…

Presentation of the Virgin Mary, feast celebrated in the Roman Catholic and Eastern churches on November 21. It was held in the Eastern church in the 6th century but did not become widely accepted in the West until the 15th century. The pope St. Pius V (1566–72) suppressed it, but in 1585 Pope

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

Pedro de Mena: Among these was his masterful Virgin of Bethlehem in the Church of Santo Domingo, which combined dignity and playfulness, seriousness and extroverted grace, typical of Andalusia. Works that have survived include the simple but very moving statue of St. Francis of Assisi in His Tomb in the Toledo cathedral, and…

jewelry: 17th century: …from the treasure of the Virgin of Pilar, now displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Gudmundur Kamban: 1 and 2, The Virgin of Skalholt), a carefully researched fictional investigation of the life of the daughter of the 17th-century Icelandic bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson. Another important work is Jeg ser et stort skönt land (1936; I See a Wondrous Land), a historical novel set in the 11th…

Bernardo Bitti: …work for San Pedro was The Virgin of the Candelaria, in which a graceful Virgin holds the Christ child while angels light the scene with candles. Its dramatic lighting, a common device in Bitti’s work, suggests that aspects of the Sevillian painting he had seen during his sojourn in Spain…

Alonso Cano: …wood statues, such as the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception (1655–56), exist from his time in Granada. His finest work of sculpture, St. James of Alcalá (1653–57), is characteristic in its simplicity of design and its expressive eloquence.

Simón Pereyns: …for a painting of the Virgin of the Pardon, destroyed in a fire in Mexico City’s cathedral in 1967. The painting may be one he was forced to make after being denounced for heresy and tried by the Spanish Inquisition (see inquisition). Despite this experience and his subsequent difficulties with…

The Virgin of the Rocks, two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci depicting the apocryphal legend in which the Holy Family meets St. John the Baptist as they flee to Egypt from Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents. Based on stylistic evidence, many scholars consider the painting in the Louvre to be the

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo: …Murillo’s earliest works is the Virgin of the Rosary (c. 1642). In the vestigial style of his artistically conservative Sevillian master, Juan del Castillo, this early work combines 16th-century Italian Mannerism and Flemish realism. The 11 paintings that originally hung in the small cloister of San Francisco in Sevilla—e.g., the…

Zapopan: The 17th-century Basilica of the Virgin of Zapopan is the site of annual pilgrimages centring on La Zapopanita, a small icon venerated locally since the 16th century. Because of its proximity to Guadalajara, the city is easily accessible by highway, railroad, and air. Pop. (2010) 1,143,168; (2020)…

oil extraction: Cold-pressed oil, also called cold-drawn, or virgin, oil, is purer and has a better flavour than oil expressed with the aid of heat. After pressing the meals made from oily seeds or nuts, the remaining cake contains about 5 to 15 percent oil. Most of…

Virgin Gorda Island: …the highest of which is Virgin Peak at 1,359 feet (414 metres).

Henry Koster: The 1950s: …other films from 1955 were The Virgin Queen, with Todd as Sir Walter Raleigh and Bette Davis as Elizabeth I, and Good Morning, Miss Dove, a drama that offered Jennifer Jones as a devoted schoolteacher whose life is recounted in flashbacks.

Elizabeth I was the queen of England (1558–1603) during a period, often called the Elizabethan Age, when England asserted itself vigorously as a major European power in politics, commerce, and the arts. Although her small kingdom was threatened by grave internal divisions, Elizabeth’s blend of

Mariah Carey: …an $80 million contract with Virgin Records that made her the highest-paid recording artist. Her career was soon interrupted, however, when she suffered a breakdown and was hospitalized following erratic behaviour. (Carey revealed in 2018 that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.) She starred in Glitter (2001), but both…

Virgin Soil, novel by Ivan Turgenev, published in Russian as Nov in 1877. Its focus is the young populists who hoped to sow the seeds of revolution in the virgin soil of the Russian peasantry. Turgenev presents realistic and somewhat sympathetic portraits of the many different types of characters

Sven Nykvist: …worked on Bergman’s Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring), after which he became Bergman’s regular director of photography at Svensk Filmindustri. He worked on more than a dozen Bergman films, including Viskningar och rop (1972; Cries and Whispers) and Fanny och Alexander (1982; Fanny and Alexander), for both of which he…

Sofia Coppola: …1999 her first feature film, The Virgin Suicides, was released. Coppola herself wrote the screenplay based on the novel of the same name by Jeffrey Eugenides. That same year she married director-producer Spike Jonze (divorced 2003).

Petrus Christus: …the definition of space; his Virgin with Saints Jerome and Francis is the earliest Netherlandish painting with a single vanishing point. Among Christus’s most important paintings are Portrait of a Carthusian (1446), St. Eligius (1449), the Virgin with Saints Jerome and Francis (probably 1457), and the Virgin with Child, St.…

wool: …in the United States, as virgin wool. The limited world supply results in the use of recovered wools. In the United States, wool recovered from fabric never used by the consumer is called reprocessed wool; wool recovered from material that has had use is called reused wool. Recovered wools, employed…

angiosperm: The calyx: …petals are missing—for example, the virgin’s bower (Clematis; Ranunculaceae) and the Bougainvillea. Petaloid sepals in this case differ from tepals because the first group of stamens are on the same radii as the sepals, indicating the absence of the petals, which would normally be positioned on alternating radii in the…

Domenico Beccafumi: His “Birth of the Virgin” and “The Expulsion of the Rebel Angels” in the latter show the typical elongated and foreshortened forms employed by the Mannerists. But his work contained many diverging tendencies, producing an overall unevenness.

Caravaggio: Continued successes and the murder of Tomassoni: …shows the Apostles lamenting the death of Mary in the poorest of homes. In the words of the 20th-century art historian Roberto Longhi, it resembles “a death in a night refuge.” It is among the most-powerful and moving of Caravaggio’s paintings, but once more, not long after being installed in…

virginal, musical instrument of the harpsichord family, of which it may be the oldest member. The virginal may take its name from Latin virga (“rod”), referring to the jacks, or wooden shafts that rest on the ends of the keys and hold the plucking mechanism. Unlike the harpsichord and spinet, the

virginal, musical instrument of the harpsichord family, of which it may be the oldest member. The virginal may take its name from Latin virga (“rod”), referring to the jacks, or wooden shafts that rest on the ends of the keys and hold the plucking mechanism. Unlike the harpsichord and spinet, the

Ed Harris: …then appeared in the drama Virginia (2010), in the thriller Man on a Ledge (2012), and as Sen. John McCain in the HBO movie Game Change (2012), which dramatized the final months of the 2008 U.S. presidential race from the McCain campaign’s perspective. In the Cold War thriller

Virginia, constituent state of the United States of America, one of the original 13 colonies. It is bordered by Maryland to the northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, North Carolina and Tennessee to the south, Kentucky to the west, and West Virginia to the northwest. The state capital is

Virginia, town and gold-mining centre, north-central Free State province, South Africa, in one of the world’s richest goldfields. Virginia was a former whistle stop (named, 1892) on the line between Johannesburg and Cape Town. A modern, well-planned town, it was founded in 1954, after gold was

monitor: …Monitor engaged the Confederate ironclad Virginia (originally named Merrimack) in a dramatic, though inconclusive, battle that attracted international attention and resulted in construction of many similar vessels for the U.S. Navy. The original Monitor, however, was never seaworthy. En route from New York to Chesapeake Bay for the famous battle,…

warship: Cruisers: …the 1970s, with the 10,400-ton Virginia class. This class has been supplemented since the 1980s and ’90s by the 7,400-ton, gas-turbine-powered Ticonderoga cruisers. Both the Virginia and Ticonderoga ships are fitted with a broad array of weaponry, including surface-to-air and antiship missiles, tube-launched and rocket-launched antisubmarine torpedoes, and two 125-mm…

submarine: Attack submarines: …1997 and 2005; and the Virginia class, 18 projected vessels, of which the first was commissioned in 2004. The Sturgeon and Los Angeles submarines, designed at the height of the Cold War, originally carried not only conventional torpedoes for antisubmarine warfare but also rocket-launched nuclear depth bombs, known as SUBROCs.…

Virginia, city, St. Louis county, northeastern Minnesota, U.S. It lies in the Mesabi Range, about 60 miles (95 km) northwest of Duluth. Iron ore was discovered in 1890 by Leonidas Merritt at the site of the nearby city of Mountain Iron. Two years later ore was found at the site of Virginia, which

Virginia Tech, public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S. Virginia Tech is a comprehensive, land-grant university, consisting of colleges of agriculture and life sciences, architecture and urban studies, arts and sciences, business, human resources and

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, (1798), in U.S. history, measures passed by the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky as a protest against the Federalist Alien and Sedition Acts. The resolutions were written by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson (then vice president in the administration of John

Carson City: …from Virginia City by the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, which maintained extensive shops at Carson City. Along with the Comstock, the railroad declined and was abandoned in 1950. To coin the immense silver output of the Comstock, the federal government established a mint at Carson City, which later became the…

Virginia Beach, independent city, southeastern Virginia, U.S., on the Atlantic coast and Chesapeake Bay, adjacent to the cities of Norfolk and Chesapeake in the Hampton Roads region. The city extends 28 miles (45 km) southward from the mouth of Chesapeake Bay to the North Carolina border, covering

Mertensia: …the family Boraginaceae, including the Virginia cowslip, or Virginia bluebell (M. virginica), a popular spring-blooming garden and wild flower with drooping, bell-shaped, pink flowers that turn blue. The Virginia cowslip is native in moist woods and wet meadows in eastern North America and has smooth, elliptical leaves and reaches approximately…

Battle of the Chesapeake, (September 5, 1781), in the American Revolution, French naval victory over a British fleet that took place outside Chesapeake Bay. The outcome of the battle was indispensable to the successful Franco-American Siege of Yorktown from August to October. Lord Charles

Virginia City, town, seat (1876) of Madison county, southwestern Montana, U.S., on the Ruby River. Founded as Verona (after Varina Davis, wife of the president of the Confederate States of America) in 1863, when gold was discovered in nearby Alder Gulch, it was the first town to be incorporated

Virginia City, unincorporated town, seat (1861) of Storey county, western Nevada, U.S., on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada range, 20 miles (32 km) south of Reno. Settled in 1859 and named for a prospector, “Old Virginia” Fennimore, it became a booming mining camp after the discovery of the