Grabski, Wladyslaw

A Socialist in his youth, Grabski later joined the National Democracy Party and was elected a member of three successive sessions of the Duma (1906–12), the legislative body of the Russian Empire, of which

Subhah

String of Muslim prayer beads whose units (100, 25, or 33) represent the names of God. As the beads (made of wood, bone, or precious stones) are touched one by one, Muslims may recite any of numerous formulas, the most common being “Glory to Allah.” But because prayer may also be recited in the secret of one's heart, a person can multiply his praises of God by merely moving the beads through his

Pordenone

Originating as the Roman and medieval river port of Portus Naonis, it was a bulwark of the Trevisani in their war against Aquileia until it was destroyed by the latter in 1233. It later became a fief of the Holy Roman

Congo

Congo's many ethnic groups and regions have developed a mosaic of traditional arts, including painting, sculpture, music, and dance. There has been a tendency to classify sculpture and carving according to the styles of the areas from which they originate. The South-West Group is represented by the Kongo people and is known for stone and nail-studded statues; the Yaka,

Scale Worm

The somewhat arched back of the scale worm is covered with flattened pairs of overlapping scales. A

Epistemology, John Duns Scotus

While he accepted some aspects of Aristotelian abstractionism and also held that there need to be some a priori principles of perception, principles that he attributed to Augustine, John Duns Scotus (c. 1266–1308) did not rest the certainty of human knowledge on either of them. He distinguished four different classes of things that are certain: First, there are things that are

Aerospace Industry, World War I

France and Germany, both aware of the military potential of aircraft, began relatively large-scale manufacturing around 1909. By the outbreak of World War I in 1914, France had built a total of 2,000 airplanes, of which 1,500 were military; Germany ranked second with about 1,000 military aircraft; and Britain a distant third with 176. The United States lost its lead in aeronautics as the combined

Boina

The other son, Adriamandisoarivo, continued the migration

Utopia

The word first occurred in Sir Thomas More's Utopia, published in Latin as Libellus . . . de optimo reipublicae statu, deque nova insula Utopia (“Concerning the highest state

Ford, Henry

Ford spent most of his life making headlines, good, bad, but never indifferent. Celebrated as both a technological genius and a folk hero, Ford was the creative force behind an industry of unprecedented size and wealth that

Talence

Town, Gironde département, Aquitaine région, southern suburb of Bordeaux, southwestern France. It is a centre for jet-aircraft production and has light industry and wine making. An extension of Bordeaux University (now Bordeaux University I), with housing for 30,000 students, was erected there in the 1960s and has since become a major educational and research centre. Pop. (1990) 36,172.