Kuan Ti's immense popularity with the common people rests on the firm belief that his control over evil spirits is so great that even actors who play his part in dramas share his power over demons. Kuan Ti is not only a natural favourite of soldiers but has been chosen patron of numerous trades and professions. Peddlers of bean curd, for example, take
Patagonia contains zones of deciduous Andean forests and, east of the Andes, of steppe and desert. The largest area—the steppe region—lies in northern Patagonia between the Colorado River and the port city of Comodoro Rivadavia. This zone represents an extension southward of the monte, which gives way gradually to a xerophytic shrub region without trees except
Because solids are generally not well absorbed into the blood, they must be dissolved in the aqueous liquid lining the intestinal tract if ingested or the respiratory tract if inhaled. Solids dissolve at different rates in fluids, however. For example,
Also called Madhhab Hanbal , English Hanbalites in Islam, the most fundamentalist of the four Sunni schools of religious law. Based on the teachings of Ahmad ibn Hanbal (780–855), the Hanbali legal school (madhhab) emphasized virtually complete dependence on the divine in the establishment of legal theory and rejected personal opinion (ra'y), analogy (qiyas), and the Hellenistic dogma of the Mu'tazilah school of theology, on the grounds
The early history of the Uzbek people (whose rulers were descendants of a younger brother of Batu, khan of the Golden Horde) is wrapped in obscurity, but by the mid-15th century they had migrated from their original homeland, east of the Ural Mountains, southeast toward the lower Syr Darya, whence, under their leader, Abu'l-Khayr Khan, they began to threaten the Timurids across
Given the title of king of Italy in 781, Pippin took part in campaigns against Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria from 787 and led an army against the Avars in 796. His Venetian campaign (809–810) enabled Charlemagne later to come to favourable terms with the Byzantine Empire. As early as 806, Charlemagne, in planning the division
Lancisi graduated in medicine from the University of Rome at age 18. He was appointed physician to Pope Innocent XI in 1688 and subsequently was physician to Popes Innocent XII and Clement XI. Lancisi's monographs on influenza, cattle plague (rinderpest), and
The finest of the tales are the four related
Town, south-central Rajasthan state, northwestern India. It is a major road junction and agricultural mart. A walled town, Shahpura was founded about 1629 and was named after the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, who reigned from 1628 to 1658. The town was the seat of the Ramsanehi (“Lovers of Rama”), a medieval sect of mendicants, and was the capital of the former princely state of Shahpura, which became
English chemist and explosives specialist who, with the chemist Sir James Dewar, invented cordite (1889), later adopted as the standard explosive of the British army. Abel also made studies of dust explosions in coal mines, invented a device for testing the flash point of petroleum, and found a way to prevent guncotton from
Also called Norman-french Literature, or Anglo-french Literature, body of writings in the Old French language as used in medieval England. Though this dialect had been introduced to English court circles in Edward the Confessor's time, its history really began with the Norman Conquest in 1066, when it became the vernacular of the court, the law, the church, schools, universities, parliament, and later of municipalities and of trade. For the
Although popular tradition claims that all four doctors—Bulgarus, Martinus Gosia, Hugo da Porta Ravennate, and Jacobus
After his uncle Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and his father, Hyrum Smith, were murdered in Carthage, Ill., in 1844, he and his mother fled with the majority of the Mormons to Utah. Made an apostle of the church
Borough (town), seat (1771) of Bedford county, southern Pennsylvania, U.S., on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the Raystown Branch Juniata River, in the Allegheny Mountains, 38 miles (61 km) south of Altoona. A settlement made on the site about 1750 by John Wray (or Ray), a Scottish trader, was known as Raystown. Fort Bedford (built 1758 and apparently named for John Russell, 4th duke of Bedford) was a frontier
