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  • Davis, Paulina Kellogg Wright (American reformer)
    American feminist and social reformer, active in the early struggle for woman suffrage and the founder of an early periodical in support of that cause....
  • Davis, Raiford Chatman (American actor and playwright)
    American writer, actor, director, and social activist who was known for his contributions to African American theatre and film and for his passionate support of civil rights and humanitarian causes. He was also noted for his artistic partnership with his wife, Ruby Dee, which was considered one of the theatre and film world’s most distinguished....
  • Davis, Raymond, Jr. (American scientist)
    American physicist who, with Koshiba Masatoshi, won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2002 for detecting neutrinos. Riccardo Giacconi also won a share of the award for his work on X-rays....
  • Davis, Rebecca Blaine Harding (American author)
    American essayist and writer, remembered primarily for her story “Life in the Iron Mills,” which is considered a transitional work of American realism....
  • Davis, Richard Harding (American author)
    U.S. author of romantic novels and short stories and the best known reporter of his generation....
  • Davis, Roquel (American music producer)
    American songwriter and advertising executive (b. July 11, 1932, Detroit, Mich.—d. Sept. 2, 2004, New Rochelle, N.Y.), collaborated with Gwen Gordy and her brother Berry Gordy, Jr., in the 1950s on Jackie Wilson’s hits “Reet Petite” and “Lonely Teardrops.” In 1958 he cofounded Anna Records, which later evolved into Motown Records. In 1961 Davis moved to Ch...
  • Davis, Ruth Elizabeth (American actress)
    versatile, volatile American actress, whose raw, unbridled intensity kept her at the top of her profession for 50 years....
  • Davis, Sam (Confederate hero)
    versatile, volatile American actress, whose raw, unbridled intensity kept her at the top of her profession for 50 years.......
  • Davis, Sammy, Jr. (American entertainer)
    American singer, dancer, and entertainer....
  • Davis, Shani (American athlete)
    American speed skater, who was the first black athlete to win an individual Winter Olympics gold medal....
  • Davis, Sir Colin (British conductor)
    English conductor and the foremost modern interpreter of the composer Hector Berlioz, whose complete orchestral and operatic works Davis recorded....
  • Davis, Sir Colin Rex (British conductor)
    English conductor and the foremost modern interpreter of the composer Hector Berlioz, whose complete orchestral and operatic works Davis recorded....
  • Davis, Sir Thomas (prime minister of Cook Islands)
    The first published novel from Oceania was Makutu (1960) by Thomas Davis, a Cook Islander, and Lydia Henderson, his New Zealand-born wife. Like their earlier autobiography, Doctor to the Islands (1954), it was written in English. The novel, which deals with the cultural conflict between Pacific and Western values in an imaginary land called Fenua Lei, has more in......
  • Davis Strait (strait, Canada)
    bay of the northern Atlantic Ocean, lying between southeastern Baffin Island (Canada) and southwestern Greenland. It separates the depths of Baffin Bay (north) from those of the Labrador Sea (south) and forms part of the Northwest Passage, a route through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is approximately 400 miles (650 km) north to sou...
  • Davis, Stuart (American painter)
    American abstract artist whose idiosyncratic Cubist paintings of urban landscapes presaged the use of commercial art and advertising by Pop artists of the 1960s....
  • Davis, Thomas Osborne (Irish author)
    Irish writer and politician who was the chief organizer and poet of the Young Ireland movement....
  • Davis, Tyrone (American singer)
    American rhythm-and-blues singer (b. May 4, 1938, Greenville, Miss.—d. Feb. 9, 2005, Hinsdale, Ill.), helped shape Chicago soul music in the 1960s and ’70s. He allied himself with Chicago soul and bluesmen Bobby (“Blue”) Bland, Little Milton, Johnny Taylor, and Otis Clay, among others. Known for his warm, smooth delivery, Davis scored hits with “Can I Change My M...
  • Davis, Victor (Canadian athlete)
    Canadian swimmer, an aggressive competitor who won four Olympic medals....
  • Davis, Virginia (American actress)
    Other Nominees...
  • Davis, Wild Bill (American musician)
    ("WILD BILL"), U.S. jazz organist and arranger who popularized the Hammond organ as a jazz instrument (b. Nov. 24, 1918--d. Aug. 22, 1995)....
  • Davis, William Morris (American geographer)
    U.S. geographer, geologist, and meteorologist who founded the science of geomorphology, the study of landforms....
  • Davis, William Strethen (American musician)
    ("WILD BILL"), U.S. jazz organist and arranger who popularized the Hammond organ as a jazz instrument (b. Nov. 24, 1918--d. Aug. 22, 1995)....
  • Davisean window (architecture)
    ...and the West Presbyterian Church (1831–32) and the Custom House (1833–42) in New York City. One of the original elements that Davis evolved at this time was a window type he later called Davisean—vertically unified, multistoried, and often recessed windows....
  • Davison, Wild Bill (American musician)
    American jazz cornet player who recorded some 800 songs and traveled extensively in his 70-year career....
  • Davison, William (English royal official)
    (b. c. 1541—d. Dec. 21, 1608, Stepney, London), secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England, chiefly remembered for his part in the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots....
  • Davison, William Edward (American musician)
    American jazz cornet player who recorded some 800 songs and traveled extensively in his 70-year career....
  • Davisson, Clinton Joseph (American physicist)
    American experimental physicist who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1937 with George P. Thomson of England for discovering that electrons can be diffracted like light waves, thus verifying the thesis of Louis de Broglie that electrons behave both as waves and as particles....
  • Davisville (Rhode Island, United States)
    ...was incorporated in 1674; in 1686–89 it was called Rochester. In 1722–23 it was divided into North Kingstown and South Kingstown. North Kingstown includes the villages of Allenton, Davisville, Hamilton, Lafayette, Quonset Point, Saunderstown, Slocum, and Wickford (the administrative centre)....
  • Davitt, Michael (Irish political leader)
    founder of the Irish Land League (1879), which organized resistance to absentee landlordism and sought to relieve the poverty of the tenant farmers by securing fixity of tenure, fair rent, and free sale of the tenant’s interest....
  • Davos (Switzerland)
    town, Graubünden canton, eastern Switzerland, consisting of two villages, Davos-Platz and Davos-Dorf, in the Davos Valley, on the Landwasser River, 5,118 feet (1,560 metres) above sea level. The town is mentioned in historical documents of 1160 and 1213; it was then inhabited by Romansh-speaking people, but later in the 13th century it was settled by German-speaking peopl...
  • Davout, Louis-Nicolas, duc d’Auerstedt, prince d’Eckmühl (French general)
    French general who was one of the most distinguished of the Napoleonic field commanders....
  • Davringhausen, Heinrich (German artist)
    ...assembled at the Kunsthalle, Hartlaub displayed the works of the members of this group: George Grosz, Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, Georg Schrimpf, Alexander Kanoldt, Carlo Mense, Georg Scholz, and Heinrich Davringhausen....
  • Davtyan, O. K. (Soviet chemist)
    ...resulted in the invention of gas-diffusion electrodes in which the fuel gas on one side is effectively kept in controlled contact with an aqueous electrolyte on the other side. By mid-century O.K. Davtyan of the Soviet Union had published the results of experimental work on solid electrolytes for high-temperature fuel cells and for both high- and low-temperature alkaline electrolyte......
  • davul (musical instrument)
    ...sporting events) giant drums have been constructed. British orchestras often use a larger type of one-headed bass drum known as a gong drum. Similar large cylindrical drums are the Turkish folk davul and the South Asian dhol....
  • Davy Crockett Lake (lake, North Carolina, United States)
    ...U.S., and flowing northwest into Tennessee, then west to join the French Broad River after a course of 150 miles (241 km). A dam on the Nolichucky just south of Greeneville, Tenn., impounds Davy Crockett Lake, named for the frontiersman, who was born (1786) on the river near Limestone. John Sevier, first governor of Tennessee, lived on the riverbank (1783–90) and was nicknamed......
  • Davy, Edward (British inventor)
    physician, chemist, and inventor who devised the electromagnetic repeater for relaying telegraphic signals and invented an electrochemical telegraph (1838)....
  • Davy lamp (safety instrument)
    safety lamp devised by Sir Humphry Davy in 1815....
  • Davy, Sir Humphry, Baronet (British chemist)
    English chemist who discovered several chemical elements (including sodium and potassium) and compounds, invented the miner’s safety lamp, and became one of the greatest exponents of the scientific method....
  • Davys, John (English navigator)
    English navigator who attempted to find the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic to the Pacific....
  • daw (bird)
    (species Corvus monedula), crowlike black bird with gray nape and pearly eyes of the family Corvidae (order Passeriformes). Jackdaws, which are 33 cm (13 inches) long, breed in colonies in tree holes, cliffs, and tall buildings: their flocks fly in formation around the site. They lay four to six light, greenish blue eggs that are spotted and blotched. The bird’s c...
  • Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (Myanmar leader)
    Myanmar opposition leader, daughter of Aung San (a martyred national hero of independent Burma) and Khin Kyi (a prominent Burmese diplomat), and winner in 1991 of the Nobel Prize for Peace....
  • Daʿwah, al- (Iraqi organization)
    ...military supplies. Iran attacked a Kuwaiti refinery complex in 1981, which inspired subsequent acts of sabotage in 1983 and 1986. In 1985 a member of the underground pro-Iranian Iraqi radical group al-Daʿwah attempted to assassinate the Kuwaiti ruler, Sheikh Jābir al-Aḥmad Āl Ṣabāḥ....
  • Dawānī (Persian philosopher)
    jurist and philosopher who was chiefly responsible for maintaining the traditions of Islāmic philosophy in the 15th century....
  • Dawānī, Muḥammad ibn Jalāl ad-Dīn (Persian philosopher)
    jurist and philosopher who was chiefly responsible for maintaining the traditions of Islāmic philosophy in the 15th century....
  • Dawāsir, Wadi ad- (river, Arabia)
    ...the Pleistocene Epoch (1,800,000 to 10,000 years ago) by ancient river systems now represented by such wadis as Al-Rimah–Al-Bāṭin, Al-Sahbāʾ, and Dawāsir-Jawb, which carried vast loads of sediment from the interior toward the Persian Gulf. The Al-Dibdibah region once was the delta of Wadi Al-Rimah–Al-Bāṭin, and......
  • Dawāsir-Jawb, Wadi (river, Arabia)
    ...the Pleistocene Epoch (1,800,000 to 10,000 years ago) by ancient river systems now represented by such wadis as Al-Rimah–Al-Bāṭin, Al-Sahbāʾ, and Dawāsir-Jawb, which carried vast loads of sediment from the interior toward the Persian Gulf. The Al-Dibdibah region once was the delta of Wadi Al-Rimah–Al-Bāṭin, and......
  • Dawe, Bruce (Australian author)
    ...he could in the secular world of spiritual realities and to demonstrate the importance of poetry in ordinary life (a representative volume of his work is Dog Fox Field [1990]), and Bruce Dawe, who evinced the Australian voice in his contemporary, journalistic poetry appearing in, for example, Sometimes Gladness (1978). Robert Gray continued the tradition of spare,......
  • Dawei (Myanmar)
    town, southern Myanmar (Burma). It lies at the head of the Tavoy River estuary on the Andaman Sea. Tavoy is a weaving centre and is engaged in coastal trade with northern Myanmar and the Malay Peninsula. It is served by an airport. A hunting reserve and Mamagan, a popular beach area, are nearby....
  • Dawenkou culture (ancient culture)
    ...sites in northern Jiangsu (first half of 4th millennium) represent regional cultures that derived in large part from that of Qingliangang. Upper strata also show strong affinities with contemporary Dawenkou sites in southern Shandong, northern Anhui, and northern Jiangsu. Dawenkou culture (mid-5th to at least mid-3rd millennium) is characterized by the emergence of wheel-made pots of various......
  • Dawes, Charles G. (vice president of United States)
    30th vice president of the United States (1925–29) in the Republican administration of President Calvin Coolidge. An ambassador and author of the “Dawes Plan” for managing Germany’s reparations payments after World War I, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace jointly with Sir Austen ...
  • Dawes, Charles Gates (vice president of United States)
    30th vice president of the United States (1925–29) in the Republican administration of President Calvin Coolidge. An ambassador and author of the “Dawes Plan” for managing Germany’s reparations payments after World War I, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace jointly with Sir Austen ...
  • Dawes General Allotment Act (United States [1887])
    (Feb. 8, 1887), U.S. law providing for the distribution of Indian reservation land among individual tribesmen, with the aim of creating responsible farmers in the white man’s image. It was sponsored in several sessions of Congress by Sen. Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts and finally was enacted in February 1887. Under its terms, the president determined the suitability of the recipients and ...
  • Dawes Plan (German-United States history)
    arrangement for Germany’s payment of reparations after World War I. On the initiative of the British and U.S. governments, a committee of experts, presided over by an American financier, Charles G. Dawes, produced a report on the question of German reparations for presumed liability for World War I. The report was accepted by the Allies and by Germany on Aug. 16, 1924. N...
  • Dawes Severalty Act (United States [1887])
    (Feb. 8, 1887), U.S. law providing for the distribution of Indian reservation land among individual tribesmen, with the aim of creating responsible farmers in the white man’s image. It was sponsored in several sessions of Congress by Sen. Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts and finally was enacted in February 1887. Under its terms, the president determined the suitability of the recipients and ...
  • Dawes, Sophie (English adventuress)
    English adventuress, mistress of the last survivor of the princes of Condé....
  • Dawes, William Rutter (British astronomer)
    English astronomer known for his extensive measurements of double stars and for his meticulous planetary observations....
  • Dawḥah, Ad- (Qatar)
    city, capital of Qatar, located on the east coast of the Qatar Peninsula in the Persian Gulf. More than two-fifths of Qatar’s population lives within the city’s limits. Situated on a shallow bay indented about 3 miles (5 km), Doha has long been a locally important port. Because of offshore coral reefs and shallow waters, it handled only small ves...
  • Dawīsh, ad- (Arab leader)
    A congress convened by Ibn Saʿūd in October 1928 deposed Ibn Ḥumayd, ad-Dawīsh, and Ibn Ḥithlayn, the leaders of the revolt. A massacre of Najd merchants by Ibn Ḥumayd in 1929, however, forced Ibn Saʿūd to confront the rebellious Ikhwān militarily, and, in a major battle fought in March on the plain of as-Sabalah (near......
  • Dawkins, Clinton Richard (British zoologist)
    University of Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins made a career out of trying to present science in terms that could be understood by the general public. Through television appearances, opinion articles in newspapers, five books, and a CD-ROM, Dawkins had taken up the job of breaking down the barriers between the scientific community and the rest of the world. This led to his being named in 1995 the ...
  • Dawkins, Richard (author)
    University of Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins made a career out of trying to present science in terms that could be understood by the general public. Through television appearances, opinion articles in newspapers, five books, and a CD-ROM, Dawkins had taken up the job of breaking down the barriers between the scientific community and the rest of the world. This led to his being named in 1995 the ...
  • Dawlat Khān Lodī (governor of Punjab)
    When Bābur made his first raid into India in 1519, the Punjab was part of the dominions of Sultan Ibrāhīm Lodī of Delhi, but the governor, Dawlat Khān Lodī, resented Ibrāhīm’s attempts to diminish his authority. By 1524 Bābur had invaded the Punjab three more times but was unable to master the tangled course of Punjab and Delhi ...
  • Dawlat Qatar
    independent emirate on the west coast of the Persian Gulf....
  • Dawlatabadi, Mahmoud (Iranian writer)
    ...American authors as Gabriel García Márquez. In contrast to the late-20th-century tendency by writers to apply modern narrative techniques to their novels stands the social realism of Mahmoud Dawlatabadi. His great novel Kalīdar, published in 10 parts (1978–84), depicts the lives of nomads in the plains of Khorāsān, the author’s nativ...
  • Dawlish (England, United Kingdom)
    town (“parish”), Teignbridge district, administrative and historic county of Devon, England, on the English Channel. It became fashionable in the 19th century and is featured in the novels of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. Located back from the seacoast above high, deep-red cliffs, the town faces away from the sea but is connected to it by a pe...
  • Dawn (work by Michelangelo)
    ...perhaps implies inner fire. Both female figures have the tall, slim proportions and small feet considered beautiful at the time, but otherwise they form a contrast: Dawn, a virginal figure, strains upward along her curve as if trying to emerge into life; Night is asleep, but in a posture suggesting stressful dreams....
  • Dawn (German film)
    ...in Austria, the movie launched a string of films that were approved for the German public by Joseph Goebbels, Nazi minister of propaganda. Morgenrot (1932; Dawn), which gained some recognition both in Europe and the United States, is a realistic story of U-boat warfare and depicts the dangerous and tenuous life in a submarine. ......
  • dawn
    ...During this long passage the dominant blue wavelengths of light are scattered and blocked, leaving the longer, unobstructed red wavelengths to reach the Earth and lend their tints to the sky at dawn and dusk....
  • dawn blind snake (snake family)
    ...Pelvic vestiges present. Tracheal lung present. 1 species (Ramphotyphlops braminus) parthenogenetic.Family Anomalepididae (dawn blind snakes)15 species in 4 genera from Central America to northern South America. Size small, 15–40 cm. Pelvic vestiges absent. Tracheal lung pre...
  • dawn horse (fossil equine)
    extinct group of horses that flourished in North America and Europe during the early part of the Eocene Epoch (55.8–33.9 million years ago). Even though these animals are more commonly known as Eohippus, a name given by the American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh, they are properly placed in the genus ...
  • Dawn of the Future (Turkish literary society)
    ...but, after his study of the poetry of Charles Baudelaire and the Symbolist poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, Stéphane Mallarmé, and others, his poetic style changed. In 1909 he joined the Fecr-i âti (“Dawn of the Future”) literary circle but gradually drew apart from this group and developed his own style. Haşim, following the French masters, strove to develop....
  • Dawn on Our Darkness (work by Roblès)
    ...the deportation and death of Algerians during World War II. Roblès achieved international success with Cela s’appelle l’aurore (1952; “It Calls Itself Dawn”; Eng. trans. Dawn on Our Darkness), a novel set in Sardinia and concerning a man caught between love and duty. Le Vésuve (1961; Vesuvius) and Un Printemps d’Ita...
  • Dawn Patrol, The (film by Hawk [1930])
    Original Story: John Monk Saunders for The Dawn PatrolAdaptation: Howard Estabrook for CimarronCinematography: Floyd Crosby for TabuArt Direction: Max Ree for Cimarron...
  • dawn redwood (plant)
    genus of conifers represented by a single living species, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, from central China. Fossil representatives, such as M. occidentalis, dated to about 90 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period, are known throughout the middle and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Climatic cool...
  • Dawn, Temple of the (temple, Bangkok, Thailand)
    ...built during the reigns of Rama II (1809–24) and Rama III (1824–51). They served as schools, libraries, hospitals, and recreation areas, as well as religious centres. During these years Wat Arun, noted for its tall spire, Wat Yan Nawa, and Wat Bowon Niwet were completed, Wat Pho was further enlarged, and Wat Sutat was begun. There were, however, few other substantial buildings and...
  • Dawnward? (work by O’Dowd)
    ...in the arts and law at the University of Melbourne, O’Dowd taught for a while, worked as a librarian, then made a successful career as a parliamentary draftsman for the Australian Parliament. In Dawnward? (1903), his first book of verse, he expressed strong political convictions. The Silent Land followed in 1906, and the philosophical Dominions of the Boundary in 190...
  • Dawo’er (people)
    Mongol people living mainly in the eastern portion of Inner Mongolia autonomous region and western Heilongjiang province of China and estimated in the early 21st century to number more than 132,000. They are one of the official ethnic minorities of China. Their language, which varies widely enough from other Mongolian languages to once have been thought to be Tungusic or a mixtu...
  • Dawson (Yukon Territory, Canada)
    city, western Yukon Territory, Canada. It lies at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers, near the Alaska, U.S., boundary, 165 miles (265 km) south of the Arctic Circle. The community, named for George M. Dawson, the geologist-explorer, developed after the gold strike at nearby Bonanza Creek in 1896. During the height of the Klondike Gold Rus...
  • Dawson, Charles (British lawyer)
    In a series of discoveries in 1910–12, Charles Dawson, an English lawyer and amateur geologist, found what appeared to be the fossilized fragments of a cranium, a jawbone, and other specimens in a gravel formation at Barkham Manor on Piltdown Common near Lewes in Sussex. Dawson took the specimens to Arthur Smith Woodward, keeper of the British Museum’s paleontology department, who......
  • Dawson City (Yukon Territory, Canada)
    city, western Yukon Territory, Canada. It lies at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers, near the Alaska, U.S., boundary, 165 miles (265 km) south of the Arctic Circle. The community, named for George M. Dawson, the geologist-explorer, developed after the gold strike at nearby Bonanza Creek in 1896. During the height of the Klondike Gold Rus...
  • Dawson Creek (city, British Columbia, Canada)
    city, northeastern British Columbia, Canada. The city lies along Dawson Creek near the Alberta border. It has the Mile “Zero” post marking the beginning of the Alaska Highway and is a terminus of the British Columbia Railway from Vancouver (741 miles [1,193 km] south-southwest) and the Northern Alberta Railway from Edmonton (360 miles [580 km] so...
  • Dawson, George Geoffrey (British journalist)
    English journalist, editor of The Times from 1912 to 1919 and from 1923 until his retirement in 1941. He changed his surname from Robinson to Dawson following an inheritance in 1917....
  • Dawson, John Myrick (American physicist)
    American physicist (b. Sept. 30, 1930, Champaign, Ill.—d. Nov. 17, 2001, Los Angeles, Calif.), was one of the world’s foremost authorities on plasma physics. Dawson was known for his development of the so-called particle-in-cell computer model, a technique for simulating plasmas on computers; he was also the first to suggest using plasma in particle accelerators in order to make them...
  • Dawson, Les (British comedian)
    British comedian (b. Feb. 2, 1934, Collyhurst, near Manchester, England--d. June 10, 1993, Manchester), was a stand-up comic and television personality whose dour, misanthropic humour was reminiscent of W.C. Fields but reflected his own northern England working-class origins. His sardonic put-downs were most often aimed at mothers-in-law, bosses, and other figures of everyday authority that his a...
  • Dawson River (river, Australia)
    river in eastern Queensland, Australia. It rises in the Carnarvon Range and flows southeast, northeast, and north for about 400 miles (640 km) through a 50-mile-wide valley to join the Fitzroy River near Duaringa. The Dawson Valley Irrigation Project (inaugurated 1923) comprises several weirs and mainly serves cotton and dairy farms. Explored in 1844 by Friedrich Ludwig Leichhardt, the river was ...
  • Dawson, Sir John William (Canadian geologist)
    Canadian geologist who made numerous contributions to paleobotany and extended the knowledge of Canadian geology....
  • Dawsonia (plant genus)
    Leafy bryophytes grow up to 65 centimetres (2 feet) in height (the moss Dawsonia) or, if reclining, reach lengths of more than 1 metre (3.3 feet; the moss Fontinalis). They are generally less than 3 to 6 centimetres tall, and reclining forms are usually less than 2 centimetres long. Some, however, are less than 1 millimetre in size (the moss Ephemerum). Leaves are arranged......
  • dawsonite (mineral)
    a carbonate mineral, NaAlCO3 (OH)2, that is probably formed by the decomposition of aluminous silicates. Of low-temperature, hydrothermal origin, it occurs in Montreal, where it was first discovered; near Monte Amiata, Tuscany, Italy; and in Algiers. In the oil shale near Green River, Wyo., U.S., it occurs as extensive beds that constitute a source of aluminum. For detailed ...
  • Dawson’s dawn man (anthropological hoax)
    proposed species of extinct hominin (member of the human lineage) whose fossil remains, discovered in England in 1910–12, were later proved to be fraudulent. Piltdown man, whose fossils were sufficiently convincing to generate a scholarly controversy lasting more than 40 years, was one of the most successful hoaxes in the history of science....
  • Dāwūd ibn Khalaf (Muslim theologian)
    This approach to the Islamic tradition was apparently pioneered in Iraq in the 9th century by one Dāwūd ibn Khalaf, though nothing of his work has survived. From Iraq, it spread to Iran, North Africa, and Muslim Spain, where the philosopher Ibn Ḥazm was its chief exponent; much of what is known of early Ẓāhirī theory comes through him. Although it was......
  • Dax (France)
    town, Landes département, Aquitaine région, southwestern France. It lies on the left bank of the Adour River, 88 miles (142 km) southwest of Bordeaux and 50 miles (80 km) north of the Pyrenees frontier with Spain. The town is a spa resort whose thermal springs and mud baths have been noted for the cure of rheumatism since Roman times, when it was know...
  • Daxi culture (ancient culture)
    In the middle and lower Yangtze River valley during the 4th and 3rd millennia, the Daxi and Qujialing cultures shared a significant number of traits, including rice production, ring-footed vessels, goblets with sharply angled profiles, ceramic whorls, and black pottery with designs painted in red after firing. Characteristic Qujialing ceramic objects not generally found in Daxi sites include......
  • Daxing (ancient city, China)
    ancient site, north-central China. Formerly the capital of the Han, Sui, and Tang dynasties, it is located near the present-day city of Xi’an....
  • Daxue (Confucian text)
    brief Chinese text generally attributed to the ancient sage Confucius (551–479 bc) and his disciple Zengzi. For centuries the text existed only as a chapter of the Liji (“Collection of Rituals”), one of the Wujing (“Five Classics”) of Confucianism. ...
  • Daxue Mountains (mountains, China)
    great mountain range in western Sichuan province, southwestern China. These enormously high and rugged mountains were formed around the eastern flank of the ancient stable block of the Plateau of Tibet; their formation occurred during successive foldings that took place in the final phase of the mountain-building process (orogeny) of the ...
  • Daxue Shan (mountains, China)
    great mountain range in western Sichuan province, southwestern China. These enormously high and rugged mountains were formed around the eastern flank of the ancient stable block of the Plateau of Tibet; their formation occurred during successive foldings that took place in the final phase of the mountain-building process (orogeny) of the ...
  • Day (work by Michelangelo)
    The figures are among the artist’s most famous and accomplished creations. The immensely massive Day and Dusk are relatively tranquil in their mountainous grandeur, though Day perhaps implies inner fire. Both female figures have the tall, slim proportions and small feet considered beautiful at the time...
  • day (chronology)
    time required for a celestial body to turn once on its axis; especially the period of the Earth’s rotation. The sidereal day is the time required for the Earth to rotate once relative to the background of the stars—i.e., the time between two observed passages of a star over the same meridian of longitude. The apparent solar day...
  • Day, Arthur L. (American geophysicist)
    U.S. geophysicist known for his studies of the properties of rocks and minerals at very high and very low temperatures. He investigated hot springs and earthquakes, the absolute measurement of high temperatures, and physical and chemical problems regarding volcanoes....
  • Day, Arthur Louis (American geophysicist)
    U.S. geophysicist known for his studies of the properties of rocks and minerals at very high and very low temperatures. He investigated hot springs and earthquakes, the absolute measurement of high temperatures, and physical and chemical problems regarding volcanoes....
  • Day, Benjamin Henry (American journalist and publisher)
    American printer and journalist who founded the New York Sun, the first of the “penny” newspapers in the United States....
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