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  • Gatineau (Quebec, Canada)
    city, Outaouais region, southwestern Quebec province, Canada. It is situated on the north bank of the Ottawa River, opposite Ottawa, straddling the mouth of the Gatineau River. The city derives its name from the river, which itself was named for Nicolas Gatineau, a fur trader who reportedly drowned in its waters about 1683. Gatineau was originally a part of Templeton West but wa...
  • Gatineau River (river, Quebec, Canada)
    river in Outaouais region, southwestern Quebec province, Canada. The river rises in a chain of lakes north of Baskatong Reservoir and flows generally southward for 240 miles (390 km) to join the Ottawa River at Hull. It was named for Nicolas Gatineau, a fur trader who is reputed to have drowned there about 1683. Having once served for centuries as a major artery for the lumber t...
  • Gatlinburg (Tennessee, United States)
    city, Sevier county, eastern Tennessee, U.S. It lies about 30 miles (50 km) southeast of Knoxville, at the northwestern entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. English and Scotch-Irish settlers began to arrive along the Little Pigeon River about 1795; by 1835 the settlement was called White Oak Flats. It was renamed in 1860 for Radf...
  • Gatling gun (weapon)
    hand-driven machine gun, the first to solve the problems of loading, reliability, and the firing of sustained bursts. It was invented by Richard J. Gatling during the American Civil War (about 1862). After early experiments with a single barrel using paper cartridges (which had to have a separate percussion cap), he saw in the newly invented brass cartridge (which had its own p...
  • Gatling, Richard Jordan (American inventor)
    American inventor best known for his invention of the Gatling gun, a crank-operated, multibarrel machine gun, which he patented in 1862....
  • Gato (United States submarine class)
    The highly successful U.S. submarine campaign in the Pacific war was waged mainly with the Gato- and Balao-class submarines. These were approximately 311.5 feet long, displaced 1,525 tons, and had diesel-electric machinery for 20-knot surface and nine-knot underwater speeds. The principal difference between the two designs was the 300-foot operating depth for the Gato class and 400-foot depth......
  • Gatooma (Zimbabwe)
    town, central Zimbabwe. Named for nearby Kadoma (Gatooma) Hill, it was constituted a village in 1907 and received municipal status in 1917. Located in a fertile area and on the main road and railway between Harare (formerly Salisbury) and Bulawayo, the town is a commercial centre for agricultural products (cattle, cotton, corn [maize], and tobacco) and manufactures cotton textil...
  • Gatrera (Spain)
    city, Sevilla provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Andalusia, southwestern Spain. It lies southeast of the city of Sevilla on the Arroyo de la Antigua, which is a tributary of the Guadalquivir River....
  • Gatski, Frank (American football player)
    American football player (b. March 18, 1919, Farmington, W.Va.—d. Nov. 22, 2005, Morgantown, W.Va.), blocked for quarterback Otto Graham and running back Marion Motley while playing (1946–56) for the Cleveland Browns professional football team. Nicknamed Gunner for his explosive blocking, Gatski was the centre on the offensive lines that pushed the Browns to four All-America Football...
  • Gatski, Gunner (American football player)
    American football player (b. March 18, 1919, Farmington, W.Va.—d. Nov. 22, 2005, Morgantown, W.Va.), blocked for quarterback Otto Graham and running back Marion Motley while playing (1946–56) for the Cleveland Browns professional football team. Nicknamed Gunner for his explosive blocking, Gatski was the centre on the offensive lines that pushed the Browns to four All-America Football...
  • GATT (international relations)
    set of multilateral trade agreements aimed at the abolition of quotas and the reduction of tariff duties among the contracting nations. When GATT was concluded by 23 countries at Geneva, in 1947 (to take effect on Jan. 1, 1948), it was considered an interim arrangement pending the formation of a United Nations agency to supersede it. When such an agency failed to emerge, GATT wa...
  • Gattamelata (sculpture by Donatello)
    ...pairs of bronze doors for the sacristies of the cathedral, he was lured to Padua by a commission for a bronze equestrian statue of a famous Venetian condottiere, Erasmo da Narmi, popularly called Gattamelata (“The Honeyed Cat”), who had died shortly before. Such a project was unprecedented—indeed, scandalous—for since the days of the Roman Empire bronze equestrian......
  • Gattinara, Mercurino (Italian statesman and Roman Catholic cardinal)
    ...and bring the heretic to his deserved judgment. Charles shared Aleandro’s sentiment but realized that the idea of giving Luther a hearing enjoyed widespread support in Germany. Charles’s adviser Mercurino Gattinara, mindful of the need for good relations with the estates (the three main orders of society—clergy, nobility, and townspeople), repeatedly urged the emperor not t...
  • Gatton (Queensland, Australia)
    town and shire, southern Queensland, Australia. It lies along Lockyer Creek, about 58 miles (93 km) west of Brisbane. Probably named after Gattonside near Roxburgh in the Borders region, Scotland, it was gazetted as the site for a village in 1855 and by 1858 was a place of call for travelers between Brisbane and the Darling Downs. Gatton is now the service centre for a mixed-far...
  • “gattopardo, Il” (novel by Tomasi di Lampedusa)
    Italian author, duke of Palma, and prince of Lampedusa, internationally renowned for his only completed novel, Il gattopardo (1958; The Leopard)....
  • Gatty, Harold (American aviator)
    Post, accompanied by navigator Harold Gatty, made his first around-the-world flight from June 23 to July 1, 1931, in a Lockheed Vega named Winnie Mae (now part of the Smithsonian Institution’s collection), completing the voyage in 8 days, 15 hours, 51 minutes; later that year their account of the trip was published as Around the World in Eight Days. Two years later...
  • Gatún Dam (dam, Panama)
    ...power. Below the dam it continues southwest to Gamboa, where it joins the Panama Canal at the north end of the Gaillard Cut. Its course then turns northward through Gatún Lake, created by the Gatún Dam (1912) with which are associated locks and a hydroelectric plant. The Chagres there leaves the canal and flows into the Caribbean Sea west of Limón Bay. Originally......
  • Gatun Lake (lake, Panama)
    long artificial lake in Panama, constituting part of the Panama Canal system; its area is 166 square miles (430 square km). It was formed by damming the Chagres River and its smaller affluents at Gatun at the north end of the lake. Its dam (completed 1912) and spillway, a key structure of the Panama Canal, operate at a range of 5 feet (1.5 m) between water levels of 87 and 82 feet (26.5 and 25 m) ...
  • Gatún Locks (locks, Panama Canal)
    ...to one of its lowest points. The canal does not, as is generally supposed, cross the isthmus from east to west. It runs due south from its entrance at Colón on the Atlantic side through the Gatún Locks to a point in the widest portion of Gatún Lake; it then turns sharply toward the east and follows a course generally to the southeast until it reaches the Bay of Panama, on.....
  • gau (administrative region)
    ...ones (Herstal, Meerssen, Nijmegen, Aix-la-Chapelle) and where they also possessed extensive crown estates. Their authority (bannus) was delegated to counts who had control of counties, or gauen (pagi), some of which corresponded to Roman civitates. Among these counties in the Low Countries were the pagus Taruanensis (centred on Thérouanne), pagus...
  • Gaua (island, Vanuatu)
    largest of the Banks Islands in Vanuatu, southwestern Pacific Ocean. The island, with an area of 132 square miles (342 square km), is rugged and rises to Garet, an active volcano (2,615 feet [797 metres]) that contains a lake in its caldera at 1,404 feet (428 metres). The volcano has had several minor eruptions since 1962. The mostly Melanes...
  • Gauburge, Saint (Frankish abbess)
    abbess and missionary who, with her brothers Willibald of Eichstätt and Winebald of Heidenheim, was important in St. Boniface’s organization of the Frankish church....
  • Gaucher disease (disease)
    rare inherited metabolic disorder characterized by anemia, mental and neurologic impairment, yellowish pigmentation of the skin, enlargement of the spleen, and bone deterioration resulting in pathological fractures. Gaucher disease was initially described in 1882 by French physician Philippe Charles Ernest Gaucher. Gaucher disease is inherited as an autosomal ...
  • Gaucher, Yves (Canadian artist)
    Canadian abstract artist (b. Jan. 3, 1934, Montreal, Que.—d. Sept. 8, 2000, Montreal), was a painter, printmaker, and collagist who was best known for creating massive monochromatic paintings, many of them inspired by atonal music; late in his life a shoulder injury and other health concerns caused him to scale back the size of his works, and he returned to his earlier pursuit of producing ...
  • Gaucher’s disease (disease)
    rare inherited metabolic disorder characterized by anemia, mental and neurologic impairment, yellowish pigmentation of the skin, enlargement of the spleen, and bone deterioration resulting in pathological fractures. Gaucher disease was initially described in 1882 by French physician Philippe Charles Ernest Gaucher. Gaucher disease is inherited as an autosomal ...
  • Gauches, Cartel des (French political historian)
    (French: “Coalition of the Left”), in the French Third Republic (1870–1940), a coalition of left-wing parties in the Chamber of Deputies (lower house of the legislature). It governed France from 1924 to 1926....
  • gaucho (South American history)
    the nomadic and colourful horseman and cowhand of the Argentine and Uruguayan Pampas (grasslands), who flourished from the mid-18th to the mid-19th century and has remained a folk hero similar to the cowboy in western North America. The term also has been used to refer to cowhands and other people of Rio Grande do Sul state in Brazil....
  • gaucho literature (South American literature)
    Spanish American poetic genre that imitates the payadas (“ballads”) traditionally sung to guitar accompaniment by the wandering gaucho minstrels of Argentina and Uruguay. By extension, the term includes the body of South American literature that treats the way of life and philosophy of the itinerant gauchos. Long a part of So...
  • Gaucho Martin Fierro, The (work by Hernández)
    ...self-reliance, courage, indifference to hardship, and love of the land—traits that represented the ideal of their national character as set out in the national epic poem El gaucho Martin Fierro (1872) by José Hernández, in Ricardo Güiraldes’s fictional classic Don Segunda Sombra (1926), and in works by Domingo Faustino...
  • Gaucín, Doña María de (Spanish nun and matadora)
    ...Cossio, the bullfighters’ Boswell—is in 1654. An etching by Francisco Goya depicts the “manly courage” of La Pajuelera as she performed in the Zaragoza (Spain) arena. Even a nun, Doña María de Gaucín, supposedly left a convent to become a bullfighter. According to Havelock Ellis in The Soul of Spain (1908), this ......
  • Gauḍa (Indian literary style)
    From early times the inhabitants of Gauḍa were known as seafarers. In literature, the poetic style Gauḍa or Gauḍī, also known as Prācyā (eastern), is described by Daṇḍin in his work on poetics, Kāvyādarśa....
  • Gauḍa (ancient city, India)
    a city, a country, and a literary style in ancient India. The city is better-known under its Anglicized form, Gaur. Its first recorded reference is by the grammarian Pāṇini (5th century bc), and its location may be inferred to have been in eastern India....
  • Gauḍa-vadha (work by Vākpati)
    ...of Harsha, the kingdom of Kannauj entered a period of decline until the early 8th century, when it revived with the rise of Yashovarman, who is eulogized in the Prakrit poem Gauda-vadha (“The Slaying of [the King of] Gauda”) by Vakpati. Yashovarman came into conflict with Lalitaditya, the king of Kashmir of the Karkota dynasty, and appears to have been...
  • Gauḍapāda (Indian philosopher)
    ...person). There are, however, pre-Śaṅkara monistic interpreters of the scriptures, three of whom are important: Bhartṛhari, Maṇḍana (both mentioned earlier), and Gauḍapāda. Śaṅkara referred to Gauḍapāda as the teacher of his own teacher Govinda, complimented him for having recovered the advaita (nondualism)......
  • Gaudeamus! (work by Scheffel)
    ...novels of the century. His other works include Hugideo (1884), a historical novel set in the 5th century; Frau Aventiure (1863; “Lady Adventure”), a book of verse; and Gaudeamus! (1868), a collection of student songs. Scheffel’s writings eventually fell out of favour with the critics, who viewed them as cloying and trivial....
  • Gauḍī (Indian literary style)
    From early times the inhabitants of Gauḍa were known as seafarers. In literature, the poetic style Gauḍa or Gauḍī, also known as Prācyā (eastern), is described by Daṇḍin in his work on poetics, Kāvyādarśa....
  • Gaudí, Antoni (Spanish architect)
    Catalan architect, whose distinctive style is characterized by freedom of form, voluptuous colour and texture, and organic unity. Gaudí worked almost entirely in or near Barcelona. Much of his career was occupied with the construction of the Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family (Sagrada Família), which was unfinished at his death in 1926....
  • Gaudí i Cornet, Antoni (Spanish architect)
    Catalan architect, whose distinctive style is characterized by freedom of form, voluptuous colour and texture, and organic unity. Gaudí worked almost entirely in or near Barcelona. Much of his career was occupied with the construction of the Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family (Sagrada Família), which was unfinished at his death in 1926....
  • Gaudí y Cornet, Antonio (Spanish architect)
    Catalan architect, whose distinctive style is characterized by freedom of form, voluptuous colour and texture, and organic unity. Gaudí worked almost entirely in or near Barcelona. Much of his career was occupied with the construction of the Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family (Sagrada Família), which was unfinished at his death in 1926....
  • Gaudier, Henri (French sculptor)
    French artist who was one of the earliest abstract sculptors and an exponent of the Vorticist movement; he was instrumental in introducing modern art to England during the early years of the 20th century....
  • Gaudier-Brzeska, Henri (French sculptor)
    French artist who was one of the earliest abstract sculptors and an exponent of the Vorticist movement; he was instrumental in introducing modern art to England during the early years of the 20th century....
  • Gaudin, Lucien (French fencer)
    French fencer. One of the great classical fencers of the 20th century, Gaudin was once described as “poetry in motion” for his seemingly effortless control of his blade through “finger play.” The left-handed Gaudin was a top world competitor in foil and épée throughout the 1920s. He was the second fe...
  • Gaudin, Martin-Michel-Charles, duc de Gaëte (French finance minister)
    French finance minister throughout the French Consulate and the First Empire (1799–1814) and founder of the Bank of France (1800)....
  • Gaudio, Gaetano (Italian-American cinematographer)
    Screenplay: Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney for The Story of Louis PasteurOriginal Story: Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney for The Story of Louis PasteurCinematography: Gaetano Gaudio for Anthony AdverseArt Direction: Richard Day for DodsworthScoring: Warner Bros. Studio Music Department, Leo Forbstein, head of department, for Anthony AdverseSong:......
  • Gaudio, Gaetano Antonio (Italian-American cinematographer)
    Screenplay: Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney for The Story of Louis PasteurOriginal Story: Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney for The Story of Louis PasteurCinematography: Gaetano Gaudio for Anthony AdverseArt Direction: Richard Day for DodsworthScoring: Warner Bros. Studio Music Department, Leo Forbstein, head of department, for Anthony AdverseSong:......
  • Gaudio, Tony (Italian-American cinematographer)
    Screenplay: Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney for The Story of Louis PasteurOriginal Story: Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney for The Story of Louis PasteurCinematography: Gaetano Gaudio for Anthony AdverseArt Direction: Richard Day for DodsworthScoring: Warner Bros. Studio Music Department, Leo Forbstein, head of department, for Anthony AdverseSong:......
  • gauen (administrative region)
    ...ones (Herstal, Meerssen, Nijmegen, Aix-la-Chapelle) and where they also possessed extensive crown estates. Their authority (bannus) was delegated to counts who had control of counties, or gauen (pagi), some of which corresponded to Roman civitates. Among these counties in the Low Countries were the pagus Taruanensis (centred on Thérouanne), pagus...
  • Gaugamela, Battle of (331 BC)
    (Oct. 1, 331 bc) clash between the forces of Alexander the Great of Macedonia and Darius III of Persia that decided the fate of the Persian empire. Attempting to stop Alexander’s incursion into the Persian empire, Darius prepared a battleground on the Plain of Gaugamela, near Arbela (present-day Irbīl in northern Iraq), and posted h...
  • gauge (firearms)
    a measure of the bore of a shotgun. See bore....
  • gauge (railroad track)
    in railroad transportation, the width between the inside faces of running rails. Because the cost of construction and operation of a rail line is greater or less depending on the gauge, much controversy has surrounded decisions in respect to it, and a proliferation of gauges has developed throughout the world. A narrow gauge has, in addition to cost advantages, a capability for sharper curvature; ...
  • gauge (instrument)
    in manufacturing and engineering, a device used to determine, either directly or indirectly, whether a dimension is larger or smaller than another dimension that is used as a reference standard. Some devices termed gauges may actually measure the size of the object to be gauged, but most gauges merely indicate whether the dimensions of the test object are sufficiently close to those of the standar...
  • gauge block (measurement device)
    Gauge blocks, also known as Johannsson blocks, after their inventor, came into significant industrial use during World War I. They are small steel blocks, usually rectangular, with two exceptionally flat surfaces parallel to each other and a specified distance apart. They are sold as sets of blocks that can be wrung together in increments of ten-thousandths of an inch to gauge almost any linear......
  • gauge boson (physics)
    In addition to the Higgs particle, or particles, electroweak theory also predicts the existence of an electrically neutral carrier for the weak force. This neutral carrier, called the Z0, should mediate the neutral current interactions—weak interactions in which electric charge is not transferred between particles. The search for evidence of such reactions, which would confirm......
  • gauge field theory (physics)
    class of quantum field theory, a mathematical theory involving both quantum mechanics and Einstein’s special theory of relativity that is commonly used to describe subatomic particles and their associated wave fields. In a gauge theory there is a group of transformations of the field variables (gauge transformations) that leaves the basic physics of the quantum field unchanged. This condit...
  • gauge invariance (physics)
    ...wave fields. In a gauge theory there is a group of transformations of the field variables (gauge transformations) that leaves the basic physics of the quantum field unchanged. This condition, called gauge invariance, gives the theory a certain symmetry, which governs its equations. In short, the structure of the group of gauge transformations in a particular gauge theory entails general......
  • gauge length
    ...set of grips to grasp the test piece. In the static tension test, the test machine uniformly stretches a small part (the test section) of the test piece. The length of the test section (called the gauge length) is measured at different loads with a device called an extensometer; these measurements are used to compute strain....
  • gauge pressure (physics)
    The reading on a gauge, which is the difference between two pressures, is known as the gauge pressure. If the lower of the pressures is the pressure of the atmosphere, the total, or absolute, pressure is the sum of the gauge and atmospheric pressures....
  • gauge symmetry (physics)
    ...that the force varies in strength and direction around the magnet. The appropriate fields for the four basic forces appear to have an important property in common: they all exhibit what is known as gauge symmetry. Put simply, this means that certain changes can be made that do not affect the basic structure of the field. It also implies that the relevant physical laws are the same in different....
  • gauge theory (physics)
    class of quantum field theory, a mathematical theory involving both quantum mechanics and Einstein’s special theory of relativity that is commonly used to describe subatomic particles and their associated wave fields. In a gauge theory there is a group of transformations of the field variables (gauge transformations) that leaves the basic physics of the quantum field unchanged. This condit...
  • gauge transformation (physics)
    ...special theory of relativity that is commonly used to describe subatomic particles and their associated wave fields. In a gauge theory there is a group of transformations of the field variables (gauge transformations) that leaves the basic physics of the quantum field unchanged. This condition, called gauge invariance, gives the theory a certain symmetry, which governs its equations. In......
  • gauging station (hydrology)
    site on a stream, canal, lake, or reservoir where systematic observations of gauge height (water level) or discharge are obtained. From the continuous records obtained at these stations, hydrologists make predictions and decisions concerning water level, flood activity and control, navigation, and the like. Among the measuring devices used are a staff gauge, which is a graduated scale anchored in...
  • Gaugler, William (American fencing master)
    American fencing master. He was one of the most prominent and respected students of the great Italian fencer Aldo Nadi. In 1979 Gaugler established a fencing master’s training program at San José State University in California, where he also taught as a member of the archaeology department. By 1988 the fencing program had become the first interna...
  • Gauguin, Eugène-Henri-Paul (French painter)
    French painter, printmaker, and sculptor who sought to achieve a “primitive” expression of spiritual and emotional states in his work. The artist, whose work has been categorized as Post-Impressionist, Synthetist, and Symbolist, is particularly well known for his creative relationship with Vincent van Gogh, as well as for his self-imposed exile in Tahiti, French Polynesia. His artist...
  • Gauguin, Paul (French painter)
    French painter, printmaker, and sculptor who sought to achieve a “primitive” expression of spiritual and emotional states in his work. The artist, whose work has been categorized as Post-Impressionist, Synthetist, and Symbolist, is particularly well known for his creative relationship with Vincent van Gogh, as well as for his self-imposed exile in Tahiti, French Polynesia. His artist...
  • Gauhati (India)
    city, western Assam state, northeastern India. It lies along the Brahmaputra River and is picturesquely situated with an amphitheatre of wooded hills to the south. Guwāhāti was the capital of the Hindu kingdom of Kāmarūpa (under the name of Prāgjyotiṣa) around ad 400. In the 17th century the town repeatedly changed hands be...
  • Gaul (ancient region, Europe)
    the region inhabited by the ancient Gauls, comprising modern-day France and parts of Belgium, western Germany, and northern Italy. A Celtic race, the Gauls lived in an agricultural society divided into several tribes ruled by a landed class....
  • Gaul (people)
    ...isolated area west of the Pyrenees in both Spain and France, who speak a language unrelated to other European languages, and whose origin remains unclear. The Celtic tribes, known to the Romans as Gauls, spread from central Europe in the period 500 bc–ad 500 to provide France with a major component of its population, especially in the centre and west. At the f...
  • Gaul, Charly (Luxembourger cyclist)
    Luxembourgian cyclist (b. Dec. 8, 1932, Luxembourg—d. Dec. 6, 2005, Luxembourg), was one of international cycling’s greatest climbing specialists; in 1990, long after his retirement, he was named Luxembourg’s Sportsman of the 20th Century. During his 12-year career (1953–65), the “angel of the mountains” raced in the Tour de France 10 times, won 10 stages,...
  • Gaul, Narbonese (Roman province)
    ancient Roman province that lay between the Alps, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Cévennes Mountains. It comprised what is now southeastern France....
  • Gaule (ancient region, Europe)
    the region inhabited by the ancient Gauls, comprising modern-day France and parts of Belgium, western Germany, and northern Italy. A Celtic race, the Gauls lived in an agricultural society divided into several tribes ruled by a landed class....
  • Gauleiter (German official)
    ...Heinrich Himmler, head of the unified police system. Also directly responsible to (and selected by) the Führer were many territorial leaders (43 in greater Germany) known as Gauleiter (“district leaders”). ...
  • Gaulish language
    ancient Celtic language or languages spoken in western and central Europe and Asia Minor before about 500. Gaulish is attested by inscriptions from France and northern Italy and by names occurring in classical literature. Modern knowledge of the vocabulary and sounds of Gaulish is slight, and its exact relation to the Celtic languages of Britain and Ireland is not clear. ...
  • Gaulle, Charles André Joseph Marie de (president of France)
    French soldier, writer, statesman, and architect of France’s Fifth Republic....
  • Gaulle, Charles de (president of France)
    French soldier, writer, statesman, and architect of France’s Fifth Republic....
  • Gaulli, Giovanni Battista (Italian painter)
    leading Roman Baroque painter of the second half of the 17th century....
  • Gaullistes (political party, France)
    former French political party formed by Jacques Chirac in 1976 that presumed to be heir to the traditions of Charles de Gaulle. It was the direct successor to the Gaullist coalitions, operating under various names over the years, that had dominated the political life of the Fifth Republic under presidents de Gaulle (1958–69) and Georges Pompido...
  • Gaullists (political party, France)
    former French political party formed by Jacques Chirac in 1976 that presumed to be heir to the traditions of Charles de Gaulle. It was the direct successor to the Gaullist coalitions, operating under various names over the years, that had dominated the political life of the Fifth Republic under presidents de Gaulle (1958–69) and Georges Pompido...
  • Gault, Henri André Paul Victor (French critic)
    French food critic (b. Nov. 4, 1929, Pacy-sur-Eure, France—d. July 9, 2000, Saint-Sulpice-en-Pareds, France), collaborated with Christian Millau on the Guide Gault-Millau, an annual restaurant guide founded in 1969 as a rival for the already well-established Michelin guidebook. In 1973 Gault-Millau coined the term nouvelle cuisine to describe the light...
  • Gaultheria (plant genus)
    genus of 235 species of upright or prostrate evergreen shrubs, of the heath family (Ericaceae), occurring in North and South America, Asia, Malesia, Australia, and New Zealand. The plants are distinguished by usually alternate, ovate leaves, white or pink flowers, and round fruit that contains numerous minute seeds. Most plants have dry fruits, but these are completely surrounded by the sepals, wh...
  • Gaultheria hispidula (plant)
    ...procumbens, commonly known as checkerberry, teaberry, or wintergreen, is a creeping shrub with white, bell-shaped flowers, spicy red fruits, and shiny, aromatic leaves. G. hispidula, or creeping snowberry, is a mat-forming evergreen with small, pointed leaves that give a spicy odour when crushed....
  • Gaultheria procumbens (Gaultheria species)
    ...slender, diffuse shrub of the California redwood forests; it grows 0.3–1.8 metres (1–6 feet) tall and has dark-purple edible fruits. G. procumbens, commonly known as checkerberry, teaberry, or wintergreen, is a creeping shrub with white, bell-shaped flowers, spicy red fruits, and shiny, aromatic leaves. G. hispidula, or creeping snowberry, is a mat-forming evergreen....
  • Gaultheria shallon (plant)
    ...fruits, but these are completely surrounded by the sepals, which are fleshy and white or pink. A few species, previously placed in the genus Pernettya, have berries. G. shallon, the salal or lemonleaf of florists, is a slender, diffuse shrub of the California redwood forests; it grows 0.3–1.8 metres (1–6 feet) tall and has dark-purple edible fruits. G.......
  • Gaultier de Varennes, et de La Vérendrye, Pierre (French-Canadian soldier and explorer)
    French-Canadian soldier, fur trader, and explorer whose exploits, little honoured during his lifetime, rank him as one of the greatest explorers of the Canadian West. Moreover, the string of trading posts he and his sons built in the course of their search for an overland route to the “western sea” broke the monopoly of the London-based Hudson’s Bay Company and strengthened, f...
  • Gaultier, Denis (French composer)
    celebrated lute virtuoso whose style influenced the French school of harpsichord music....
  • Gaultier le Jeune (French composer)
    celebrated lute virtuoso whose style influenced the French school of harpsichord music....
  • Gaulus (island, Malta)
    second largest of the Maltese islands (after the island of Malta), in the Mediterranean Sea, 3 14 mi (5 14 km) northwest of the nearest point of Malta. It is 9 mi long and 4 12 mi wide and has an area of 26 sq mi (67 sq km). Its principal town, Victoria, formerly called Rabat...
  • Gaumata (Persian pretender)
    ...Cyrus, who had usurped the throne the previous March. In the Bīsitūn inscription Darius defended this deed and his own assumption of kingship on the grounds that the usurper was actually Gaumata, a Magian, who had impersonated Bardiya after Bardiya had been murdered secretly by Cambyses. Darius therefore claimed that he was restoring the kingship to the rightful Achaemenid house. ...
  • Gaumont, Léon (film producer)
    Pathé’s only serious rival on the Continent at this time was Gaumont Pictures, founded by the engineer-inventor Léon Gaumont in 1895. Though never more than one-fourth the size of Pathé, Gaumont followed the same pattern of expansion, manufacturing its own equipment and mass-producing films under a supervising director (through 1906, Alice Guy, the cinema’s first...
  • Gaumont Pictures (French company)
    ...(Many historians support Guy’s claim that her fairy tale preceded the story films of Georges Méliès, but a few date her film to as late as 1900.) She soon thereafter became the Gaumont film company’s head of production, directing nearly all the Gaumont films made until 1905, when the company’s growth necessitated her hiring additional directors....
  • Gaumukh River (river, India)
    ...level in an ice cave at the foot of the Himalayan glacier known as Gangotri. Gangotri itself is a sacred place for Hindu pilgrimage. The true source of the Ganges, however, is considered to be at Gaumukh, about 13 miles southeast of Gangotri....
  • Gaung, U (Myanmar statesman)
    ...further trouble, he signed a commercial treaty in 1867 that gave the British generous economic concessions in the unoccupied parts of Myanmar. In 1872 he sent his chief minister, the Kinwun Mingyi U Gaung, on a diplomatic mission to London, Paris, and Rome to secure international recognition of Myanmar’s status as an independent country and to appeal for restoration of its lost territory...
  • Gaunilo (Benedictine monk)
    Benedictine monk of the Marmoutier Abbey near Tours, France, who opposed St. Anselm of Canterbury’s ontological argument for God’s existence....
  • Gaunilon (Benedictine monk)
    Benedictine monk of the Marmoutier Abbey near Tours, France, who opposed St. Anselm of Canterbury’s ontological argument for God’s existence....
  • Gaunt, John of (English prince)
    English prince, fourth but third surviving son of the English king Edward III and Philippa of Hainaut; he exercised a moderating influence in the political and constitutional struggles of the reign of his nephew Richard II. He was the immediate ancestor of the three 15th-century Lancastrian monarchs, Henry IV, V, and VI. The term Gaunt, a corruption of the name of his birthplace...
  • gauntlet (armour)
    By the early 13th century European amourers had learned to make mail with a sufficiently fine mesh to provide protection to the hand. At first this was in the form of mittens with a leather-lined hole in the palm through which the knight could thrust his hand when out of action; by mid-century the armourer’s skill had developed to the point of making complete gloves of mail....
  • gaur (mammal)
    (Bos gaurus), one of several species of wild cattle, family Bovidae (order Artiodactyla). The gaur lives in small herds in the mountain forests of India, Southeast Asia, and the Malay Peninsula. Larger than any other wild cattle, it attains a shoulder height of 1.8 m (6 feet) or more. It is heavy-bodied and typically blue-eyed and has curving horns, a high ridge on the forepart of the back...
  • Gaur (ancient city, India)
    a city, a country, and a literary style in ancient India. The city is better-known under its Anglicized form, Gaur. Its first recorded reference is by the grammarian Pāṇini (5th century bc), and its location may be inferred to have been in eastern India....
  • Gaur Rājput (Indian clan)
    town, northwestern Madhya Pradesh state, central India. The town and fort were founded in 1537 by Gaur Rājputs (a warrior caste) and served as capital of the former Sheopur princely state. A road junction and rail terminus, it is an important produce market known also for its lacquered woodwork; playing cards are also manufactured. Sheopur has a hospital and a college affiliated with......
  • Gaurāṇga (Hindu mystic)
    Hindu mystic whose mode of worshipping the god Krishna (Kṛṣṇa) with ecstatic song and dance had a profound effect on Vaiṣṇavism in Bengal....
  • Gaurī Somnāth (temple, Godarpura, India)
    ...mostly of the 14th and 18th centuries. The Omkar temple, on an island in the river, contains one of the 12 great Śiva (Shiva) phallic symbols, or lingas; another linga stands outside the Gaurī Somnāth temple. The temples on the island are Śaivite, but there are Vaiṣṇavite and Jaina temples on the north bank, and on the south stands one of......
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