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  • Gaetulia (region, North Africa)
    ancient district of interior North Africa that in Roman times, at least, was inhabited by wandering tribes, the Gaetuli. The area, not clearly defined, included the southern slopes of the Atlas Mountains, from the Aurès Massif westward as far as the Atlantic; southward it extended to the oases in the northern part of the Sahara. Distinguished from the peoples to the south...
  • Gafencu, Grigore (Romanian diplomat)
    Romanian lawyer, diplomat, journalist, and politician who as foreign minister at the outbreak of World War II tried to maintain Romania’s neutrality....
  • gaff (fishing device)
    ...with material for the line led to the use of a gut string (mentioned by the diarist Samuel Pepys in 1667) and of a lute string (noted by Venables in 1676). The use of a landing hook, now called a gaff, for lifting large hooked fish from the water was noted by Barker in 1667. Improved methods of fishhook making were devised in the 1650s by Charles Kirby, who later invented the Kirby bend, a......
  • Gaffney (South Carolina, United States)
    city, seat of Cherokee county, northern South Carolina, U.S., near the Broad River. Named for Michael Gaffney, an Irish settler who arrived in 1803, it early developed as a resort where plantation owners sought therapeutic treatment at local limestone springs. Its growth as a market centre for cotton (now peaches) and farm produce was sustained by the coming o...
  • Gafsa (Tunisia)
    town situated in west-central Tunisia. The ancient name of the locality is applied to the Mesolithic Capsian industry (locally dated about 6250 bce) of the earliest inhabitants. The original Numidian town was destroyed (106 bce) by the Romans; it was rebuilt later by Trajan and was then successively a centre of By...
  • Gafurov, B. G. (Tajik politician and historian)
    ...Soviet Union, the underdeveloped, mountainous Tajik S.S.R. underwent a spectacular social and economic transformation. A sense of nationhood was instilled in the Tajik people—particularly by B.G. Gafurov, the leader of Tajikistan’s Communist Party from 1946 to 1956 and a historian respected in the West. Dams were constructed for electric power generation and irrigation, and indust...
  • gag rule (United States history)
    in U.S. history, any of a series of congressional resolutions that tabled, without discussion, petitions regarding slavery; passed by the House of Representatives between 1836 and 1840 and repealed in 1844. Abolition petitions, signed by more than 2,000,000 persons, had inundated Congress after the establishment of the American Anti-Slavery Society (1833). Ga...
  • Gág, Wanda Hazel (American writer and artist)
    American artist and author whose dynamic visual style imbued the often commonplace subjects of both her serious art and her illustrated books for children with an intense vitality....
  • gagaku (East Asian music)
    ancient court music. The name is a Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters for elegant music (ya yueh). Such music first appeared in Japan as an import from Korea in the 5th century and had become an established court tradition by the 8th century. The various forms of North Asian, Chinese, Indian, Southeast Asian, and indigenous Japanese music were organized in t...
  • Gagan Singh (Nepalese political intriguer)
    Jung Bahadur, a man of great courage and ability, gained control over the government after killing a usurper, Gagan Singh, who in 1846 had plotted with the junior queen to become prime minister and place her son on the throne. Subsequently, he deposed and exiled both the king and the queen after they had attempted to have him assassinated. He was named prime minister for life and given the......
  • Gagarin (Russia)
    ...pilot in the crash of a two-seat jet aircraft while on what was described as a routine training flight. His ashes were placed in a niche in the Kremlin wall. After his death in 1968 the town of Gzhatsk was renamed Gagarin....
  • Gagarin, Yury Alekseyevich (Soviet cosmonaut)
    Soviet cosmonaut who in 1961 became the first man to travel into space....
  • Gagauz (people)
    ...were formed. The Moldovan majority took the lead in severing ties with Moscow: sovereignty was declared in June 1990, and the independent Republic of Moldova was proclaimed on Aug. 27, 1991. The Gagauz in the south and the Russians east of the Dniester responded by declaring independent republics of their own, mainly as a defense against Moldovan nationalism. The Moldovan majority found......
  • Gagauz People’s Party (political party, Moldova)
    ...Following independence a variety of political parties emerged, many of them later to divide or to merge with other parties or coalitions. Some of these parties are based on ethnicity (including the Gagauz People’s Party) and advocacy of independence or unification with either Romania or Russia. A national referendum on Moldova’s status as an independent country was held on March 6...
  • gage (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...
  • Gage Building (building, Chicago, Illinois, United States)
    ...identified with the Chicago School, such as the so-called Chicago School windows, which resulted in a facade almost entirely made of glass, as in their Marquette Building (1894, Chicago). Their Gage Building (1898, Chicago), with a facade by the brilliant architect Louis Sullivan, was cited as a Chicago architectural landmark in 1962. Although their buildings lack the virtuosity of......
  • Gage, Frances Dana Barker (American social reformer and writer)
    American social reformer and writer who was active in the antislavery, temperance, and women’s rights movements of the mid-19th century....
  • Gage, Matilda Joslyn (American suffragist)
    American women’s rights advocate who helped to lead and publicize the suffrage movement in the United States....
  • Gage, Thomas (British general)
    British general who successfully commanded all British forces in North America for more than 10 years (1763–74) but failed to stem the tide of rebellion as military governor of Massachusetts (1774–75) at the outbreak of the American Revolution....
  • Gagern, Friedrich Ludwig Balduin Karl Moritz, Freiherr von (German military commander)
    Hans Christoph von Gagern’s eldest son, a German soldier and administrator, and military commander of several Dutch provinces, who served as chief of staff during the wars against the Belgian rebels opposing Dutch rule. Returning to Germany, he led the fight against the republican revolutionaries in Baden in 1848....
  • Gagern, Hans Christoph, Freiherr von (German politician and writer)
    conservative German administrator, patriotic politician, and writer who unsuccessfully called for arming the entire German nation during the French Revolutionary Wars. He represented The Netherlands at the Congress of Vienna (1814–15) and favoured restoring the Holy Roman Empire to protect Germany’s smaller principalities from the two large states, Austria and Prussia....
  • Gagern, Heinrich, Freiherr von (German politician)
    second son of Hans Christoph von Gagern, liberal, anti-Austrian German politician and president of the 1848–49 Frankfurt National Assembly, who was one of the leading spokesmen for the Kleindeutsch (Little German) solution to German unification before and during the 1848 revolution....
  • Gagern, Maximilian Joseph Ludwig, Freiherr von (German diplomat and politician)
    10th son of Hans Christoph, liberal Dutch and German diplomat and politician, who played a prominent part in the German Revolution of 1848, attempting to institute the Kleindeutsch (“small German”) solution to German unification, which aimed at excluding Austria’s non-German territories....
  • Gagern, Wilhelm Heinrich August, Freiherr von (German politician)
    second son of Hans Christoph von Gagern, liberal, anti-Austrian German politician and president of the 1848–49 Frankfurt National Assembly, who was one of the leading spokesmen for the Kleindeutsch (Little German) solution to German unification before and during the 1848 revolution....
  • gagging
    ...physiological activity. In the hyperkinetic disorders, the highly coordinated patterns of phonation regress to the primitive, forceful, and exaggerated sphincter action of the larynx as seen during gagging. The result is hyperkinetic dysphonia, the gratingly harsh vocal disorder due to excessive muscular action in a constricted larynx. In the second subtype, the movements for phonation regress....
  • gaggle (animal behaviour)
    Geese pair for life and associate in flocks called gaggles. Simple nests are built on the ground. The rough-surfaced, whitish eggs are incubated for about a month by the hen while the gander stands guard. The downy young fend for themselves almost at once but remain with their parents during the first summer. Geese may survive for 10–15 years in the wild and more than 30 years in......
  • Gaghan, Stephen (American writer and screenwriter)
    Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen: Cameron Crowe for Almost FamousScreenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published: Stephen Gaghan for TrafficCinematography: Peter Pau for Crouching Tiger, Hidden DragonArt Direction: Tim Yip for Crouching Tiger, Hidden DragonOriginal Score: Tan Dun for Crouching Tiger, Hidden......
  • Gagliano, Marco da (Italian composer)
    one of the earliest composers of Italian opera....
  • Gagliardi, John (American coach)
    ...View A&M in Dallas. At the end of the 1997 season, he retired with a lifetime record of 408–165–15. Robinson’s record of 408 career victories stood until 2003, when it was broken by John Gagliardi, coach of St. John’s of Minnesota. The recipient of numerous awards, Robinson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1997....
  • Gagnan, Émile (French engineer)
    Attempts to construct diving apparatus go back to the 19th century, but the sport of scuba, or Aqua-Lung, diving dates from 1943, when Cousteau and the French engineer Émile Gagnan developed the first fully automatic compressed-air Aqua-Lung. Cousteau also did important work on the development of underwater cameras and photography and popularized the sport in Le Monde du silence......
  • Gagnoa (Côte d’Ivoire)
    town, southern Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). It is the chief collecting point for a forest region that sends coffee, cocoa, and timber (sipo and mahogany) to the coast for export and is a major market centre (rice, bananas, and yams) for the Bete and Gagu (Gagou) peoples. A paved road connects Gagnoa with Abidjan, the capital of Côte d...
  • Gagnon, Madeleine (Canadian author)
    ...embedded in the semantic and syntactic conventions of language as well as in the conventions of literary form were exposed in quite a number of works; of note in this endeavour was the work of Madeleine Gagnon (Lueur [1979; "Glimmer"]), France Théoret (Une Voix pour Odile [1978; "A Voice for Odile"]), and Yolande Villemaire (La Vie en prose......
  • Gaguin, Robert (French philosopher)
    Erasmus’ associates in France included the influential humanists Robert Gaguin (1433–1501), Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (c. 1455–1536), and Guillaume Budé (Guglielmus Budaeus, 1467–1540). Of these three, Budé was most central to the development of French humanism, not only in his historical and philological studies but also in his...
  • gagûm (convent)
    ...of the sun god of Sippar furnish a particularly striking example of the fusion of religious service and private economic interest. These women, who lived in a convent called gagûm, came from the city’s leading families and were not allowed to marry. With their property, consisting of land and silver, they engaged in a lively and remunerative business by......
  • Gāhaḍavāla dynasty (India)
    one of the many ruling families of North India on the eve of the Muslim conquests in the 12th–13th century. Its history, ranging between the second half of the 11th century and the mid-13th century, illustrates all the features of early medieval North Indian polity—dynastic hostilities and alliances, feudal-state structure, absolute dependence on Brahminical social ideology, and vul...
  • Gahagan, Helen Mary (American actress and politician)
    American actress and public official whose successful stage career was succeeded by an even more noteworthy period as a politician....
  • Gahal party (political party, Israel)
    ...to the post of chief of staff. When he learned in 1969 that Prime Minister Golda Meir had vetoed his appointment as chief of staff, Weizman resigned his commission. That same year he joined the Gahal party, a forerunner of the Likud, was elected to the Knesset (parliament), and was nominated as the party’s candidate for the Ministry of Transport in a National Unity government. The Gahal....
  • Gahanbar (religion)
    in Zoroastrianism, any of six festivals, occurring at irregular intervals throughout the year, which celebrate the seasons and possibly the six stages in the creation of the world (the heavens, water, the earth, the vegetable world, the animal world, and man). Each lasting five days, the Gahanbars are: Maidhyaōizaremaya (Midspring), occurring in the month of Artavahisht, 41 days after the ...
  • gahapati (landholder)
    The institutional development within these oligarchies suggests a stabilized agrarian economy. Sources mention wealthy householders (gahapatis) employing slaves and hired labourers to work on their lands. The existence of gahapatis suggests the breaking up of clan ownership of land and the emergence of individual......
  • Gahn, Johan Gottlieb (Swedish mineralogist)
    Swedish mineralogist and crystallographer who discovered manganese in 1774. His failure to win fame may be related to the fact that he published little. He saved the notes, papers, and letters of his friend Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who discovered chlorine, but not his own. His essays on the balance and use of the blowpipe in analysis were recorded by Jöns Jacob Berzelius of Sweden. Gahn was as...
  • gahnite (mineral)
    the mineral zinc aluminum oxide, a member of the spinel series....
  • Gahō (Japanese scholar)
    Gahō, Hayashi’s third son (also called Harukatsu), became his father’s successor as chief official scholar; and Dokkōsai, Hayashi’s fourth son (also called Morikatsu), was also employed by the shogunate. During their father’s lifetime they collaborated with him in compiling histories; and after his death they assembled the Hayashi Razan bunshū...
  • Gai Jatra (Hindu festival)
    Festivals in Kathmandu include, in spring, the Shivaratri and the Machendra Jatra with its procession bearing the image of the god Machendra; in late summer, the Gai Jatra (festival of the cow); and, in early autumn, the Indra Jatra, during which the goddess Devi, represented by a young girl, is carried in procession. Pop. (2001) 671,846....
  • gai saber (poetry)
    the art of composing love poetry; especially the art of the Provençal troubadours as set forth in a 14th-century work called the Leys d’amors. The Old Provençal phrase gai saber is associated with the Consistòri del Gai Saber, originally the Sobregaya compannia dels VII Trobadors de Tolosa (“Very Gay Company of the S...
  • “Gai savoir, Le” (film by Godard)
    ...Wiazemsky, he moved from fiction and aesthetic preoccupation to the Marxism of Herbert Marcuse, Che Guevara, Frantz Fanon, and others. Le Gai savoir (1968; The Joy of Knowledge) is a flatly illustrated text spoken by two students named Émile Rousseau and Patricia Lumumba. His texts for the next decade exhibited a complete indifference to....
  • Gai wiio (religion)
    longest-established prophet movement in North America. Its founder was Ganioda’yo, a Seneca chief whose name meant “Handsome Lake”; his heavenly revelations received in trance in 1799 rapidly transformed both himself and the demoralized Seneca. Their Christian beliefs, which came primarily from Quaker contacts, included a personal creator-...
  • Gaia hypothesis (Earth science)
    ...consciousness and a sense of ecological solidarity. The biocentric principle of interconnectedness was extensively developed by British environmentalist James Lovelock, who postulated in Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979) that the planet is a single living, self-regulating entity capable of reestablishing an ecological equilibrium, even without the existence of human......
  • Gaidar, Yegor (Russian politician)
    ...1990s, hundreds of parties were founded, but most were short-lived, as the appeal of many was based solely on the personality of the founder. For example, the liberal party of acting prime minister Yegor Gaidar (1992), Russia’s Choice, floundered once Gaidar was forced out of government at the end of 1992. Chernomyrdin’s party, Our Home Is Russia, suffered a similar fate soon afte...
  • Gaiety (theatre, Manchester, England, United Kingdom)
    In 1908 she began her own repertory theatre, the Gaiety, in Manchester. Good plays—from Greek tragedy to works by Shaw, John Galsworthy, Arnold Bennett, Harley Granville-Barker, and St. John Ervine—a first-rate company, and her own managerial talents made Horniman’s Gaiety famous. The company toured England and the United States, stimulating the formation of other repertory gr...
  • Gaiety Girl, A (work by Edwardesy)
    The first musical comedy to be called so was A Gaiety Girl, staged in 1893 by George Edwardes at the Gaiety Theatre, London. A romantic farce adorned by the songs of Sidney Jones, it was successfully exported to New York in the same year. John Hollingshead (Edwardes’ predecessor at the Gaiety Theatre) wrote in 1903:The invention or discovery of musical comedy was a happy....
  • Gaikwad dynasty (Indian history)
    Indian ruling family and title of its head whose capital was at Baroda in Gujarāt state. The state became a leading power in the 18th-century Marāthā confederacy....
  • Gaikwar dynasty (Indian history)
    Indian ruling family and title of its head whose capital was at Baroda in Gujarāt state. The state became a leading power in the 18th-century Marāthā confederacy....
  • Gailānī, Rashīd ʿĀlī al- (prime minister of Iraq)
    Iraqi lawyer and politician who was prime minister of Iraq (1933, 1940–41, 1941) and one of the most celebrated political leaders of the Arab world during his time....
  • Gailhard, Jean (English author)
    English author of an educational treatise on proper training for the English nobility that is noteworthy for its insights into the educational goals and techniques of the 17th-century English upper classes. Gailhard seems to have spent a number of years as tutor abroad to “several of the nobility and gentry,” but nothing is really known of his life....
  • Gailhard, John (English author)
    English author of an educational treatise on proper training for the English nobility that is noteworthy for its insights into the educational goals and techniques of the 17th-century English upper classes. Gailhard seems to have spent a number of years as tutor abroad to “several of the nobility and gentry,” but nothing is really known of his life....
  • Gaillard, Château (castle, France)
    (French: “Saucy Castle”), 12th-century castle built by Richard the Lion-Heart on the Andelys cliff overlooking the Seine River in France; substantial portions of it still stand. Château Gaillard, the strongest castle of its age, guarded the Seine River valley approach to Normandy. Skillfully designed and executed, with the base of the keep carved out of the natural rock, and w...
  • Gaillard Cut (channel, Panama)
    ...covers an area of 425 square km (164 square miles). The channel through the lake varies in depth from 14 to 26 metres (46 to 85 feet) and extends for about 37 km (23 miles) to Gamboa. At Gamboa, Gaillard (Culebra) Cut through the Continental Divide begins. The channel through the cut has an average depth of about 13 metres (43 feet) and extends some 13 km (8 miles) to the Pedro Miguel Locks.......
  • Gaillard, Eugène (French designer)
    ...and Crafts movement in England (established by the English poet and decorator William Morris to reintroduce idealized standards of medieval craftsmanship), gave rise to original chair designs by Eugène Gaillard in France, Henry van de Velde in Belgium, Josef Hoffman in Austria, Antonio Gaudí in Spain, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Scotland. These new furniture styles did not......
  • Gaillardia (plant genus)
    genus of leafy, branching herbs of the family Asteraceae, native to North America. Several summer-blooming species are cultivated as garden ornamentals, especially blanketflower (G. aristata) and annual blanketflower (G. pulchella; see )....
  • Gaillardia aristata (plant)
    genus of leafy, branching herbs of the family Asteraceae, native to North America. Several summer-blooming species are cultivated as garden ornamentals, especially blanketflower (G. aristata) and annual blanketflower (G. pulchella; see photograph)....
  • Gaillardia pulchella (plant)
    ...of leafy, branching herbs of the family Asteraceae, native to North America. Several summer-blooming species are cultivated as garden ornamentals, especially blanketflower (G. aristata) and annual blanketflower (G. pulchella; see photograph)....
  • Gaillimh (Ireland)
    seaport and county town (seat) of County Galway, western Ireland, located on the northern shore of Galway Bay....
  • Gaillimh (county, Ireland)
    county in the province of Connaught (Connacht), western Ireland. It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean (west) and by Counties Mayo (north), Roscommon (north and east), Offaly (east), Tipperary (southeast), and Clare (south). The eastern two-thirds of Galway is part of the Irish central l...
  • Gaiman, Neil (British writer)
    In the eight years since the conclusion of his groundbreaking Sandman series for DC Comics, Neil Gaiman had established himself as a successful novelist, an outspoken activist for authors’ legal rights, and a creator of children’s tales in the fantastic and macabre tradition of the Brothers Grimm. In 2004 he concluded his best-selling series 1602 for Marvel Comics. The ...
  • Gaimar V (prince of Salerno)
    ...He served as a captain of the Norman army that joined the Lombards in invading Apulia, in southern Italy, and was proclaimed count of Apulia in 1042. The title was confirmed later that year by Gaimar V, the Lombard prince of Salerno, who arranged a marriage between William and his own niece, daughter of the duke of Sorrento. Emerging as the most powerful leader in southern Italy, William,......
  • gain (electronics)
    ...control and measuring instruments, radar, and countless other devices all depend on this basic process of amplification. The overall amplification of a multistage amplifier is the product of the gains of the individual stages....
  • Gaines, Ernest J. (American author)
    American writer whose fiction, as exemplified by The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971), his most acclaimed work, reflects African American experience and the oral tradition of his rural Louisiana childhood....
  • Gaines, Ernest James (American author)
    American writer whose fiction, as exemplified by The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971), his most acclaimed work, reflects African American experience and the oral tradition of his rural Louisiana childhood....
  • Gaines, Joseph (American athlete)
    American professional boxer, known as the Old Master, who was perhaps the greatest fighter in the history of the lightweight division. Because he was black, he was compelled by boxing promoters to permit less-talented white fighters to last the scheduled number of rounds with him and occasionally to defeat him. He was also forced to fight at unnaturally low weights, and, perhaps as a result, he wa...
  • Gaines, Steve (American musician)
    ...(b. July 19, 1952—d. Jan. 23, 1990Jacksonville), Steve Gaines (b. Sept. 14, 1949Seneca, Mo.—d. Oct. 20,......
  • Gaines, William Maxwell (American publisher)
    American publisher who launched Mad magazine (1952), an irreverent monthly with humorous illustrations and writing that satirized mass media, politicians, celebrities, and comic books....
  • Gaines’s Mill, Battle of (American Civil War)
    two engagements of the American Civil War at Cold Harbor, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital....
  • Gainesville (Florida, United States)
    city, seat (1853) of Alachua county, north-central Florida, U.S., about 70 miles (115 km) southwest of Jacksonville. The Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto marched through the area in 1539, and settlement eventually developed around a trading post known as Hog Town (established 1830). In 1853 the city was laid out as the county seat and named...
  • Gainesville (Georgia, United States)
    city, seat (1823) of Hall county, northeastern Georgia, U.S., about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Atlanta. It is located along Lake Sidney Lanier (which is impounded by Buford Dam on the Chattahoochee River), in the foothills of the southern Blue Ridge Mountains. Settled in 1818, it was named for General Edmund P. Gaines, ...
  • Gainful (missile)
    ...in the projectile that was sensitive to the reflected energy then homed onto the target. Like active guidance, semiactive guidance was commonly used for terminal homing. In the U.S. Hawk and Soviet SA-6 Gainful antiaircraft systems, for example, the missile homed in on radar emissions transmitted from the launch site and reflected off the target, measuring the Doppler shift in the reflected......
  • Gainor, Laura (American actress)
    Other Nominees...
  • Gainsborough (racehorse)
    (foaled 1915), English racehorse (Thoroughbred) who won the British Triple Crown, consisting of the Two Thousand Guineas at Newmarket, the Derby at Epsom Downs, and the Saint Leger at Doncaster in 1918. The horse later became a stud of worldwide importance, being the sire of the famous stallion Hyperion. Sired by Bayardo and foaled by Rosedrop, Gainsborough was owned by Lady James Douglas and tra...
  • Gainsborough (England, United Kingdom)
    town, West Lindsey district, administrative and historic county of Lincolnshire, England. It stands on the River Trent, bordering Nottinghamshire. Gainsborough’s early importance as a Saxon settlement was augmented when it became a military centre under the Danes (9th–11th centuries). Its position on a navigable river and a main road between Lond...
  • Gainsborough, Battle of (English history)
    ...to prevent the penetration of Yorkshire Royalists into the eastern counties and decided to counterattack. By re-forming his men in a moment of crisis in the face of an unbeaten enemy, he won the Battle of Gainsborough in Lincolnshire on July 28. On the same day he was appointed governor of the Isle of Ely, a large plateau-like hill rising above the surrounding fens, that was thought of as a......
  • Gainsborough chair
    type of English armchair made in the mid-18th century. A wide chair with a high back, it was normally upholstered in leather. The sides are open, and the short, upholstered arms are set well back from the seat, to which they are connected by a concave curving support. The arm supports and front legs are usually fluted or carved on the front face. The contemporary name was ...
  • Gainsborough, Thomas (English painter)
    portrait and landscape painter, the most versatile English painter of the 18th century. Some of his early portraits show the sitters grouped in a landscape (Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, c. 1750). As he became famous and his sitters fashionable, he adopted a more formal manner that owed something to Anthony Van Dyck (The Blue Boy...
  • Gainza Paz, Alberto (Argentine journalist)
    editor of the influential Buenos Aires daily La Prensa whose opposition to dictator Juan Perón led to the newspaper’s confiscation by the government, 1951–55. He was regarded as a symbol of the struggle for freedom of the press....
  • Gairdner, Lake (lake, South Australia, Australia)
    largest of a group of shallow depressions west of Lake Torrens in central South Australia, 240 miles (386 km) northwest of Adelaide. It measures 100 miles (160 km) long by 30 miles (48 km) wide. Lying at the base of the Eyre Peninsula, the lake is a dry salt pan (playa) intermittently filled with water. Visited in 1857 almost simultaneously by Stephen Hack and Peter E. Warburton...
  • Gairy, Sir Eric Matthew (prime minister of Grenada)
    Grenadan politician (b. Feb. 18, 1922, St. Andrew’s Parish, Grenada--d. Aug. 23, 1997, Grand Anse, Grenada), served as the first prime minister of Grenada after it gained independence from Britain in 1974. Although he was initially viewed as a champion of the working class, he turned into a ruthless dictator who silenced critics by dispatching the "Mongoose Gang," his unique security group....
  • Gaiseric (king of Vandals)
    king of the Vandals and the Alani (428–477) who conquered a large part of Roman Africa and in 455 sacked Rome....
  • gait (animal locomotion)
    The natural gaits of the horse are the walk, the trot, the canter or slow gallop, and the gallop, although in dressage the canter and gallop are not usually differentiated. A riding horse is trained in each gait and in the change from one to another....
  • Gaitán, Jorge Eliécer (Colombian politician)
    political leader who was considered a champion of the Colombian people and was revered as a martyr after his assassination....
  • Gaite de la tour (French music)
    ...a celebration of the dawn. Examples of albas for which music also survives include Reis glorios by Giraut de Bornelh (c. 1140–c. 1200) and the anonymous Gaite de la tor. The minnesingers, the German counterparts of the troubadours, also used the form, calling it Tagelied (“day song”)....
  • Gaîté Parisienne (work by Offenbach)
    ...Rheinnixen. Described as an opéra-fantastique, it was first produced at the Opéra-Comique on Feb. 10, 1881. Gaîté Parisienne, a suite of Offenbach’s music arranged by Manuel Rosenthal, remains a popular orchestral work as well as ballet score....
  • Gaitskell, Hugh Todd Naylor (British statesman)
    British statesman, leader of the British Labour Party from December 1955 until his sudden death at the height of his influence....
  • Gaitskill, Mary (American author)
    ...Shipping News (1993) and Close Range: Wyoming Stories (1999) and Andrea Barrett in Ship Fever (1996). Others focused on relationships between women, including Mary Gaitskill in her witty satiric novel Two Girls, Fat and Thin (1991), written under the influences of Nabokov and Mary McCarthy. Lorrie Moore published rich, idiosyncratic stories as...
  • Gaius (Roman jurist)
    Roman jurist whose writings became authoritative in the late Roman Empire. The Law of Citations (426), issued by the eastern Roman emperor Theodosius II, named Gaius one of five jurists (the others were Papinian, Ulpian, Modestinus, and Paulus) whose doctrines were to be followed by judges in deciding cases. The Institution...
  • Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus (Roman emperor)
    Roman emperor (284–305), who restored efficient government to the empire after the near anarchy of the 3rd century. His reorganization of the fiscal, administrative, and military machinery of the empire laid the foundation for the Byzantine Empire in the East and temporarily shored up the decaying empire in the West. His reign is also noted for the last great persecution ...
  • Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (Roman historian)
    Roman orator and public official, probably the greatest historian and one of the greatest prose stylists who wrote in the Latin language. Among his works are the Germania, describing the Germanic tribes, the Historiae (Histories), concerning the Roman Empire from ad 69 to 96, and the later An...
  • Gaius Julius Caesar (Roman ruler)
    celebrated Roman general and statesman, the conqueror of Gaul (58–50 bc), victor in the Civil War of 49–45 bc, and dictator (46–44 bc), who was launching a series of political and social reforms when he was assassinated by a group of nobles in the Senate House on the Ides of March....
  • Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Roman emperor)
    first Roman emperor, following the republic, which had been finally destroyed by the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, his great-uncle and adoptive father. His autocratic regime is known as the principate because he was the princeps, the first citizen, at the head of that array of outwardly revived republican institutions tha...
  • Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus (emperor of Rome)
    first soldier who rose through the ranks to become Roman emperor (235–238). His reign marked the beginning of a half century of civil war in the empire. Originally from Thrace, he is said to have been a shepherd before enlisting in the army. There his immense strength attracted the attention of Septimius Severus (emperor 193–211)....
  • Gaius Messius Quintus Decius (Roman emperor)
    Roman emperor (249–251) who fought the Gothic invasion of Moesia and instituted the first organized persecution of Christians throughout the empire....
  • Gaius Octavius (Roman emperor)
    first Roman emperor, following the republic, which had been finally destroyed by the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, his great-uncle and adoptive father. His autocratic regime is known as the principate because he was the princeps, the first citizen, at the head of that array of outwardly revived republican institutions tha...
  • Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Roman author)
    Roman author and administrator who left a collection of private letters of great literary charm, intimately illustrating public and private life in the heyday of the Roman Empire....
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