A-Z Browse

  • ḥarīm
    in Muslim countries, the part of a house set apart for the women of the family. The word ḥarīmī is used collectively to refer to the women themselves. Zanāna (from the Persian word zan, “woman”) is the term used for the harem in India, ...
  • Harimandir (temple, Amritsar, India)
    the chief gurdwārā, or house of worship, of the Sikhs of India and their most important pilgrimage site; it is located in the city of Amritsar, in Punjab state. The Harimandir was built in 1604 by Gurū Arjun, who symbolically had it placed on a lower level so that even the humblest had to step down to enter it, and with entrances on...
  • Häring, Bernhard (German theologian)
    German Roman Catholic liberal theologian whose beliefs in pacifism, ecumenism, and freedom of conscience were set forth in some 80 books and 1,000 articles; his 1954 three-volume The Law of Christ was a best-seller in Germany and was translated into more than 12 languages (b. Nov. 10, 1912, Böttingen, Ger.--d. July 3, 1998, Gars am Inn, Ger.)....
  • Haring Dam (dam, The Netherlands)
    ...during the disastrous tidal surge floods of February 1953. As part of the Delta Plan for land reclamation and both Rhine and tidal flood protection, a dam with numerous sluices was completed at the Haring’s mouth in 1970. A large lock built as part of the Haring Dam allows the channel to remain open to shipping....
  • Haring Estuary (channel, The Netherlands)
    freshwater channel, southwestern Netherlands. A distributary of the Hollands Diep, it ultimately (through other streams) has its origin in the Lower Rhine (Neder Rijn) River. The Haring flows for about 20 miles (32 km) between the joined islands of Voorne and Putten and the island of Beijerland to the north and the joined islands of Goeree and Overflakkee to the south. It discharges into the North...
  • Häring, Georg Wilhelm Heinrich (German writer)
    German writer and critic best known for his historical novels about Brandenburg and Prussia....
  • Haring, Keith (American artist)
    American graphic artist and designer who popularized some of the strategies and impulses of graffiti art....
  • Haringey (borough, London, United Kingdom)
    inner borough of London, part of the historic county of Middlesex. It is located north of Islington and Hackney and south of Enfield. Haringey was established in 1965 by the amalgamation of the former boroughs of Hornsey, Tottenham, and Wood Green. Haringey includes such districts and ...
  • Haringhata (estuary, Bangladesh)
    ...to empty into the Bay of Bengal. In its upper course it is called the Garai; in its lower course it is known as the Baleswar; and its estuary mouth, which is some 9 miles (14 km) wide, is called the Haringhata. The Madhumati is one of the largest of the Padma distributaries in the southern part of the Gangetic Plain, and it offers the best navigation conditions of any river at the head of the.....
  • Harington, James (British philosopher)
    English political philosopher whose major work, The Common-wealth of Oceana (1656), was a restatement of Aristotle’s theory of constitutional stability and revolution....
  • Harington, Sir John (English author)
    English Elizabethan courtier, translator, author, and wit who also invented the flush toilet....
  • Haringvliet (channel, The Netherlands)
    freshwater channel, southwestern Netherlands. A distributary of the Hollands Diep, it ultimately (through other streams) has its origin in the Lower Rhine (Neder Rijn) River. The Haring flows for about 20 miles (32 km) between the joined islands of Voorne and Putten and the island of Beijerland to the north and the joined islands of Goeree and Overflakkee to the south. It discharges into the North...
  • Hariot, Thomas (English mathematician and astronomer)
    mathematician, astronomer, and investigator of the natural world....
  • Haripunjaya (ancient kingdom, Thailand)
    an ancient Mon kingdom centred in the Mae Nam (river) Ping Valley in northwestern Thailand. It was founded in the mid-7th century by a queen of Lopburi, the capital of the Mon Dvaravati kingdom to the south. Although originally established as a colony of Dvaravati, Haripunjaya maintained its independence and its own ruling dynasties as a member of a loose confederation includin...
  • harira (food)
    ...daily staple. The premier Moroccan food, however, is couscous, a semolina-based pasta served with a meat stew. Kabobs of various types are common, as are salads and soups. Harira, a thick and hearty lamb soup, is served to break the fast at Ramadan and is a national speciality. The national drink is mint tea. Morocco is a wine-producing country, but......
  • Ḥarīrī, al- (Islamic scholar)
    scholar of Arabic language and literature and government official who is primarily known for the refined style and wit of his collection of tales, the Maqāmāt, published in English as The Assemblies of al-Harîrî (1867, 1898)....
  • Hariri, Rafiq al- (prime minister of Lebanon)
    Lebanese businessman, politician, and philanthropist who, as prime minister of Lebanon (1992–98; 2000–04), was instrumental in rebuilding the country after its protracted civil war. His assassination in 2005 fomented political tensions between Lebanon and Syria....
  • Hariri, Rafiq Bahaa Edine al- (prime minister of Lebanon)
    Lebanese businessman, politician, and philanthropist who, as prime minister of Lebanon (1992–98; 2000–04), was instrumental in rebuilding the country after its protracted civil war. His assassination in 2005 fomented political tensions between Lebanon and Syria....
  • Ḥarīrī, Tall al- (ancient city, Syria)
    ancient Mesopotamian city situated on the right bank of the Euphrates River in what is now Syria. Excavations, initially directed by André Parrot and begun in 1933, uncovered remains extending from about 3100 bc to the 7th century ad....
  • Harīrūd (river, Central Asia)
    river, Central Asia. It rises on the western slopes of the rugged Selseleh-ye Kūh-e Bābā range, an outlier of the Hindu Kush mountains, in central Afghanistan. Flowing west past Chaghcharān and the ancient city of Herāt (whence its name is derived), then north, it forms sections of the Afghan–Iranian and Iranian–Turkmen frontiers....
  • Harīrūd Valley (region, Afghanistan)
    The Harīrūd Valley is one of the nation’s richest agricultural areas, producing grain, cotton, fruit, and other crops. The province is not entirely agricultural, however; petroleum is produced at Tīr Pol, in the west, and there is some light industry at Herāt city. The people of Herāt are predominantly Tajiks and Durrānī Pashtuns in the oases...
  • Hariścandrakāvya (work by Rāghavāṅka)
    ...(six-line stanzas), of the lives of saints, in well-structured works such as Sōmanātha Carite and Siddharāma Caritra; his most mature work is Hariścandrakāvya, an unequalled reworking of an ancient Job-like story of Hariścandra, who suffered every ordeal for his love of truth. The Vīraśaiva saints’......
  • Harischandra Range (mountain range, India)
    eastward-extending spur of the Western Ghāts, in west central India. The range lies between the Godāvari and the Bhīma rivers in the northwestern Deccan Plateau. With an average elevation of about 2,000 feet (600 m), its peaks decrease in height gradually to the southeast and comprise parts of Mahārāshtra state. The range is flat-topped, consisting of basaltic l...
  • Harishcandra (Hindu mythology)
    ...And he kept his promise. Beneath an unprepossessing exterior, he concealed a burning passion for self-improvement that led him to take even the heroes of Hindu mythology, such as Prahlada and Harishcandra—legendary embodiments of truthfulness and sacrifice—as living models....
  • Harishchandra (Indian writer)
    Indian poet, dramatist, critic, and journalist, commonly referred to as the “father of modern Hindi.” His great contributions in founding a new tradition of Hindi prose were recognized even in his short lifetime, and he was admiringly called Bhartendu (“Moon of India”), an honorific that has taken precedence over his own name....
  • Ḥārith, al- (Arab poet)
    While defeat in battle is, of course, a primary focus of derision in this type of poetry, the honour of the community and the family has resided to a major extent in the protection of its women. Al-Ḥārith ibn Ḥillizah’s contribution to the tribal and poetic joust between himself and ʿAmr ibn Kulthūm, recorded in Al-Muʿallaqā...
  • Ḥārith ibn ʿAmr, al- (Kindah king)
    ...al-Murār, the traditional founder of the dynasty, into central and northern Arabia. There they successfully united a number of tribes into a loose confederacy. Ḥujr’s grandson, al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAmr, was the most renowned of the Kindah kings. Al-Ḥārith invaded Iraq and captured al-Ḥīrah, the capital of the Lakhmid king al-Mundhi...
  • Ḥārith ibn Hammām, al- (literary character)
    ...(Durrat al-ghawwāṣ fī awhām al-khawaṣṣ). The Maqāmāt recounts in the words of the narrator, al-Ḥārith ibn Hammām, his repeated encounters with Abū Zayd al-Sarūjī, an unabashed confidence artist and wanderer possessing all the eloquence, grammatical....
  • Ḥārith ibn Ḥillizah, al- (Arab poet)
    While defeat in battle is, of course, a primary focus of derision in this type of poetry, the honour of the community and the family has resided to a major extent in the protection of its women. Al-Ḥārith ibn Ḥillizah’s contribution to the tribal and poetic joust between himself and ʿAmr ibn Kulthūm, recorded in Al-Muʿallaqā...
  • Ḥārith ibn Jabalah, al- (king of Ghassān)
    The Ghassānid king al-Ḥārith ibn Jabalah (reigned 529–569) supported the Byzantines against Sāsānian Persia and was given the title patricius in 529 by the emperor Justinian. Al-Ḥārith was a Monophysite Christian; he helped to revive the Syrian Monophysite Church and supported Monophysite development despite the disapproval of Orthodox...
  • Hārītī (Buddhist character)
    in Buddhist mythology, a child-devouring ogress who is said to have been converted from her cannibalistic habits by the Buddha to become a protectress of children. He hid the youngest of her own 500 children under his begging bowl, and thus made her realize the sorrow she was causing other parents. Hārītī is usually represented surrounded by children or carrying a child, a pom...
  • Harivaṃśa (Indian literature)
    ...have produced a wealth of religious poetry, music, and painting. The basic sources of Krishna’s mythology are the epic Mahābhārata and its 5th-century-ad appendix, the Harivaṃśa, and the Purāṇas, particularly Books 10 and 11 of the Bhāgavata-Purāṇa. They relate how Krishna (literally....
  • “Harivamsha” (Indian literature)
    ...have produced a wealth of religious poetry, music, and painting. The basic sources of Krishna’s mythology are the epic Mahābhārata and its 5th-century-ad appendix, the Harivaṃśa, and the Purāṇas, particularly Books 10 and 11 of the Bhāgavata-Purāṇa. They relate how Krishna (literally....
  • Harivarman (Indian ruler)
    The first ruler of the Western Gaṅga, Koṅgaṇivarman, carved out a kingdom by conquest, but his successors, Mādhava I and Harivarman, expanded their influence by marital and military alliances with the Pallavas, Cālukyas, and Kadambas. By the end of the 8th century a dynastic dispute weakened the Gaṅgas, but Būṭuga II (c. 937–960...
  • Harizi, Judah ben Solomon (Spanish-Jewish poet)
    man of letters, last representative of the golden age of Spanish Hebrew poetry. He wandered through Provence and also the Middle East, translating Arabic poetry and scientific works into Hebrew....
  • Härjedalen (province, Sweden)
    landskap (province), northern Sweden, comprising the upper valley of the Ljusnan (river) in Norrland region. It is bounded by Norway on the west, the landskap of Jämtland on the north, those of Medelpad and Hälsingland on the east, and that of Dalarna on the south. It is included in the inland administrative län (county) of Jämtla...
  • Harjo, Joy (American author, academic, musician and artist)
    American poet, writer, academic, musician, and Native American activist....
  • Harkarvy, Benjamin (American choreographer and artistic director)
    American dance teacher, choreographer, and artistic director (b. Dec. 16, 1930, New York, N.Y.—d. March 30, 2002, New York City), had an international reputation for his eclectic approach to dance education and for his leadership of a number of renowned dance companies. At the Juilliard School of Music’s dance division, whose faculty he joined in 1990 and headed from 1992, he expande...
  • Harken, Dwight Emary (American surgeon)
    ...Gross successfully tied off a persistent ductus arteriosus (a fetal blood vessel between the pulmonary artery and the aorta). It was finally swept aside in World War II by the remarkable record of Dwight Harken, who removed 134 missiles from the chest—13 in the heart chambers—without the loss of one patient....
  • Harken Energy Corporation (American corporation)
    In 1994 Bush challenged Democratic incumbent Ann Richards for the governorship of Texas. A major issue in the campaign concerned Bush’s sale of all his Harken stock in June 1990, just days before the company completed a second quarter with heavy losses. An investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1991 into the possibility of illegal insider trading (trading that take...
  • Harkhuf (governor of Aswan)
    governor of southern Upper Egypt who journeyed extensively throughout Nubia (the modern Sudan)....
  • Harkins, Paul (United States general)
    ...were beginning to agree with them; but by now there was also a large and powerful bureaucracy in Saigon that had a deep stake in ensuring that U.S. programs appeared successful. The USMACV commander Paul Harkins and U.S. ambassador Frederick Nolting in particular continued to assure Washington that all was going well....
  • Harkins, William Draper (American chemist)
    American chemist whose investigations of nuclear chemistry, particularly the structure of the nucleus, first revealed the basic process of nuclear fusion, the fundamental principle of the thermonuclear bomb....
  • Harkness, Anna M. Richardson (American philanthropist)
    American philanthropist, perhaps best remembered for establishing the Commonwealth Fund, which continues as a major foundation focusing largely on health services and medical education and research....
  • Harkness, Ned (Canadian hockey and lacrosse coach)
    Canadian hockey and lacrosse coach who held the distinction of becoming the first coach to win national collegiate championships in two different sports. He led teams in both ice hockey and lacrosse at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y. (1949–63), where his lacrosse team captured a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship in 1952 and the hockey team earned a ti...
  • Harkness, Nevin D. (Canadian hockey and lacrosse coach)
    Canadian hockey and lacrosse coach who held the distinction of becoming the first coach to win national collegiate championships in two different sports. He led teams in both ice hockey and lacrosse at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y. (1949–63), where his lacrosse team captured a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship in 1952 and the hockey team earned a ti...
  • Harlan (Kentucky, United States)
    city, seat of Harlan county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S., in the Cumberland Mountains, on the Clover Fork Cumberland River. It was settled in 1819 by Virginians led by Samuel Howard and was known as Mount Pleasant until renamed in 1912 for Major Silas Harlan, who was killed during the American Revolution at the Battle of Blue Licks (August 1...
  • Harlan, John Marshall (United States jurist [1833-1911])
    associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1877 until his death and one of the most forceful dissenters in the history of that tribunal. His best known dissents favoured the rights of blacks as guaranteed, in his view, by the post-Civil War constitutional amendments (Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth). In the 20th century the Supreme Court vindicated his positions on civil right...
  • Harlan, John Marshall (United States jurist [1899-1971])
    U.S. Supreme Court justice from 1955 to 1971....
  • Harland and Wolff (British company)
    ...displaced (weighed) 66,000 tons. The Titanic was 882.5 feet (269 metres) long and 92.5 feet (28.2 metres) wide at its widest point. It was designed and built by William Pirrie’s Belfast firm Harland and Wolff to service the highly competitive Atlantic Ferry route. It had a double-bottomed hull divided into 16 compartments that were presumed to be watertight. Because four of these ...
  • Harland, Mary (American author)
    American writer who achieved great success with both her romantic novels and her books and columns of advice for homemakers....
  • Harlech (Wales, United Kingdom)
    castle and village, Gwynedd county, historic county of Merioneth (Meirionnydd), Wales, on the coast of Cardigan Bay. In 1283, after defeating Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the English king Edward I began construction of a fortress there on the edge of a prominent cliff. This castle has had a long history of occupation and assault....
  • Harlech, William George Arthur Ormsby-Gore, 4th Baron (British politician and scholar)
    British politician and scholar who was active in promoting education in the British colonies....
  • Harlem (work by Thurman and Rapp)
    Thurman cowrote with William Jourdan Rapp the successful and somewhat controversial play Harlem, a fast-paced slice of the “lower” end of Harlem life, notable for its vernacular and slang-ridden dialogue. It landed on Broadway for 93 performances, and, while it drew much praise in the white press, it had a mixed reception among blacks, some of whom......
  • Harlem (district, New York City, New York, United States)
    district of New York City, U.S., occupying a large part of northern Manhattan Island and Borough. Harlem as a neighbourhood has no fixed boundaries; it may generally be said to lie between 155th Street on the north, the East and Harlem rivers on the east, 96th Street (east of Central Park) and 110th Street and Cathedral Parkway (north and west of Central Park) on the south, and Amsterdam Avenue on...
  • Harlem (building, Persepolis, Iran)
    ...with reliefs. Again approached by an ornamental stairway, a “tripylon” unit between these main buildings leads to others only tentatively identified. The plan of the building, called the Harlem by archaeologists, is to some extent self-explanatory. The character of the Treasury is indicated by security precautions in its planning. In this building the columns were of wood, heavily...
  • Harlem Book of the Dead, The (work by Van Der Zee)
    ...and VanDerZee retouched negatives and prints heavily to achieve an aura of glamour. VanDerZee also created funeral photographs between the wars. These works were collected in The Harlem Book of the Dead (1978), with a foreword by Toni Morrison....
  • Harlem Community Art Center (American art center)
    ...however, and so when she returned to New York she began to teach art, founding her own school of arts and crafts in Harlem in the early 1930s. In 1937 she became the first director of the Harlem Community Art Center, which played a crucial role in the development of many young black artists. During this period, she became the first African American elected to the National Association......
  • Harlem Dance Theatre (American ballet company)
    ...areas, often without music. Her later work melded classical ballet and jazz with modern dance. A different perspective was offered by Arthur Mitchell, who left the New York City Ballet to found the Dance Theatre of Harlem, a company with strong roots in classical ballet....
  • Harlem Document (work by Siskind)
    ...projects designed to document neighbourhood life during the Depression. Unlike other documentary series of the period, Siskind’s Dead End: The Bowery and Harlem Document show as much concern for pure design as for the plight of his subjects. After the late 1930s, Siskind no longer photographed people, concentrating instead on architectu...
  • Harlem Experimental Theatre (American theatrical company)
    The Krigwa Players evolved into the Negro Experimental Theatre (also known as the Harlem Experimental Theatre), which in 1931 produced Anderson’s one-act play Climbing Jacob’s Ladder, about a lynching that happened while people prayed in church. The next year the theatre produced her one-act play Underground, about the Underground......
  • Harlem Globetrotters (American basketball team)
    predominantly black professional U.S. basketball team that plays exhibition games all over the world, drawing crowds as large as 75,000 to see the players’ spectacular ball handling and humorous antics....
  • Harlem Renaissance (American literature and art)
    a blossoming (c. 1918–37) of African American culture, particularly in the creative arts, and the most influential movement in African American literary history. Embracing literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts, participants sought to reconceptualize “the Negro” apart from the white stereotypes that had influenced black peoples’ relationship to their heri...
  • Harlem Shadows (work by McKay)
    ...poetry, including sonnets ranging from the militant If We Must Die (1919) to the brooding self-portrait Outcast, was collected in Harlem Shadows (1922), which some critics have called the first great literary achievement of the Harlem Renaissance. Admiring McKay as well as Dunbar, Hughes exchanged McKay’s formalis...
  • Harlequin (work by Picasso)
    ...Picasso’s life had changed and so, in a sense, had the direction of his art. At the end of that year his beloved Eva died, and the painting he had worked on during her illness (Harlequin, 1915; Museum of Modern Art, New York City) gives testimony to his grief—a half-Harlequin, half-Pierrot artist before an easel holds an unfinished canvas against a bla...
  • Harlequin (theatrical character)
    one of the principal stock characters of the Italian commedia dell’arte; often a facile and witty gentleman’s valet and a capricious swain of the serving maid....
  • harlequin beetle (insect)
    large tropical American beetle with an elaborate variegated pattern of black with muted red and greenish yellow markings on its wing covers....
  • harlequin bug (insect)
    a species of insect in the stinkbug family, Pentatomidae (order Heteroptera), that sucks sap and chlorophyll from crops, such as cabbage, causing them to wilt and die. Though of tropical or subtropical origin, this insect now ranges from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean in North America. The harlequin cabbage bug is shield-shaped, about 1.25 centimetres (0.5 inch) long, and brilliantly colo...
  • harlequin cabbage bug (insect)
    a species of insect in the stinkbug family, Pentatomidae (order Heteroptera), that sucks sap and chlorophyll from crops, such as cabbage, causing them to wilt and die. Though of tropical or subtropical origin, this insect now ranges from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean in North America. The harlequin cabbage bug is shield-shaped, about 1.25 centimetres (0.5 inch) long, and brilliantly colo...
  • harlequin fish (tropical fish)
    ...in Southeast Asia, but a few are native to Africa. The fishes are active, generally slender, and have a protruding lower jaw. Several species are kept as pets, one of the most popular being the harlequin fish, or rasbora (R. heteromorpha), a reddish fish 4–5 cm (1.5–2 inches) long with a wedge-shaped, black spot on each side....
  • harlequin frog (amphibian)
    Harlequin frogs, which are also known as variegated toads (Atelopus; see photograph), are found in South and Central America. They are commonly triangular-headed and have enlarged hind feet. Some are brightly coloured in black with yellow, red, or green. When molested, the small poisonous Melanophryniscus stelzneri of Uruguay bends its head and limbs over its body to......
  • Harlequin Mother Goose (pantomime)
    ...age four at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre. For a number of years he appeared at two theatres nightly, running from one to the other. In 1806 he joined Covent Garden Theatre, where, in the pantomime Harlequin Mother Goose, he enjoyed his greatest success. In this production he created a new type of clown combining rogue and simpleton, criminal and innocent dupe in one character, a rol...
  • harlequin snake (snake)
    Sixty-five species of American coral snakes (genus Micrurus) range from the southern United States to Argentina. Only two species live in the United States. The eastern coral snake, or harlequin snake (M. fulvius), is about a metre (3.3 feet) long and has wide red and black rings separated by narrow rings of yellow. The Arizona coral......
  • harlequinade (theatre)
    play or scene, usually in pantomime, in which Harlequin, a male character, has the principal role. Derived from the Italian commedia dell’arte, harlequinades came into vogue in early 18th-century England, with a standard plot consisting of a pursuit of the lovers Harlequin and Columbine by the latter’s father, Pantaloon, and his bumpkin servant Pedrolino. In the Victorian era the ha...
  • Harley 2253 (British library manuscript)
    ...goth sonne under wod and Stond wel, moder, ounder rode. Many of the lyrics are preserved in manuscript anthologies, of which the best is British Library manuscript Harley 2253 from the early 14th century. In this collection, known as the Harley Lyrics, the love poems, such as Alysoun and Blow, Northern Wind,...
  • Harley Lyrics (British literary collection)
    ...rode. Many of the lyrics are preserved in manuscript anthologies, of which the best is British Library manuscript Harley 2253 from the early 14th century. In this collection, known as the Harley Lyrics, the love poems, such as Alysoun and Blow, Northern Wind, take after the poems of the Provençal troubadours but are less form...
  • Harley, Robert (English statesman)
    British statesman who headed the Tory ministry from 1710 to 1714. Although by birth and education he was a Whig and a Dissenter, he gradually over the years changed his politics, becoming the leader of the Tory and Anglican party....
  • Harline, Leigh (American composer and conductor)
    ...Thief of BagdadArt Direction, Black-and-White: Cedric Gibbons and Paul Groesse for Pride and PrejudiceArt Direction, Color: Vincent Korda for The Thief of BagdadOriginal Score: Leigh Harline, Paul J. Smith, Ned Washington for PinocchioScoring: Alfred Newman for Tin Pan......
  • Harling, Frank (British-American musician and composer)
    ...Haller and Ray Rennahan for Gone with the WindArt Direction: Lyle Wheeler for Gone with the WindOriginal Score: Herbert Stothart for The Wizard of OzScoring: Richard Hageman, Frank Harling, John Leipold, Leo Shuken for StagecoachSong: “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz; music by......
  • Harlingen (The Netherlands)
    Leeuwarden, the capital, is the only large town, and Harlingen, the only port, serves as its outlet. Other centres are Sneek, Heerenveen, Drachten, Bolsward, Franeker, and Dokkum. There is a nature reserve for seals that is located on the Frisian island of Terschelling. For history, see Frisia. Pop. (1988 est.) 599,104. ...
  • Harlingen (Texas, United States)
    city, Cameron county, southern Texas, U.S., 28 miles (45 km) northwest of Brownsville, with which it forms an industrial-agribusiness-port complex. Founded in the early 1900s and named after Harlingen, Netherlands, by its pioneer settler, Lon C. Hill, Sr., it became a station on the St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico (now Missouri Pacific) Railroad. The city, ...
  • Harlot’s Ghost (work by Mailer)
    ...approach into a new objectivity in the Pulitzer Prize-winning “true life novel” The Executioner’s Song (1979). When he returned to fiction, his most effective work was Harlot’s Ghost (1991), the first volume of a projected long novel about the Central Intelligence Agency....
  • Harlot’s Progress, A (paintings by Hogarth)
    ...vacuity and the casual wantonness of the fashionable world that Fielding treats of in the final books of Tom Jones. Hogarth’s other series, such as “A Rake’s Progress” (1735) or “A Harlot’s Progress” (1732), also make a didactic point about the wages of sin, using realistic details heightened with grotesquerie to expose human frailty and i...
  • Harlow (district, England, United Kingdom)
    new town and coextensive district, administrative and historic county of Essex, England. It was designated by British planners in 1947 as one of London’s eight post-World War II new towns to promote the decentralization of the metropolis. The planned growth has taken place in neighbourhoods west of Old Harlow and the main London–Cambridge road. Sir Frederick Gibberd landscaped the to...
  • Harlow (England, United Kingdom)
    new town and coextensive district, administrative and historic county of Essex, England. It was designated by British planners in 1947 as one of London’s eight post-World War II new towns to promote the decentralization of the metropolis. The planned growth has taken place in neighbourhoods west of Old Harlow and the main London–Cambridge road. Sir Frederick Gibber...
  • Harlow, Jean (American actress)
    American actress who was the original “Blonde Bombshell.” Known initially for her striking beauty and forthright sexuality, Harlow developed considerably as an actress, but she died prematurely at the height of her career....
  • HARM (missile)
    ...memory circuits and could be tuned to any of several frequencies in flight. Also rocket-propelled, it had a range of about 35 miles (55 kilometres). Faster and more sophisticated still was the AGM-88 HARM (high-speed antiradiation missile), introduced into service in 1983....
  • harm principle (sports)
    ...from wealthy nations to train more efficiently, with better coaching and equipment, than athletes from poorer countries, a situation that is manifestly unfair. The argument based on the “harm principle” is said to treat athletes as children. Adult athletes should be allowed to decide for themselves whether they want to harm their health by drug use....
  • Harman, Martin Coles (British financier)
    English financier and one of the few private individuals—particularly, one of the few persons while alive—to have his portrait on coins....
  • Harmandir (temple, Amritsar, India)
    the chief gurdwārā, or house of worship, of the Sikhs of India and their most important pilgrimage site; it is located in the city of Amritsar, in Punjab state. The Harimandir was built in 1604 by Gurū Arjun, who symbolically had it placed on a lower level so that even the humblest had to step down to enter it, and with entrances on...
  • harmattan (wind)
    hot, dry wind that blows from the northeast or east in the western Sahara and is strongest in late fall and winter (late November to mid-March). It usually carries large amounts of dust, which it transports hundreds of kilometres out over the Atlantic Ocean; the dust often interferes with aircraft operations and settles on the decks of ships....
  • Harmensen, Jacob (Dutch theologian)
    theologian and minister of the Dutch Reformed Church who opposed the strict Calvinist teaching on predestination and who developed in reaction a theological system known later as Arminianism....
  • harmine (drug)
    hallucinogenic alkaloid found in the seed coats of a plant (Peganum harmala) of the Mediterranean region and the Middle East, and also in a South American vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) from which natives of the Andes Mountains prepared a drug for religious and medicinal use. Chemically, harmine is an indole hallucinogen that can block the action of serotonin (the indole amine transmit...
  • Harmless People, The (work by Thomas)
    ...or by slash-and-burn agriculture, and distributing their output by reference to well-defined social claims. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas describes this distributive system in The Harmless People:It seems very unequal when you watch Bushmen divide the kill, yet it is their system, and in the end no person eats more than the other. That day Ukwane gave......
  • Harmodius (Greek tyrannicide)
    the tyrannoktonoi, or “tyrannicides,” who according to popular, but erroneous, legend freed Athens from the Peisistratid tyrants. They were celebrated in drinking songs as the deliverers of the city, their descendants were entitled to free hospitality in the prytaneion (“town hall”), and their statues were set up in the agora. But the truth was less edifyi...
  • Harmon, Ellen Gould (American religious leader)
    American religious leader who was one of the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and whose prophecies and other guidance were central to that denomination’s early growth....
  • Harmon, Thomas Dudley (American athlete)
    American football player, a Heisman Trophy winner, who was one of the greatest tailbacks in collegiate football history....
  • Harmon, Tom (American athlete)
    American football player, a Heisman Trophy winner, who was one of the greatest tailbacks in collegiate football history....
  • harmonia (music)
    ...A G F E D C B A G F E D C B A. This two-octave row, or disdiapason, was called the Greater Perfect System. It was analyzed as consisting of seven overlapping scales, or octave species, called harmoniai, characterized by the different positions of their semitones. They were termed as follows (semitones shown by unspaced letters):...
  • Harmonia (Greek mythology)
    in Greek mythology, the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, according to the Theban account; in Samothrace she was the daughter of Zeus and the Pleiad Electra. She was carried off by Cadmus, and all the gods honoured the wedding with their presence. Cadmus or one of the gods presented the bride with a robe and necklace, the work of Hephaestus. This necklace brought misfortune to all...

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