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  • Ḥakawātī troupe (Palestinian theatre troupe)
    ...The tightly controlled circumstances in which the Palestinians lived their lives also led to the appearance of one of the most interesting and creative theatre troupes in the Middle East, the Ḥakawātī troupe (named for the ḥakawātī, or traditional storyteller), which emerged from an earlier group known as......
  • hake (fish)
    (genus Merluccius), any of several large marine fishes of the cod family, Gadidae. They are sometimes classed as a separate family, Merlucciidae, because of skeletal differences in the skull and ribs. Hakes are elongated, largeheaded fishes with large, sharp teeth. They have two dorsal fins, the second long and slightly notched near the middle. The anal fin is also long and notched, and th...
  • hakeme (Japanese pottery technique)
    ...of brushwork and superb drawing. Their affinities are much more with Japanese pottery than with contemporary Chinese wares. A typical Japanese technique, “brush” (hakeme), or brushed slip, is used in conjunction with painted decoration in the early part of the dynasty, but later it is used alone. Korean influence on Japanese pottery was probably at its strongest during......
  • Hakemite Tables (astronomy)
    ...from ad 1000 to 1300. In addition, almost 50 measurements of eclipse times by medieval Arab astronomers are extant; these date from between about ad 800 and 1000 and are mainly contained in the Hakemite Tables compiled by Ibn Yūnus about ad 1005. Unfortunately, there are very few timings between 50 bc and ad 400 and ag...
  • Haken, Wolfgang (American mathematician)
    The four-colour problem was solved in 1977 by a group of mathematicians at the University of Illinois, directed by Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken, after four years of unprecedented synthesis of computer search and theoretical reasoning. Appel and Haken created a catalog of 1,936 “unavoidable” configurations, at least one of which must be present in any graph, no matter how large......
  • Hakhamanish (Persian ruler of Parsumash)
    eponymous ancestor of the Persian Achaemenid dynasty; he was the father of Teispes (Chishpish) and an ancestor of Cyrus II the Great and Darius I the Great. Although Achaemenes probably ruled only Parsumash, a vassal state of the kingdom of Media, many scholars believe that he led armies from Parsumash and Anshan (Anzan, northwest of Susa in...
  • Hakhamanish (Persian governor of Egypt)
    son of the Achaemenid king Darius I of Persia....
  • Hakhamanishiya dynasty (Iranian dynasty)
    (559–330 bc), ancient Iranian dynasty whose kings founded and ruled the Achaemenian Empire. Achaemenes (Persian Hakhamanish), the Achaemenians’ eponymous ancestor, is presumed to have lived early in the 7th century bc, but little is known of his life. From his son Teispes two lines of kings descended. The kings of the older line were Cyrus I...
  • ḥakhamim (Judaism)
    ...disappeared about the 2nd century bc, and New Testament references to “scribes” (often in connection with the Pharisees) are to doctors of the law, or jurists (usually called ḥakhamim), who gave legal advice to judges entrusted with administration of the law. They found their way into the ranks of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and served in the great....
  • “Hakhnasat kalah” (work by Agnon)
    ...debut was made with Agunot (1908; “Forsaken Wives”), his first “Palestinian” story. His first major work was the novel Hakhnasat kalah, 2 vol. (1919; The Bridal Canopy). Its hero, Reb Yudel Hasid, is the embodiment of every wandering, drifting Jew in the ghettos of the tsarist and Austro-Hungarian empires. His second novel, Ore’a...
  • Ḥākim, al- (Fāṭimid caliph)
    sixth ruler of the Egyptian Shīʿite Fāṭimid dynasty, noted for his eccentricities and cruelty, especially his persecutions of Christians and Jews. He is held by adherents of the Druze religion to be a divine incarnation....
  • Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh, al- (Fāṭimid caliph)
    sixth ruler of the Egyptian Shīʿite Fāṭimid dynasty, noted for his eccentricities and cruelty, especially his persecutions of Christians and Jews. He is held by adherents of the Druze religion to be a divine incarnation....
  • Ḥākim bi-Amrih, al- (Fāṭimid caliph)
    sixth ruler of the Egyptian Shīʿite Fāṭimid dynasty, noted for his eccentricities and cruelty, especially his persecutions of Christians and Jews. He is held by adherents of the Druze religion to be a divine incarnation....
  • Hakim, Georges (Egyptian cleric)
    Egyptian cleric (b. May 18, 1908, Tanta, Egypt—d. June 29, 2001, Beirut, Lebanon), was spiritual leader of the Greek Catholic Church from 1967 to 2000; his formal title was patriarch of Antioch and all the East and Alexandria and Jerusalem. He was ordained in 1930 and served as archbishop of Acre, Haifa, Nazareth and all Galilee from 1943 until his elevation to patriarch. Maximos V was rega...
  • Ḥākim Mosque, Al- (mosque, Cairo, Egypt)
    The great Fāṭimid mosques of Cairo—al-Azhar (started in 970) and al-Ḥākim (c. 1002–03)—were designed in the traditional hypostyle plan with axial cupolas. It is only in such architectural details as the elaborately composed facade of al-Ḥākim, with its corner towers and vaulted portal, that innovations appear, for most earlier.....
  • Ḥakīm, Tawfīq Ḥusayn al- (Egyptian author)
    founder of contemporary Egyptian drama and a leading figure in modern Arabic literature....
  • Hakk ad-Dīn (sultan of Ifat)
    ...independent, Ifat became—as the northernmost of several Muslim states—the buffer between them and sometimes suffered from the advance southward of Ethiopian authority. When its sultan, Hakk ad-Dīn, warring against the Ethiopian king Amda Tseyon, was conquered by him in 1328, Ifat was made tributary to Ethiopia. (At this time Ifat’s dominion extended eastward to the p...
  • Hakka (people)
    group of North Chinese who migrated to South China, especially Guangdong, Fujian, and Guangxi provinces, during the fall of the Southern Song dynasty in the 1270s. Worldwide they are thought to number about 80 million, although the number of Hakka speakers is considerably lower. Their origins remain obscure, but the people who became the Hakka are thought to have lived originally in Henan and Shan...
  • Hakka language (Chinese language)
    Chinese language spoken by considerably fewer than the estimated 80 million Hakka people living mainly in eastern and northern Guangdong province but also in Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Hunan, and Sichuan provinces. Hakka is also spoken by perhaps 7 million immigrants in widely scattered areas, notably Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The best-known dialect is...
  • Hakkâri (Turkey)
    city, capital of Hakkâri il (province), southeastern Turkey. It lies at an altitude of about 5,500 feet (1,700 metres), surrounded by mountains and overlooked by a medieval fortress, the former residence of its Kurdish rulers. A market for local livestock and livestock products, Hakkâri has road links to Van to the north and ...
  • Hakluyt, Richard (British geographer)
    English geographer noted for his political influence, his voluminous writings, and his persistent promotion of Elizabethan overseas expansion, especially the colonization of North America. His major publication, The principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English nation, provides almost everything known about the early English voyages to North America....
  • Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes; Contayning a History of the World, in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells, by Englishmen and Others (work by Purchas)
    English compiler of travel and discovery writings who continued the encyclopaedic collections begun by the British geographer Richard Hakluyt in Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes; Contayning a History of the World, in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells, by Englishmen and Others (4 vol., 1625; 20 vol., 1905–07)....
  • Hakodate (Japan)
    city, southern Hokkaido ken (prefecture), Japan, on the Tsugaru-kaikyō (Tsu garu Strait) between Hokkaido and Honshu. The city is built along the northwestern base of a rocky promontory that forms the eastern boundary of a spacious, naturally sheltered harbour. Until the mid-18th century, Hakodate remained in the hands of the Ainu in spite of various attempts by th...
  • Håkon den Gamle (king of Norway)
    king of Norway (1217–63) who consolidated the power of the monarchy, patronized the arts, and established Norwegian sovereignty over Greenland and Iceland. His reign is considered the beginning of the “golden age” (1217–1319) in medieval Norwegian history....
  • Håkon den Gode (king of Norway)
    Norwegian king and one of the most eminent Scandinavian rulers of his time. He fostered the growth of governmental institutions but failed in his attempt to Christianize the lesser Norwegian chieftains....
  • Håkon Håkonsson (king of Norway)
    king of Norway (1217–63) who consolidated the power of the monarchy, patronized the arts, and established Norwegian sovereignty over Greenland and Iceland. His reign is considered the beginning of the “golden age” (1217–1319) in medieval Norwegian history....
  • Håkon Herdebreid (king of Norway)
    king of Norway (1157–62), illegitimate son of Sigurd Munn (d. 1155)....
  • Håkon Jarl (Norwegian ruler)
    Norwegian noble who defeated Harald II Graycloak, becoming the chief ruler (c. 970) of Norway; he later extended his rule over the greater part of the country. He resisted an attempt by the Danish king Harald III Bluetooth to Christianize Norway and was the last non-Christian Norwegian ruler....
  • Håkon Magnusson den Eldre (king of Norway)
    king of Norway (1299–1319) whose anti-English foreign policy paved the way for the commercial domination of Norway by north German traders of the Hanseatic League. His reign marked the end of the “golden age” in medieval Norwegian history....
  • Håkon Magnusson den Yngre (king of Norway)
    king of Norway (1355–80) whose marriage to Margaret, daughter of the Danish king Valdemar IV, in 1363 paved the way for the eventual union (1397) of the three major Scandinavian nations—Denmark, Norway, and Sweden—the Kalmar Union. Haakon was deeply embroiled throughout his reign in political conflicts with Sweden, Denmark, and the cities of the north German trading confederat...
  • Håkon Sverresson (king of Norway)
    king of Norway (1202–04), the illegitimate son of King Sverre Sigurdsson....
  • Hákonar saga (work by Sturla Thórdarson)
    ...Karl Jónsson under the supervision of the King himself, but it was completed (probably by the Abbot) in Iceland after Sverrir’s death. Sturla Thórdarson wrote two royal biographies: Hákonar saga on King Haakon Haakonsson (c. 1204–63) and Magnús saga on his son and successor, Magnus VI Lawmender (Lagabøter; reigned 1263...
  • Hakone (Japan)
    town, Kanagawa ken (prefecture), south-central Honshu, Japan. It lies on the southern bank of Lake Ashino, in the caldera of the extinct volcano Mount Hakone. The town, a post station during the Tokugawa period (1603–1868), is now the tourist base for Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. A favourite hot-spring and sight-seeing resort, Hakone is well served by roads and r...
  • Hakp’o (Korean painter)
    noted Korean painter famous for the freshness and originality of his style....
  • “Hakuchi” (film by Kurosawa Akira)
    Kurosawa was also noted for his adaptations of European literary classics into films with Japanese settings. Hakuchi (1951; The Idiot) is based upon Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel of the same title, Kumonosu-jo (Throne of Blood ) was adapted from Shakespeare’s Macbeth...
  • Hakuhō period (Japanese history)
    In the early 640s the Soga clan was afflicted with bloody internal intrigue, which offered its rivals the opportunity to usurp power. In 645 Prince Nakono Ōe (later the emperor Tenji) and Nakatomi Kamatari (later Fujiwara Kamatari) led a successful coup and promulgated the Taika reforms, a series of edicts that significantly strengthened the control of the central government. Through......
  • Hakuin (Buddhist priest)
    priest, writer, and artist who helped revive Rinzai Zen Buddhism in Japan....
  • Hakuin Ekaku (Buddhist priest)
    priest, writer, and artist who helped revive Rinzai Zen Buddhism in Japan....
  • Hakulinen, Veikko (Finnish skier)
    Finnish cross-country skier who earned seven Olympic medals in three Olympic competitions between 1952 and 1960. He also won world championships in the 15-km event in 1954 and 1958....
  • ḥāl (Ṣūfism)
    in Ṣūfī Muslim mystical terminology, a spiritual state of mind that comes to the Ṣūfī from time to time during his journey toward God. The aḥwāl are graces of God that cannot be acquired or retained through an individual’s own efforts. When the soul is purified of its attachments to the material world, it can only wait patiently...
  • Hal Saflieni (catacombs, Paola, Malta)
    ...a small village until the late 19th century, when it grew rapidly as a residential district for workers from the adjacent Grand Harbour dockyards. It has a well-preserved Neolithic temple and the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum (catacombs), discovered in 1902 and designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1980. Pop. (1999 est.) 9,353....
  • Ḥalab (Syria)
    principal city of northern Syria. It is situated in the northwestern part of the country, about 30 miles (50 km) south of the Turkish border. Aleppo is located at the crossroads of great commercial routes and lies some 60 miles (100 km) from both the Mediterranean Sea (west) and the Euphrates River (east)....
  • Ḥalabī, al- (Islamic theologian)
    scholar who became a leading Shāfiʿī (one of the four schools of Islamic law) theologian and the chief judicial officer of the Ayyūbid caliphate....
  • Ḥalabī, al- (Muslim theologian [1460-1549])
    jurist who maintained the traditions of Islāmic jurisprudence in the 16th century....
  • Ḥalabī, Ibrāhīm al- (Islamic jurist)
    ...and the Christian communities in Aleppo and Lebanon brought forth scholars. Muslim Arab culture of the time produced the theologian ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī, as well as Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalabī, a systematic jurist....
  • Halaby, Lisa Najeeb (queen of Jordan)
    American-born architect and, from June 15, 1978, consort of King Ḥussein of Jordan....
  • Halachah (Jewish law)
    in Judaism, the totality of laws and ordinances that have evolved since biblical times to regulate religious observances and the daily life and conduct of the Jewish people. Quite distinct from the Law of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), Halakhah purports to preserve and represent oral traditions stemming from the revelation on Mount Sinai or evolved on the basis of it. The lega...
  • H̱alaf Period (ancient Mesopotamia)
    ...traces of them were first found, and the same names are sometimes attributed to the prehistoric periods during which they were predominant. Hence, Hassuna, Hassuna-Sāmarrāʾ, and Halaf in northern Iraq are the names given to the first three periods during which known early settlements were successively occupied by peoples whose relations were apparently with Syria and......
  • Ḥalaf, Tall (archaeological site, Syria)
    archaeological site of ancient Mesopotamia, on the headwaters of the Khābur River near modern Raʾs al-ʿAyn, northeastern Syria. It is the location of the first find of a Neolithic culture characterized by glazed pottery painted with geometric and animal designs. The pottery is sometimes called Halafian ware....
  • Halaf, Tell (archaeological site, Syria)
    archaeological site of ancient Mesopotamia, on the headwaters of the Khābur River near modern Raʾs al-ʿAyn, northeastern Syria. It is the location of the first find of a Neolithic culture characterized by glazed pottery painted with geometric and animal designs. The pottery is sometimes called Halafian ware....
  • Halafian ware (ceramics)
    ...northeastern Syria. It is the location of the first find of a Neolithic culture characterized by glazed pottery painted with geometric and animal designs. The pottery is sometimes called Halafian ware....
  • Halakah (Jewish law)
    in Judaism, the totality of laws and ordinances that have evolved since biblical times to regulate religious observances and the daily life and conduct of the Jewish people. Quite distinct from the Law of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), Halakhah purports to preserve and represent oral traditions stemming from the revelation on Mount Sinai or evolved on the basis of it. The lega...
  • Halakha (Jewish law)
    in Judaism, the totality of laws and ordinances that have evolved since biblical times to regulate religious observances and the daily life and conduct of the Jewish people. Quite distinct from the Law of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), Halakhah purports to preserve and represent oral traditions stemming from the revelation on Mount Sinai or evolved on the basis of it. The lega...
  • Halakhah (Jewish law)
    in Judaism, the totality of laws and ordinances that have evolved since biblical times to regulate religious observances and the daily life and conduct of the Jewish people. Quite distinct from the Law of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), Halakhah purports to preserve and represent oral traditions stemming from the revelation on Mount Sinai or evolved on the basis of it. The lega...
  • Halálfiai (work by Babits)
    ...was an intellectual poet whose verse is difficult to understand. Self-centred and withdrawn in his early period, he later turned his attention to contemporary social problems. Among his novels, Halálfiai (1927; “The Children of Death”), a sympathetic portrayal of the decaying middle class, is outstanding. His translations include plays of Sophocles, Dante’s ...
  • halam (musical instrument)
    ...biwa is used only between verses for interludes and commentaries. A similar technique is in use among the minstrels of North Africa: the lute, gunbrī, is played only between verses of the story, as a descriptive comment....
  • Halang language
    language spoken chiefly in the central highlands of south-central Vietnam near Kon Tum. The number of speakers in Vietnam is estimated at some 10,000. Halang is a member of the North Bahnaric subbranch of the Mon-Khmer language family, which is a part of the Austroasiatic stock. Other North Bahnaric languages spoken in the region are Sedang, Rengao, Kayong, Monom, and Jeh. ...
  • Halas, George (American sportsman)
    founder, owner, and head coach of the Chicago Bears gridiron football team in the U.S. professional National Football League (NFL). Halas revolutionized American football strategy in the late 1930s when he, along with assistant coach Clark Shaughnessy, revived the T formation and added to it the “man in motion” (a player moving prior to the start...
  • Halas, George Stanley (American sportsman)
    founder, owner, and head coach of the Chicago Bears gridiron football team in the U.S. professional National Football League (NFL). Halas revolutionized American football strategy in the late 1930s when he, along with assistant coach Clark Shaughnessy, revived the T formation and added to it the “man in motion” (a player moving prior to the start...
  • Halas, John (British director)
    British motion-picture animator and producer (b. April 16, 1912, Budapest, Hung.--d. Jan. 20/21, 1995, London, England), was, with his wife, Joy Batchelor (died 1991), the force behind the largest cartoon film studio in Great Britain and creator of some 2,000 animated films, notably Animal Farm (1954), the first British full-length colour feature cartoon. Halas was educated in Budapest and ...
  • Halas, John; and Batchelor, Joy (British directors)
    British husband-and-wife production team, noted for their influential animated films....
  • Halász, Gyula (French artist)
    Hungarian-born French photographer, poet, draughtsman, and sculptor, known primarily for his dramatic photographs of Paris at night. His pseudonym, Brassaï, is derived from his native city....
  • Halász, István (German chemist)
    ...because liquid coatings were swept away by the mobile phase. Previously gas chromatography had employed chemical bonding of an organic stationary phase to solids to reduce adsorptive activity; István Halász of Germany exploited these reactions to cause a separation based on liquid solution effects in the bonded molecular layers. These and similar reactions were employed to......
  • Halasz, Jules (French artist)
    Hungarian-born French photographer, poet, draughtsman, and sculptor, known primarily for his dramatic photographs of Paris at night. His pseudonym, Brassaï, is derived from his native city....
  • Halawa Valley (valley, Hawaii, United States)
    valley, northeastern Molokai island, Hawaii, U.S. On the northeastern flank of Kamakou summit (4,961 feet [1,512 metres]), it is a deep, verdant gorge 1.75 miles (2.8 km) long and 0.5 mile (0.8 km) wide. Archaeological evidence dates habitation in the area from c. ad 650, which makes it one of the oldest Hawaiian settlements. The area poss...
  • halb-fayence
    in pottery, an earthenware body dipped into clay slip and covered with a lead glaze, superficially resembling true majolica, or tin-glazed earthenware. In German it is sometimes known as halb-fayence (“half faience”). Both terms are misnomers; the ware is more correctly classified as sgraffito. That is, it is decorated by incision through the slip to reveal ...
  • halbard (weapon)
    weapon consisting of an ax blade balanced by a pick with an elongated pike head at the end of the staff. It was usually about 1.5 to 1.8 metres (5 to 6 feet) long. The halberd was an important weapon in middle Europe from the 14th through the 16th century. It enabled a foot soldier to contend with an armoured man on horseback; the pike head was used to keep the horseman at a distance, and the ax b...
  • Halber, Arvo Kusta (American politician)
    American political organizer who was general secretary of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA; 1959–2000) and a four-time candidate for U.S. president (1972, 1976, 1980, 1984)....
  • halberd (weapon)
    weapon consisting of an ax blade balanced by a pick with an elongated pike head at the end of the staff. It was usually about 1.5 to 1.8 metres (5 to 6 feet) long. The halberd was an important weapon in middle Europe from the 14th through the 16th century. It enabled a foot soldier to contend with an armoured man on horseback; the pike head was used to keep the horseman at a distance, and the ax b...
  • Halberstadt (Germany)
    city, Saxony-Anhalt Land (state), central Germany, on the Holtemme River in the foreland of the northern Harz mountains, southwest of Magdeburg. It became a bishopric about 814 and was granted market rights in 989. It was one of the most important German trading cities in the 13th–14th century. The bishopric was suppressed and the town granted to Brandenburg by the...
  • Halberstam, David (American journalist and author)
    American journalist and author who received a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his penetrating coverage of the Vietnam War as a staff reporter (1960–67) for The New York Times. He went on to become the best-selling author of more than 20 meticulously researched books....
  • Halberstam, Solomon (American religious leader)
    Polish-born American religious leader (b. 1907, Bobowa, Pol.—d. Aug. 2, 2000, New York, N.Y.), emigrated in the late 1940s to New York, where in Borough Park, a section of Brooklyn, he became the leader of the Bobov sect, a Hasidic group whose numbers had been greatly reduced by the Holocaust. Halberstam’s father, Ben Zion, had led the Bobovers in Poland before he perished in a death...
  • halbert (weapon)
    weapon consisting of an ax blade balanced by a pick with an elongated pike head at the end of the staff. It was usually about 1.5 to 1.8 metres (5 to 6 feet) long. The halberd was an important weapon in middle Europe from the 14th through the 16th century. It enabled a foot soldier to contend with an armoured man on horseback; the pike head was used to keep the horseman at a distance, and the ax b...
  • Halbertsma, Eeltsje (Dutch writer)
    It was not until the Romantic period of the 19th century, however, that Frisian literature began to flourish as a national literature. About this time the Halbertsma brothers—Eeltsje, Joast, and Tsjalling—founded a movement known as “New Frisian Literature,” and they went on to write an amusing collection of Romantic prose and poetry, Rimen en Teltsjes (1871;......
  • Halbertsma, Joast (Dutch writer)
    It was not until the Romantic period of the 19th century, however, that Frisian literature began to flourish as a national literature. About this time the Halbertsma brothers—Eeltsje, Joast, and Tsjalling—founded a movement known as “New Frisian Literature,” and they went on to write an amusing collection of Romantic prose and poetry, Rimen en Teltsjes (1871;......
  • Halbertsma, Tsjalling (Dutch writer)
    It was not until the Romantic period of the 19th century, however, that Frisian literature began to flourish as a national literature. About this time the Halbertsma brothers—Eeltsje, Joast, and Tsjalling—founded a movement known as “New Frisian Literature,” and they went on to write an amusing collection of Romantic prose and poetry, Rimen en Teltsjes (1871;......
  • HALCA (radio astronomy program, Japan)
    In 1997, Japanese radio astronomers working at the Institute for Space Science near Tokyo launched an 8-metre (26-foot) dish, known as the VLBI Space Observatory Program (VSOP), in Earth orbit. Working with the VLBA and other ground-based radio telescopes, VSOP gave interferometer baselines up to 33,000 km (21,000 miles). (VSOP was also known as Highly Advanced Laboratory for Communication and......
  • Halchidhoma (people)
    Two major divisions of Yumans are recognized: the river Yumans, who lived along the lower Colorado and middle Gila rivers and whose major groups included, from north to south, the Mojave, Halchidhoma, Yuma, and Cocopa, together with the Maricopa in the middle Gila; and the upland Yumans, who inhabited what is now western Arizona south of the Grand Canyon and whose major groups included the......
  • Halcion (drug)
    ...also require a much smaller dosage than do barbiturates to achieve their effects. The benzodiazepines include chlordiazepoxide (Librium), diazepam (Valium), alprazolam (Xanax), oxazepam (Serax), and triazolam (Halcion). They are, however, intended only for short- or medium-term use, since the body does develop a tolerance to them and withdrawal symptoms (anxiety, restlessness, and so on) develo...
  • Halcyon coromanda (bird)
    ...rex) of New Guinea is partly terrestrial and is known to feed on beetles and earthworms; the latter are apparently dug from the soil of the forest floor with the bird’s short, heavy bill. The ruddy kingfisher (Halcyon coromanda), widespread in Southeast Asia, eats many large land snails. It seizes a snail with its bill and beats it against a rock until the shell is broken a...
  • Halcyon Island (island, Pacific Ocean)
    atoll in the central Pacific Ocean, about 2,300 miles (3,700 km) west of Honolulu. It is an unincorporated territory of the United States and comprises three low-lying coral islets (Wilkes, Peale, and Wake) that rise from an underwater volcano to 21 feet (6 metres) above sea level and are linked by causeways. They lie in a crescent configura...
  • Haldane, Elizabeth Sanderson (Scottish social reformer)
    Scottish social-welfare worker and author....
  • Haldane, J. B. S. (British geneticist)
    British geneticist, biometrician, physiologist, and popularizer of science who opened new paths of research in population genetics and evolution....
  • Haldane, John Burdon Sanderson (British geneticist)
    British geneticist, biometrician, physiologist, and popularizer of science who opened new paths of research in population genetics and evolution....
  • Haldane, John Scott (British physiologist)
    British physiologist and philosopher chiefly noted for his work on the physiology of respiration....
  • Haldane, Naomi Margaret (British writer and activist)
    British writer, feminist, and peace activist who was the prolific author of some 70 books—the best known of which was The Corn King and the Spring Queen (1931)—as well as numerous articles, essays, works of poetry and drama, and children’s stories; she was created C.B.E. in 1985 (b. Nov. 1, 1897, Edinburgh, Scot.—d. Jan. 11, 1999, Mull of Kintyre, Scot.)....
  • Haldane, Richard Burdon, 1st Viscount Haldane of Cloan (Scottish statesman)
    Scottish lawyer, philosopher, and statesman who instituted important military reforms while serving as British secretary of state for war (1905–12)....
  • Haldar, Hiralal (Indian philosopher)
    ...be interpreted in the light of German idealism. The Hegelian notion of Absolute Spirit found a resonance in the age-old Vedānta notion of Brahman. The most eminent Indian Hegelian scholar is Hiralal Haldar, who was concerned with the problem of the relation of the human personality with the Absolute, as is evidenced by his book Neo-Hegelianism. The most eminent Kantian scholar is....
  • Haldas, Las (archaeological site, Peru)
    ...Examples include La Florida, a huge pyramid in Lima that formed the nucleus of a yet-unmapped building complex. The Tank site at Ancón consists of a series of stone-faced platforms on a hill. Las Haldas has a platform and three plazas; two smaller similar sites are also known. The old centres at El Paraíso and Río Seco had been abandoned, but, in the highlands, Kotosh......
  • Haldefjäll (mountain, Finland)
    highest mountain in Finland, at the extreme northwestern tip of Finnish Lapland on the Norwegian border, rising to 4,357 feet (1,328 m). The peak is located in Finland’s only true mountain range, the Haltia (Halddia in Norway)....
  • Haldeman, Bob (United States political adviser)
    American advertising executive and campaign manager who served as White House chief of staff during the Richard M. Nixon administration (1969–73). He is best known for his involvement in the Watergate Scandal....
  • Haldeman, H. R. (United States political adviser)
    American advertising executive and campaign manager who served as White House chief of staff during the Richard M. Nixon administration (1969–73). He is best known for his involvement in the Watergate Scandal....
  • Haldeman, Harry Robbins (United States political adviser)
    American advertising executive and campaign manager who served as White House chief of staff during the Richard M. Nixon administration (1969–73). He is best known for his involvement in the Watergate Scandal....
  • Halden (Norway)
    town, southeastern Norway. It lies along Idde Fjord, which forms part of the border between Norway and Sweden, at the mouth of the Tistedalselva (river). The site was settled in ancient times, and the modern town, founded in 1661, was known as Fredrikshald from 1665 to 1928. Its 17th-century Fredriksten Fort was a strategic border stronghold that withstood many attacks by the Sw...
  • Halder, Franz (German general)
    ...were across the Narew attacking the line of the Bug River, behind Warsaw. All the German armies had made progress in fulfilling their parts in the great enveloping maneuver planned by General Franz Halder, chief of the general staff, and directed by General Walther von Brauchitsch, the commander in chief. The Polish armies were splitting up into uncoordinated fragments, some of which were......
  • Haldi (ancient god)
    the national god of the ancient kingdom of Urartu, which ruled the plateau around Lake Van, now eastern Turkey, from about 900 to about 600 bc. Haldi was represented as a man, with or without wings, standing on a lion; in the absence of religious texts his attributes are otherwise unknown. A Urartian temple at ancient Muṣaṣir dedicated to Haldi and t...
  • Haldīghāt, Battle of (Indian history)
    battle fought in Rājasthān, northwestern India, between Pratap Singh of Mewār, the senior Rājput chief, and a Mughal army led by Raja Mān Singh of Jaipur. It represented an attempt by the Mughal emperor Akbar to subdue the last of the independent chiefs of Rājasthān. Pratap Singh made a stand at the pass of Hald...
  • Haldimand, Sir Frederick (British general)
    British general who served as governor of Quebec province from 1778 to 1786....
  • Hale, Alan (American astronomer)
    long-period comet that was spectacularly visible to the naked eye, having a bright coma and a thick white dust tail. It was discovered independently in July 1995 by Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, two American amateur astronomers, at the unusually far distance of 7 astronomical units (AU; about 1 billion km [600 million miles]) from the Sun, well beyond Jupiter’s orbit. The comet reached perihel...
  • Hale, Edward Everett (American clergyman and writer)
    American clergyman and author best remembered for his short story “The Man Without a Country.”...
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