(Encyclopedia) Wrangel Island or Wrangell IslandWrangel Islandrăngˈgəl [key], Rus. Ostrov Vrangelya, island, 1,740 sq mi (4,507 sq km), in the Arctic Ocean, between the East Siberian Sea and the…
(Encyclopedia) Louis XVIII, 1755–1824, king of France (1814–24), brother of King Louis XVI. Known as the comte de Provence, he fled (1791) to Koblenz from the French Revolution and intrigued to bring…
(Encyclopedia) Isabella II, 1830–1904, queen of Spain (1833–68), daughter of Ferdinand VII and of Maria Christina. Her uncle, Don Carlos, contested her succession under the Salic law, and thus the…
(Encyclopedia) Haig, Douglas Haig, 1st Earl, 1861–1928, British field marshal. He saw active service in Sudan (1898) and in the South African War (1899–1902) and upon the outbreak of World War I (…
(Encyclopedia) ZrinyiZrinyizrĭnˈyē [key], noble Hungarian family of Croatian origin. Nicholas Zrinyi, 1508–66, distinguished himself in the defense of Vienna (1529) against Sultan Sulayman I, took…
(Encyclopedia) BiedermeierBiedermeierbēˈdərmīər [key], name applied, at first in a joking spirit, to a period of European culture and a style of furniture, decoration, and art originating in Germany…
(Encyclopedia) TransylvaniaTransylvaniatrănˌsĭlvāˈnyə [key], Rom. Transilvania or Ardeal, Hung. Erdély, Ger. Siebenbürgen, historic region and province (21,292 sq mi/55,146 sq km), central Romania. A…
Science Experiments by Christine Frantz Cardiff Giant In 1869, New York cigar maker George Hull had a block of gypsum carved in the likeness of a man over 10 feet tall. It…
(Encyclopedia) geometric problems of antiquity, three famous problems involving elementary geometric constructions with straight edge and compass, conjectured by the ancient Greeks to be impossible…