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Tripoli , city, Libya

(Encyclopedia)Tripoli trĭpˈəlē [key], ancient Oea, Arab. Tarabulus, city (1984 pop. 990,697), capital of Libya and of Tripoli dist., NW Libya, a port on the Mediterranean Sea. It is a commercial, industrial, ad...

Palaeologus

(Encyclopedia)Palaeologus pālēŏlˈəgəs [key], Greek dynasty that ruled the Byzantine Empire from its restoration in 1261 to its final conquest by the Turks in 1453. The first emperor was Michael VIII, restorer...

Hay-Pauncefote Treaties

(Encyclopedia)Hay-Pauncefote Treaties hā-pônsˈfo͝ot [key], negotiated in 1899 and 1901 by Secretary of State John Hay, for the United States, and Lord Pauncefote of Preston, British ambassador to the United Sta...

Philip of Swabia

(Encyclopedia)Philip of Swabia swāˈbēə [key], 1176?–1208, German king (1198–1208), son of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I. After the death (1197) of his brother, German King and Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, ...

Crusades

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Crusader States (c.1140) Crusades kro͞oˈsādz [key], series of wars undertaken by European Christians between the 11th and 14th cent. to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims. After...

Armenian literature

(Encyclopedia)Armenian literature. The Armenian Church fostered literature, and the principal early works are religious or hagiographical, most of them translations. The first major Armenian literary work is a 5th ...

Epirus

(Encyclopedia)Epirus ĕpīˈrəs [key], ancient country of Greece, on the Ionian Sea and W of Macedon and Thessaly, a region now occupied by NW Greece and S Albania. At the time of Homer, Epirus was known as the ho...

Polo, Marco

(Encyclopedia)Polo, Marco märˈkō pōˈlō [key], 1254?–1324?, Venetian traveler in China. His father, Niccolò Polo, and his uncle, Maffeo Polo, had made (1253–60) a trading expedition to Constantinople. A w...

Smolensk

(Encyclopedia)Smolensk smōlĕnskˈ, smô–, Rus. sməlyĕnskˈ [key], city (1989 pop. 341,000), capital of Smolensk region, W European Russia, a port on the Dnieper River. It is an important rail junction, a dist...

Peloponnesus

(Encyclopedia)Peloponnesus mōrēˈə [key], peninsula (1991 pop. 1,086,935), c.8,300 sq mi (21,500 sq km), S Greece. It is linked with central Greece by the Isthmus of Corinth, and it is washed by the Aegean Sea o...