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Wrangel Island

(Encyclopedia)Wrangel Island or Wrangell Island răngˈgəl [key], Rus. Ostrov Vrangelya, island, 1,740 sq mi (4,507 sq km), in the Arctic Ocean, between the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea, off NE Russia. It...

Bohemia

(Encyclopedia)Bohemia, Czech Čechy, historic region (20,368 sq mi/52,753 sq km) and former kingdom, in W and central Czech Republic. Bohemia is bounded by Austria in the southeast, by Germany in the west and north...

Isabella II

(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 Carlist Wars b...

Haig, Douglas Haig, 1st Earl

(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 (1914) was given...

Louis XVIII, king of France

(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 about forei...

Biedermeier

(Encyclopedia)Biedermeier bēˈdərmīər [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 early in the 19th cen...

Zrinyi

(Encyclopedia)Zrinyi zrĭnˈyē [key], noble Hungarian family of Croatian origin. Nicholas Zrinyi, 1508–66, distinguished himself in the defense of Vienna (1529) against Sultan Sulayman I, took part in the campai...

Transylvania

(Encyclopedia)Transylvania trănˌsĭlvāˈnyə [key], Rom. Transilvania or Ardeal, Hung. Erdély, Ger. Siebenbürgen, historic region and province (21,292 sq mi/55,146 sq km), central Romania. A high plateau, Tran...

geometric problems of antiquity

(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 but not proved to...

Würzburg

(Encyclopedia)Würzburg vürtsˈbo͝ork [key], city (1994 pop. 128,875), capital of Lower Franconia, Bavaria, S central Germany, on the Main River. It is an industrial city, the center of a wine-producing region, a...