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Orléans, city, France

(Encyclopedia)Orléans, city (1990 pop. 107,965), capital of Loiret dept., N central France, on the Loire River. A commercial and transportation center, it has food-processing, tobacco, machine-building, electrical...

Amis, Sir Kingsley

(Encyclopedia)Amis, Sir Kingsley āˈmĭs [key], 1922–95, English novelist. He attended St. John's College, Oxford (B.A., 1949) and for some 20 years taught at Oxford, Swansea, and Cambridge and in the United Sta...

Louis XII, king of France

(Encyclopedia)Louis XII, 1462–1515, king of France (1498–1515), son of Charles, duc d'Orléans. He succeeded his father as duke. While still duke, he rebelled against the regency of Anne de Beaujeu and was impr...

projective geometry

(Encyclopedia)projective geometry, branch of geometry concerned with those properties of geometric figures that remain invariant under projection. The basic elements are points, lines, and planes, and the following...

Cappadocia

(Encyclopedia)Cappadocia kăpədōˈshə [key], ancient region of Asia Minor, watered by the Halys River (the modern Kizil Irmak), in present E central Turkey. The name was applied at different times to territories...

circus

(Encyclopedia)circus [Lat.,=ring, circle], historically, the arena associated with the horse and chariot races and athletic contests known in ancient Rome as the Circensian games. The Roman circus was a round or ov...

Franche-Comté

(Encyclopedia)Franche-Comté fräNsh-kôNtāˈ [key] or Free County of Burgundy, former province and former administrative region, E France. It is coextensive with Haute-Saône, Doubs, and Jura depts. Dôle was the...

Gallic Wars

(Encyclopedia)Gallic Wars gălˈĭk [key], campaigns in Gaul led by Julius Caesar in his two terms as proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul, Transalpine Gaul, and Illyricum (58 b.c.–51 b.c.). Caesar's first campaign was to...

minimalism

(Encyclopedia)minimalism, schools of contemporary art and music, with their origins in the 1960s, that have emphasized simplicity and objectivity. In music, the minimalist movement was, like minimal art, a react...

water, desalination of

(Encyclopedia)water, desalination of, process of removing soluble salts from water to render it suitable for drinking, irrigation, or industrial uses. The principal methods used for desalination include distillatio...