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Wetzlar

(Encyclopedia)Wetzlar vĕtsˈlär [key], city (1994 pop. 54,188), Hesse, central Germany, on the Lahn River. Situated in a region where iron ore is mined, the city has a metallurgical industry. Other manufactures i...

Boleslaus II

(Encyclopedia)Boleslaus II, c.1039–1081, duke (1058–76), and later king (1076–79) of Poland; son and successor of Casimir I. Throughout his reign he opposed the influence of the Holy Roman Empire. He asserted...

Nestorianism

(Encyclopedia)Nestorianism, Christian heresy that held Jesus to be two distinct persons, closely and inseparably united. In 428, Emperor Theodosius II named an abbot of Antioch, Nestorius (d. 451?), as patriarch of...

Vidal, Gore

(Encyclopedia)Vidal, Gore (Eugene Luther Gore Vidal, Jr.), 1925–2012, American writer, b. West Point, N.Y. He grew up in Washington, D.C., where a formative influence was his witty and scholarly grandfather, Sena...

Chittagong

(Encyclopedia)Chittagong chĭtˈəgŏng [key], city, capital of Chittagong division, SE Bangladesh, on the ...

Gibbon, Edward

(Encyclopedia)Gibbon, Edward, 1737–94, English historian, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. His childhood was sickly, and he had little formal education but read enormously and om...

Tabriz

(Encyclopedia)Tabriz täbrēzˈ [key], city (1991 pop. 1,088,985), capital of East Azerbaijan prov., NW Iran, on the Aji Chai (Talkheh) River, in the foothills of Mt. Sahand, at an elevation of c.4,600 ft (1,400 m)...

brick

(Encyclopedia)brick, ceramic structural material that, in modern times, is made by pressing clay into blocks and firing them to the requisite hardness in a kiln. Bricks in their most primitive form were not fired b...

Pedro I

(Encyclopedia)Pedro I (Dom Pedro de Alcântara) pāˈdrō [key], 1798–1834, first emperor of Brazil (1822–31); son of John VI of Portugal. Dom Pedro was a child when the Portuguese royal family, fleeing from Na...

Azerbaijan, region, Iran

(Encyclopedia)Azerbaijan äˌzĕrbījänˈ, ăˌzər– [key], Iran. Azarbayejan, region, c.34,280 sq mi (88,785 sq km), NW Iran, divided into the provinces of East Azerbaijan, ...