American motion-picture director who was Hollywood's best-known director of westerns. He developed a distinctive directorial style characterized by effective cutting, an emphasis on action, colourful characterization, a sentimentalized vision of the past, and
Town and traditional emirate, northwestern Taraba state, eastern Nigeria. Originally part of the 17th-century Jukun kingdom called Kororofa, the region now known as Muri emirate was conquered in the 1804 jihad (holy war) conducted by the Fulani people. By 1817 Hamman Ruwa, a brother of the emir of Gombe, an emirate to the north, had consolidated Fulani control over the non-Muslim
Also spelled Pheidias Athenian sculptor, the artistic director of the construction of the Parthenon, who created its most important religious images and supervised and probably designed its overall sculptural decoration. It is said of Phidias that he alone had seen the exact image of the gods and that he revealed it to man. He established forever general conceptions of Zeus and
At the age of 15, Guzmán was working in his family's textile store. By age 17 he was already managing stores for the Curaçao Trading Company. He invested in land and started growing rice, soon expanding into other agricultural exports. Guzmán was
Nothing is known of Dowland's childhood, but in 1580 he went to Paris as a “servant” to Sir Henry Cobham, the ambassador to the French court. In 1588 he received a bachelor of music degree from the University of Oxford. His conversion to
Appointed to the chair of history and philosophy at Jena in 1572, Lipsius later accepted the chair of history and law at the new University of Leiden (1578) and that of history and Latin at Louvain (1592). His first scholarly publication, the Variae lectiones of
Yancey was largely a self-taught pianist, with some instruction from his brother Alonzo. He had a childhood
Repeated French attacks in February–March 1915 on the Germans' trench barrier in Champagne won only 500 yards (460 metres) of ground at a cost of 50,000 men. For the British, Sir Douglas Haig's 1st Army, between Armentières and Lens, tried a new experiment at Neuve-Chapelle on March 10, when its artillery opened an intense bombardment on a 2,000-yard front and then, after 35 minutes, lengthened its range,
Ancient people of Italy originally inhabiting the region watered by the tributaries of the Avens River (modern Velino). Long hostile to Rome, they became especially menacing in the 5th century BC, advancing to the Alban Hills. Although repulsed by the Romans in 431, the Aequi were not completely subdued by Rome until the end of the Second Samnite War (304 BC), when they received civitas
If the images of the two components of a binary star system can be separated by telescope, it is called
Former principality and historical province, north-central Portugal, extending from the banks of the Douro River in the north to the upper course of the Tagus in the southeast and from the Spanish frontier in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. The region was reconquered from the Moors in the 8th century, but Moorish attacks continued until the 15th. It was also
