Vedantadesika

Vedantadesika was born into a distinguished Srivaisnava family that followed the teachings of Ramanuja, an 11th–12th-century

Coin, Switzerland

The coinage of Switzerland illustrates its varying fortunes. First there was the gold money of the Merovingian kings, among whose mints were Basel, Lausanne, St. Maurice-en-Valais, and Sitten (Sion). The silver deniers that Charlemagne made the coinage of the empire were issued by fewer mints. The dukes of Swabia began to strike at Zürich in the 10th century, and the empire

Canada, The War of 1812

The War of 1812 was to a large degree caused by the Anglo-U.S. rivalry in the fur trade. British traders and soldiers had supplied Indian tribes and afforded them moral support in their contest with the advancing U.S. frontier. Britain had surrendered the western posts by the Jay Treaty of 1794, but the cause of the Canadian fur trade and of the Indians remained the same—the preservation

Amur

Russian  Amurskaya  oblast (province), far eastern Russia. It occupies the basins of the middle Amur River and its tributary the Zeya and extends up to the crest of the Stanovoy Range. In 1689 Russia yielded the Amur region to China by the Treaty of Nerchinsk, but Russian Cossacks reincorporated it in the latter part of the 19th century. Amur oblast was formed in 1932 from Khabarovsk kray (region), and its

Ecuador, Recreation

The Ecuadoran calendar is replete with religious and secular holidays. Some of the more important ones are not national but, rather, associated with local urban or regional traditions, such as the holidays of Quito (December 1–6), Guayaquil (October 9), and Cuenca (November 3) and the Yamor festival in Otavalo in early September. Many shops and businesses also close on Saturday

Amadeus

The second son of the future King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia-Piedmont (later, of Italy), he was originally called Amadeus I, duke of Aosta. His candidacy for the Spanish throne (vacant after the deposition of Isabella II

Spock, Benjamin

Spock received his medical degree in 1929 from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and trained for six years at the New York

Pacific Ocean, Principal ridges and basins

To the east of 150° W the relief of the ocean floor is considerably less pronounced than it is to the west. In the eastern Pacific the Cocos Ridge extends southwestward from the Central American isthmus to the Galápagos Islands. To the south of the Galápagos lies the Peru Basin, which is separated by the extensive Sala y Gomez Ridge from the Southeast Pacific Basin, which,

Middlebury College

Private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Middlebury, Vt., U.S. It is a small liberal arts college at which particular emphasis is given to the study of modern languages. Course work at Middlebury is divided into eight academic categories: literature, the arts, foreign languages, philosophical and religious studies, physical and life sciences, historical

Mosan School

Regional style of Romanesque manuscript illumination, metalwork, and enamelwork that flourished in the 11th and 12th centuries and was centred in the Meuse River valley, especially at Liège and the Benedictine monastery of Stavelot. Two of the most important artists associated with the Mosan school were Godefroid de Claire, a goldsmith from Huy, and Nicholas of

Racine, Jean

In full  Jean-baptiste Racine  French dramatic poet and historiographer renowned for his mastery of French classical tragedy. His reputation rests on the plays he wrote between 1664 and 1677, notably Andromaque (1667), Britannicus (1669), Bérénice (1670), Bajazet (1672), and Phèdre (1677).