In 330 BCE, during his military campaigns in Bactria and Central Asia, Alexander of Macedon founded a city fifty miles north of the modern city of Kabul in Afghanistan, at the confluence of the Ghorband and Panjsher Rivers, and named it Al...

Bahaʾi is a relatively new world religion that was founded and initially developed in Iran in the 1860s. It emerged from Iranian Shiʾa Islam and drew most of its initial adherents from the earlier Babism movement in Iran. Adh...

archipelago and state on the northwestern edge of the West Indies. Formerly a British colony, The Bahamas became an independent country within the Commonwealth in 1973. The name Bahamas is of Lucayan Taino (Arawakan) derivation, although s...

small Arab state situated in a bay on the southwestern coast of the Persian Gulf. It is an archipelago consisting of Bahrain Island and some 30 smaller islands. Its name is from the Arabic term al-bahrayn, meaning “two seas.” L...

ALL-FATHER. Nineteenth-century reports on southeastern Australia showed a widespread belief in a male spirit who transcended others in this part of the continent. Known by diverse names, including Baiame, Bunjil, Daramulun, Kohin, and Mung...

SCHENIRER, SARAH (1883–1935), was a pioneer in religious education for Jewish females and founder of Bais̀ Yaʿaḳov educational institutions. Born to a Belzer Hasidic family in Kraków, descendant of rabbin...

Belgian-born chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland (1863-1944), working independently, patented Bakelite in 1909. For several years Baekeland had been searching for a solvent to dissolve the product of a condensation reaction between formaldehyde ...

Baker, Lynne Rudder(1944 Philosophy of Mind. Bibliography Baker, Lynne Rudder. Explaining Attitudes: A Practical Approach to the Mind. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Baker, Lynne Rudder. Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View....

Bakili MuluziPresident (pronounced "ba-KIH-ree moo-LOO-zee") "There is evidence that countries that embrace democracy experience economic growth." The landlocked Republic of Malawi, formerly called Nyasalan...

(born July 23, 1856, Ratnagiri, India—died Aug. 1, 1920, Bombay) Indian scholar and nationalist. Born to a middle-class Brahman family, Tilak taught mathematics and in 1884 founded the Deccan Education Society to help educate the mas...

Balanced polymorphism is a situation in which two different versions of a gene are maintained in a population of organisms because individuals carrying both versions are better able to survive than those who have two copies of either versi...

Species of sea eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) that occurs inland along rivers and large lakes. Strikingly handsome, it is the only eagle native solely to North America, and it has been the U.S. national bird since 1782. The adult, about ...

Lack or loss of hair, either permanent (from destruction of hair follicles) or temporary (from short-term follicle damage). Male pattern baldness is inherited and affects up to 40% of men; treatments are transplanting of follicles f...

Baldwin I (ca. 1058-1118), a Norman known earlier as Baldwin of Boulogne and a chief lay leader of the First Crusade, reigned as king of Jerusalem from 1100 to 1118. Son of the Norman Count of Boulogne, Baldwin joined the First Crusade wit...

People of the island of Bali, Indon. They differ from other Indonesians in adhering to Hinduism, though their culture has been heavily influenced by the Javanese. In Balinese villages each family lives in its own compound, surrounded by ea...

BALINESE RELIGION. Eight degrees south of the equator, toward the middle of the belt of islands that form the southern arc of the Indonesian archipelago, lies the island of Bali, home of the last surviving Hindu-Buddhist civilization of In...

spherical or ovoid object for throwing, hitting, or kicking in various sports and games. The ball is mentioned in the earliest recorded literatures and finds a place in some of the oldest graphic representations of play. It is one of the e...

Ballad of Dogs’ Beach by José Cardoso Pires Born in São João do Peso, in central Portugal on February 2, 1925, José Cardoso Pires moved to Lisbon with his family while he was still a child. He completed hi...

science of the propulsion, flight, and impact of projectiles. It is divided into several disciplines. Internal and external ballistics, respectively, deal with the propulsion and the flight of projectiles. The transition between these two ...

During the period of time when the European pioneers were moving across the United States and Canada, they adapted a Scandinavian method of building houses called mortise-and-tenon construction, in which the projecting tenon at the end of ...

Baluchistan, a mountainous region overlapping Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, consists of Baluchistan Province in southwestern Pakistan (2002 pop. 7.2 million, 344,747 square kilometers; capital Quetta) and Baluchestan va Sistan Province ...

Baltasar Jerónimo Gracián y Morales (1601-1658), Spanish humorist, satirist, baroque stylist, and philosophical novelist, is classed with the greatest prose masters of Spain's Golden Age. Born into a religious family in Calat...

Latvians, Lithuanians, and Old Prussians constitute the Baltic language and cultural unit. The Old Prussians, who lived in the territory of the present-day Kaliningrad district and eastern Germany, were conquered during the period of eastw...

The most remote region of Pakistan, Baltistan lies in the portion of Jammu and Kashmir that is controlled by Pakistan. It is situated in the Northern Mountains, at Pamir-Nod, where the Hindu Kush, Pamir, Karakorum, and Himalayan Mountains ...

Any of the tall, treelike grasses, found in tropical and subtropical to mild temperate regions, that make up the subfamily Bambusoideae, family Poaceae (or Gramineae). Bamboos are giant, fast-growing grasses with woody stems. A few species...