H. G. Wells's earlier works of science fiction have retained their popularity for nearly a century. In recent years they have also won academic regard for integrating the fantastic with the realistic to produce challenging alien perspectiv...

During his lifetime H. L. Mencken was called the Great Iconoclast and the Sage of Baltimore, appellations he gained because of his journalistic writing in newspapers and magazines. However, his contributions to American letters were more e...

HAAVIO, MARTTI (1899–1973) was a Finnish poet, folklorist, and scholar of comparative mythology and phenomenology of religion whose multifaceted career and comprehensive scholarship stemmed from a deep knowledge of Finnish history. ...

A habitat is the environment in which an organism, species, or community lives. Habitats can be classified in a number of ways in order to compare them at different times, across different geographic areas, and in terms of different life h...

Many biologists consider habitat loss, habitat degradation, and habitat fragmentation the primary threats to species survival. Habitat is the place or kind of place where an organism or a community of organisms lives and thrives. Habitat l...

There are various ways in which a pregnancy may be lost. Miscarriage means loss of an embryo or fetus before the 20th week of pregnancy. Most miscarriages occur during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. The medical term for miscarriage is sp...

For years, "hacker" was a positive term that described computer enthusiasts who had a zeal for computer programming. Those who hacked took pride in their ability to write computer programs that stretched the capabilities of c...

Originally the term hacker was used to refer to someone who is enthusiastic about computing, spends a lot of time figuring out how computers work, and is adept at using computers to accomplish extraordinary feats. Hacking referred to the a...

ḤADĪTH. The Arabic word ḥadīth literally means speech and also new: because speech is created as it is uttered, it is always new. Following Prophet Muḥammad's death (632 CE), people engaged in spee...

The Roman emperor Hadrian (76-138), or Publius Aelius Hadrianus, reversed the expansionist policies of Rome in a permanent shift to the defensive. Hadrian was born in Rome on Jan. 24, 76. A ward of his uncle, Emperor Trajan, he spent the f...

(2001 est. pop. 260,000). Haeju, the capital of South Hwanghae Province (Hwanghaenamdo), is a port and industrial city on the west coast of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), 140 kilometers south of Pyongyang. ...

Hemophilia A and hemophilia B are genetic disorders in the blood-clotting system, characterized by bleeding into joints and soft tissues, and by excessive bleeding into any site experiencing trauma or undergoing surgery. Hemophilia A and B...

Shams al-Din Hafiz (ca. 1320-1390) was a great Persian mystical poet who, as a professor of Koranic exegesis, composed some of the most sensitive and lyrical poetry ever produced in the Middle East. Hafiz was born in Shiraz, the capital of...

It is estimated that there were a million casualties from the use of poison gases in the First World War. Official figures list 180,983 British soldiers as being gassed, of whom 6,062 died in the trenches, but these figures are often cons...

H'AI GAON (939–1038), Babylonian halakhist. H'ai succeeded his father, Sherira', as head of the academy at Pumbedita and occupied the post for forty years, during which time he penned hundreds of responsa, compo...

There are few crossroads with the name recognition of the San Francisco intersection of Haight and Ashbury. A seemingly enchanted place, the Haight-Ashbury district begins at the top of a rise that gradually makes its way west to the beach...

(1996 est. pop. 7.1 million). Hainan, an island province in the South China Sea off the coast of China's Guangdong Province, covers an area of 34,000 square kilometers. Before 1988, when the island obtained provincial status, it was...

While many people may not be familiar with who Helen Haines was, she made numerous contributions during her lifetime to the American Library Association, the library press, library education, and the American intellectual freedom movement....

HAIR. Words are related to the things they denote only by the conventions of language, but symbols, unlike words, are inherently appropriate to what they signify. Thus, since most animals are much hairier than human beings, some cultures m...

Hair, a "tribal-rock musical" (Barnes), captures the attitudes and idealisms of the Hippie movement of the 1960's. Written by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, with music and lyrics by Galt McDermot, Hair illustrates Hippies' repudiation of conv...

Human beings have styled and adorned their hair since the beginning of recorded history. This styling has different and often contradictory purposes. As an intrinsic, yet malleable part of the body, the hair and its styling can serve as an...

The second president after Indonesia's independence, Suharto (born 1921) was a strong anti-Communist who drew Indonesia closer to the West and presided during a period of economic improvement in the country. Notwithstanding, his tenure was...

The Hakka are a Chinese ethnolinguistic minority group. The word "Hakka" means "guest people" or "newcomers" in Yue (Cantonese) and reflects their migration from central to southern China from abou...

HAKUIN (1686–1769), more fully Hakuin Ekaku, was a mid-Tokugawa period (1603–1868) reviver of Rinzai Zen. Hakuin was born to a commoner family in Hara, present-day Shizuoka prefecture. Entering Buddhism at an early age, he st...

A director and producer whose long list of credits includes the musical blockbusters West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Evita, and The Phantom of the Opera, as well as groundbreaking works with lyricist/composer Stephen Sondhei...