fl. 138-114 B.C. Chinese official who journeyed to central Asia, establishing the first contact between China and other civilizations. Prior to Chang Ch'ien, the Chinese had known only of barbarians beyond their frontiers. It was to...

Chang Chih-tung (1837-1909) was a Chinese official and reformer. A brilliant Confucian scholar, he was convinced of the peerless quality of China's traditional culture. However, to preserve it, he introduced Western-type industry, educatio...

Province (pop., 2002 est.: 46,470,000), eastern China. With an area of 39,300 sq mi (101,800 sq km), it is bounded by the East China Sea, Shanghai municipality, and Fujian, Jiangxi, Anhui, and Jiangsu provinces; its capital is Hangzhou. It...

The Chinese Buddhist monk Chih-i (538-597) founded one of the most popular schools of Chinese Buddhism, the T'ien-t'ai. Chih-i, also known as Chih-k'ai, was born Ch'en Wang-tao in South China in 538. He grew up in a chaotic period, during ...

Chou En-lai (1898-1976) was a Chinese Communist leader and premier of the People's Republic of China. From the 1920s on Chou was among the top leaders of the Chinese Communist party. Chou En-lai was born in Huaian, Kiangsu Province, into a...

(born Oct. 23, 1928, Changsha, Hunan province, China) Premier of the State Council of China (1998–2003). In the 1950s he was denounced as a rightist, and he was purged again in the 1970s, but, once his Communist Party membership was ...

Chu Hsi (1130-1200) was one of the greatest Chinese scholars and philosophers. The system of Neo-Confucianism of which Chu Hsi is regarded as the spokesman represents a summary of doctrines of his predecessors as well as original ideas of ...

The Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu (ca. 369-ca. 286 BC), also known as Chuang Chou, was the most brilliant of the early Taoists and the greatest prose writer of his time. Not much is known of the life of Chuang Tzu. The Shih Chi (Historica...

ZHUHONG (1535–1615), also known as Master Yunqi; an important Buddhist leader in the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644). A reformer of monastic Buddhism, a synthesizer of various Buddhist traditions, and a successful promoter of l...

Brainchild of Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld and his first wife, European singer Anna Held, The Ziegfeld Follies dominated the American theatrical revue scene from 1907 until the late 1920s and early 1930s when the popularity of vaud...

Ziehen, Theodor(1862–1950) Theodor Ziehen, the German psychologist and philosopher, was born in Frankfurt am Main and served as professor of psychiatry at the universities of Jena, Utrecht, Halle, and Berlin. He lived as a private sc...

landlocked country of southern Africa. It shares a 125-mile (200-kilometre) border on the south with the Republic of South Africa and is bounded on the southwest and west by Botswana, on the north by Zambia, and on the northeast and east b...

Zinc Oxide Overview Zinc oxide (ZINC OX-side) is a white to gray to yellowish powder with no odor but a bitter taste. It occurs in nature as the mineral zincite. Zinc oxide is perhaps best known as an ingredient in cosmetics, personal care ...

A member of the struggle for Tunisian independence, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali (born 1936) held many posts in the new government, rising to the position of prime minister in 1987. On November 7, 1987, he removed the aging and infirm President...

Device for binding the edges of an opening, as on a garment or a bag. A zipper consists of two strips of material with metal or plastic teeth along the edges, and a sliding piece that interlocks the teeth when moved in one direction and se...

Metallic chemical element, one of the transition elements, chemical symbol Zr, atomic number 40. The metal is hard and brittle when impure, soft and ductile when highly purified. It is relatively abundant, occurring as zircon (also markete...

city in western Turkey. The country's third largest city and one of its largest ports, it lies at the head of the sheltered Gulf of İzmir on the deeply indented coast of the Aegean Sea. The modern city, with spacious avenues and moder...

Zénobe Gramme was a true enigma, and it is remarkable that he was able to accomplish what he did. Born on April 4, 1826, in Jehay-Bedegnée, Belgium, Gramme was the son of an educated family of modest means. With the family's ...

ZOLLA, ELÉMIRE. Elémire Zolla (1926–2002), an Anglo-Italian polymath, writer, historian of ideas, metaphysical thinker, and spiritual seeker, has a unique place in twentieth-century religious, comparative, and cultural...

ZONGMI (780–841), more fully, Guifeng Zongmi; Chinese Buddhist Chan and Huayan scholar, traditionally reckoned as the fifth "patriarch" both in the Heze line of Southern Chan and in the Huayan tradition. Zongmi was bor...

Place where wild and sometimes domesticated animals are exhibited in captivity. Aquatic zoological gardens are called aquariums. The first zoos were perhaps associated with domestication. Pigeons were kept in captivity as early as 4500 &BC...

Branch of biology concerned with members of the animal kingdom and with animal life in general. The science originated in the works of Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Pliny. The contributions of individuals such as William Harvey (the circulat...

The zoot suit was a style of clothing popularized by young male African Americans, Filipino Americans, and Mexican Americans during the 1930s and 1940s. A zoot suit consisted of very baggy high-waisted pants, pegged around the ankles, worn...

ZOPFAN, the Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality, originated in a 1970 proposal by Malaysia for neutralizing Southeast Asia. The idea for such a zone has been attributed to Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra al-Haj (1903–1990), who was then...

Zorn's lemma, the well-ordering principle and the axiom of choice are three equivalent propositions. It has been said that from appearances, the axiom of choice has to be true, the well-ordering principle has to be false and Zorn's lemma i...