Britannica Concise 2005

Goldoni ► goliard I 777

system found wide application in closed-circuit television for industry, medical institutions, and schools because his camera was much smaller, lighter, and easier to maintain than those that eventually came to be used in commercial television. In 1948 he introduced the long-playing (LP) phonograph record, which revolutionized the recording industry. In 1950 he developed the scanning system that would allow the U.S. Lunar Orbiter spacecraft (launched in 1966) to relay photographs 238,000 mi (380,000 km) from the Moon to Earth.

Goldoni, Carlo (b. Feb. 25, 1707, Venice—d. Feb. 6, 1793, Paris, France) Italian playwright. He practiced law but preferred to write plays, beginning with Belisario (1734). He renovated the commedia dell'arte form by replacing its masked stock figures with realistic characters, its repeti¬ tive action with tightly constructed plots, and its predictable farce with spontaneity in plays such as Pamela (1750), based on Samuel Richardson’s novel. His comedy of manners La locandiera (1753) is still performed (as Mine Hostess). When rivals ridiculed his innovations, he took his realis¬ tic comedy to Paris, where he directed the Comedie-Italienne and wrote many plays in French. He later rewrote them for Italian audiences, and The Fan (1763) became one of his greatest successes.

Goldschmidt, Victor Moritz (b. Jan. 27, 1888, Zurich, Switz.—d. March 20, 1947, Oslo, Nor.) Swiss-born Norwegian mineralogist and petrologist. He became director of the Mineralogical Institute of the Uni¬ versity of Kristiania (now Oslo) in 1914. The dearth of raw materials dur¬ ing World War I led Goldschmidt to research in geochemistry. His work in that area, and more general studies after the war, marks the beginnings of modern geochemistry. His Geochemical Laws of the Distribution of the Elements (8 vol., 1923—38) laid the foundations of inorganic crystal chemistry. During the 1930s he studied the relative cosmic abundance of the elements. In 1942 he escaped a Nazi concentration camp and fled to England; after the war he returned to Oslo.

Goldsmith, Oliver (b. Nov. 10, 1730, Kilkenny West, County West¬ meath, Ire.—d. April 4, 1774, Lon¬ don, Eng.) Irish-born British essayist, poet, novelist, and drama¬ tist. Goldsmith attended Trinity Col¬ lege in Dublin before studying medicine in Edinburgh. Settling in London, he began writing essays, some of which were collected in The Citizen of the World (1762). In 1764 he became an original member of Samuel Johnson’s famous Club. He won a reputation as a poet with The Traveller (1764), confirmed by his famous pastoral elegy The Deserted Village (1770). The Vicar of Wake¬ field (1766) revealed his skill as a novelist. The charming farce She Stoops to Conquer (1773) was his most effective play. Noted for his exceptionally graceful, lively style,

Goldsmith was a friend of many lit¬ erary lights of his day, who agreed that he was one of the oddest personalities of his time.

Goldwater, Barry M(orris) (b. Jan. 1, 1909, Phoenix, Airz., U.S.—d. May 29, 1998, Paradise Valley, Ariz.) U.S. senator. He headed the family department-store business from 1937, and during World War II he was a U.S. Air Force pilot (1941-45). A Republican, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1952, and he quickly established himself as a strong conservative, calling for a harsh diplomatic stance toward the Soviet Union, opposing arms-control negotiations with that country, and accus¬ ing the Democrats of creating a quasi-socialist state at home. In 1964 he won the Republican nomination for president but lost the election to Democratic Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson largely because of popular fears that Goldwater would provoke a nuclear war with the Soviets. Returning to the Senate (1969-87), he helped persuade Richard Nixon to resign in 1974. Goldwater moderated many of his views in later years, and he became a symbol of high-minded conservatism.

Goldwyn, Samuel orig. Schmuel Gelbfisz later Samuel Goldfisn (b. July 1879, Warsaw, Pol.—d. Jan. 31, 1974, Los Angeles, Calif., U.S.) U.S. film producer. He emigrated alone at age 13 from Poland

Oliver Goldsmith, oil painting from the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1770; in the National Portrait Gallery, London

COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON

to New York, where he worked in a glove factory and became a sales¬ man. He formed a film company with his brother-in-law, Jesse L. Lasky (1880-1958), and Cecil B. DeMille in 1913. In 1917 he left the company and with Edgar Selwyn established Goldwyn Pictures Corp. By the time that company merged into MGM (1924), he had become an independent producer. He employed top screenwriters, directors, and actors to produce films of high quality, including Wuthering Heights (1939), The Little Foxes (1941), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Guys and Dolls (1955), and Porgy and Bess (1959).

golem \'go-tam\ In Jewish folklore, the Middle Ages stories were told of wise men who could bring clay effi¬ gies to life by means of magic charms or sacred words. Golems began as perfect servants, whose only fault lay in fulfilling their mas¬ ter’s commands too literally or mechanically. Later golems were imagined as protectors of the Jews in times of persecution, but also had a frightening aspect.

golf Game in which a player using special clubs attempts to sink a small ball with as few strokes as possible into each of the 9 or 18 successive holes on an outdoor course. A hole includes (1) a teeing area, a clearing from which the ball is initially driven toward the actual hole, or cup; (2) a fairway, a long, closely mowed, and often angled lane; (3) a putting green, a smooth grassy area containing the hole; and (4) often one or more natural or artificial hazards (such as bunkers). Each hole has associated with it a par, or score standard, usu¬ ally from par 3 to par 5. The origins of the game are difficult to ascer¬ tain, although evidence now suggests that early forms of golf were played in the Netherlands first and then in Scotland. Golf developed in Scotland—the courses were originally fields of grass that sheep had clipped short in their characteristic grazing style. Golf balls were origi¬ nally made of wood; wood was replaced in the 17th century by boiled feathers stuffed in a leather cover, in the 19th century by gutta-percha, and in the 20th century by hard rubber. Clubs, limited in number to 14, are known by the traditional names of “irons” (primarily for mid-range to short shots) and “woods” (primarily for longer shots); today irons are more likely made of stainless steel, and the heads of woods are usually made of metal such as steel or titanium.

an image that comes to life. From

Golem (right) in the German film Der Golem ( 1920)

COURTESY OF FRIEDRICH-WILHELM MURNAU-STIFTUNG, WIESBADEN; PHOTOGRAPH, MUSEUM OF MODERN ART FILM STILLS ARCHIVE, NEW VORK

Golgi Vg6l-je\, Camillo (b. July 7, 1843/44, Corteno, Italy—d. Jan. 21, 1926, Pavia) Italian physician and cytologist. He devised a way to stain nerve tissue and with it discov¬ ered a neuron, now called the Golgi cell, that has many short, branching extensions (dendrites) and connects other neurons. This led to identifica¬ tion of the neuron as the basic struc¬ tural unit of the nervous system. He also discovered the Golgi tendon organ (the point at which sensory nerve fibres branch out within a ten¬ don) and the Golgi apparatus (a cell organelle that packages large mol¬ ecules for transport). He shared a 1906 Nobel Prize with Santiago Ramon y Cajal (b. 1852—d. 1934).

Golgotha See Calvary

goliard Vgol-yord, 'go-b-.ardV Any of the wandering students and cler¬ ics in medieval England, France, and Germany remembered for their satirical verses and poems in praise of debauchery and against the church and pope. Renegades of no fixed abode, chiefly interested in riotous living, they described themselves as followers of the legendary Bishop Golias. By a series of decrees (from 1227), the church eventually revoked their clerical privileges. Carmina

Golgi, 1906

COURTESY OF THE WELLCOME TRUSTEES

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

778 I Golitsyn ► Gondwana

Burana is a collection of 13th-century Latin goliard poems and songs; some were translated by John Addington Symonds as Wine, Women, and Song (1884), and some were set in a famous cantata by Carl Orff (1937). In the 14th century the term came to mean jongleur, or minstrel.

Golitsyn, Vasily (Vasilyevich), Prince (b. 1643, Russia—d. May 2, 1714, Kholmogory, Russia) Russian statesman and chief adviser to Sophia Alekseyevna. After commanding in the Ukraine, he served in the court of Fyodor III and reorganized the Russian army. When Sophia became regent in 1682, she appointed her lover Golitsyn head of the foreign office. He negotiated an alliance with Poland (1686) against the Ottoman Turks but failed in his two campaigns against the Turks (1687, 1689). He also concluded the Treaty of Nerchinsk with China. In 1689 he was exiled to Siberia after a coup displaced Sophia and placed Peter I on the throne.

Golitsyn family \g3-'lyet-s3n\ Russian noble family descended from the 14th-century Lithuanian grand duke Gediminas. Three members played prominent roles as statesmen around the time of Peter I the Great (r. 1682-1725). Vasily Golitsyn was chief adviser to Peter’s regent, Sophia Alekseyevna. Boris Golitsyn (1654-1714) was court chamberlain (1676) and Peter’s tutor; he participated in the coup that placed Peter on the throne and was associated with the major achievements of Peter’s early reign. Peter dismissed him after his despotic rule of a province in the lower Volga resulted in a major revolt. Dmitry Golitsyn (1665-1737) held sev¬ eral posts under Peter from 1697 but opposed Peter’s reforms and in 1724 was deprived of all public duties. In 1727 he became a member of the Supreme Privy Council, which governed for Peter II until his death (1730). He urged the council to offer the throne to Anna Ivanovna if she would sign a set of conditions transferring crucial prerogatives to the council. She initially agreed, then dissolved the council. He was condemned to death (1736) for his antiautocratic beliefs, but Anna commuted his sen¬ tence to life imprisonment.

Gollancz \g9-'lants. Sir Victor (b. April 9, 1893, London, Eng.—d. Feb. 8, 1967, London) British publisher, writer, and humanitarian. Bom to a family of orthodox Jews, Gollancz evolved a religious outlook strongly influenced by Christian ethics. In 1928 he founded the publishing firm of Victor Gollancz, Ltd., issuing best-sellers and works supporting his favoured causes, including social welfare, pacifism, and abolition of capital punishment. Through the Left Book Club, which he founded in 1936, he worked against fascism, and after World War II he led relief efforts.

Goltzius \'golt-se-ies\, Hendrick (b. 1558, Mulebrecht, Neth.—d. Jan. 1, 1617, Haarlem) Dutch printmaker and painter. He set up his own copperplate-engraving business in Haarlem and became the leading mas¬ ter of Dutch Mannerist engraving. His early works included reproductions of prints by Albrecht Durer and Lucas van Leyden. Among his best-known original prints are an engraving of the Farnese Hercules (c. 1592), the chiaroscuro woodcut Hercules Killing Cacus (1588), and the series Roman Heroes (1586). His miniature portrait drawings are outstanding, and his landscape drawings anticipate the great 17th-century landscapes. His paintings, done late in his career, are less impressive, but his tech¬ nique as an engraver was unsurpassed.

Gomal Pass See Gumal Pass

Gombrowicz Vgom-'bro-vechV, Witold (b. Aug. 4, 1904, Maloszyce, Russian Empire—d. July 25, 1969, Vence, France) Polish novelist, story writer, and dramatist. He is best known for his novel Ferdydurke (1937). He spent 24 years (1939-63) in voluntary exile in Buenos Aires, Arg., and later settled in France. His often bizarre and satirical works explore themes of sadomasochistic dependency and innate human immaturity, in sometimes eccentric prose. His writings were long banned in Poland, and he published his postwar works abroad, including the absurdist satires Trans-Atlantyk (1953), Pornografia (1960), and Kosmos (1965). His dra¬ mas anticipated the Theatre of the Absurd.

Gomel See Homyel

Gomez \'go-mas \, Juan Vicente (b. 1857/64, San Antonio de Tachira, Venez.—d. Dec. 17, 1935, Maracay) Dictator of Venezuela (1908-35). Though he had almost no formal education, he rose to power by joining a private army that captured Caracas and the government. In 1908 he seized control from his former commander; thereafter he ruled either as president or through puppet governments until his death. Under Gomez, Venezuela achieved a measure of independence and economic progress, but he controlled the nation through force and terror. He was reputedly the wealthiest man in South America at the time of his death.

Gomorrah See Sodom and Gomorrah

Gompers, Samuel (b. Jan. 27,

1924, San Antonio, Texas, U.S.)

British-born U.S. labour leader, first president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). He immigrated to New York City with his family in 1863, where he became a cigar maker and a union organizer. Known for his opposition to radicalism,

Gompers argued that unions should avoid political involvement and focus on economic goals, bringing about change through strikes and boycotts. He stressed the primacy of the national organization over local and international affiliations, and he emphasized the need for written con¬ tracts. In 1886 he led the national organization of cigar makers out of the Knights of Labor to form the AFL, of which he served as president from 1886 to 1924 (except 1895). See also AFL-CIO.

Gomutka \go-'mul-k9\, Wtadysfaw (b. Feb. 6, 1905, Bialobrzegi, near Krosno, Pol., Austria-Hungary—d. Sept. 1, 1982, Warsaw, Pol.) Leader of the Polish Communist Party (1956-70). In 1926 he joined the underground Communist Party and became a union organizer. In World War II he was active in the communist underground in Warsaw. After the Soviet liberation of Poland, he ascended through the party ranks quickly. Though ruthless in eliminating opposition to communist rule, he publicly opposed some Soviet policies and was accused of “nationalist deviation” by Joseph Stalin in 1948 and arrested in 1951. He was rehabilitated in 1956 and elected party first secretary. At first universally supported, he adopted halfhearted reforms that were ultimately disappointing. In 1970 he was ousted along with other top leaders following workers’ riots over food prices.

Goncalves \g6 n n-'sal-vish\, Nuno (fl. 1450-72) Portuguese painter. He is recorded as court painter to Alfonso V in 1450, but his works for the Portuguese court have not survived. His altarpiece for Lisbon Cathe¬ dral was destroyed in the great earthquake of 1755. His six-paneled St. Vincent altarpiece (c. 1460-70), discovered only in 1882, is the outstand¬ ing Portuguese painting of the 15 th century, a remarkable portrait gallery of scrupulously realistic, stiffly posed figures, with affinities to Italian and Flemish art.

Goncalves Dias \go n n- , sal-vish- , de-ash\ / Antonio (b. Aug. 10, 1823, Boa Vista, near Caxias, Maranhao, Braz.—d. Nov. 3, 1864, off the coast of Maranhao) Brazilian poet. A respected ethnologist and scholar, he lived much of the time abroad. He drowned at age 41. His songs, collected in First Poems (1847), More Poems (1848), and Last Poems (1851), which display both exuberance and longing, are a celebration of the New World as a tropical paradise. His “Song of Exile” (1843) is known to every Bra¬ zilian schoolchild, and he is regarded as the national poet of Brazil.

Goncourt \go n -'kur\, Edmond (-Louis-Antoine Huot de) and Jules (-Alfred Huot de) (respectively b. May 26, 1822, Nancy, France—-d. July 16, 1896, Champrosay; b. Dec. 17, 1830, Paris—d. June 20, 1870, Auteuil) French writers. The Goncourt brothers were enabled by a legacy to devote their lives largely to writing. They produced a series of social histories (from 1854) as well as a body of art criticism. The most lasting of their meticulously detailed naturalistic novels is Germinie Lac- erteux (1864), which explores working-class life. Their published jour¬ nals (kept 1851-96) represent both a revealing autobiography and a monumental history of social and literary life in 19th-century Paris. By his will Edmond established the Academie Goncourt, which annually awards the Prix Goncourt, one of France’s preeminent literary prizes, to the author of an outstanding work of French literature.

Gondwana or Gondwana land Hypothetical former superconti¬ nent in the Southern Hemisphere, which included modern South America, Africa, southern Europe, India, Australia, and much of the Middle East and Antarctica. The concept that the continents were at one time joined was first set forth in detail by Alfred Wegener in 1912. He envisioned a single great

1850, London, Eng.—d. Dec. 13,

Samuel Gompers, 1911.

COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, D.C.

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

Gongora ► goose I 779

landmass, Pangea, which supposedly began to separate late in the Triassic Period. Subsequent workers distinguished between a southern landmass, Gondwana, and Laurasia to the north. See also continental drift.

Gongora \'gon-go-ra\ (y Argote), Luis de (b. July 11, 1561, Cor¬ doba, Spain—d. May 23, 1627, Cordoba) Spanish poet. Very influential in his era, he developed the difficult, complex poetic style that became known as gongorismo\ it provoked scorn and enmity from many of his contemporaries and was so exaggerated by less gifted imitators that his reputation suffered until the 20th century, when his poems began to be appreciated for their cold beauty. Solitudes (1613) is perhaps his most out¬ standing work in the style. His lighter poetry— romances (folk ballads), letrillas (short lyric poems), and sonnets—achieved greater popular suc¬ cess.

Gonne, Maud (Edith) married name Maud MacBride (b. Dec. 21, 1866, Tongham, Surrey, Eng.—d. April 27, 1953, Dublin, Ire.) Irish activist, actress, and feminist. Gonne became involved in the Irish nation¬ alist movement at an early age and cofounded the Daughters of Erin (1900-14; a nationalist organization). She was also a founder of Sinn Fein. While engaged in political activities, Gonne became a noted actress. The poet and dramatist W.B. Yeats fell in love with her, and she was the model for the heroine of his play Cathleen ni Houlihan (1892). Nevertheless, Gonne turned down his many proposals of marriage and in 1903 married Maj. John MacBride, a fellow activist who was executed for his role in the Easter Rising in 1916. Their son, SeAn MacBride, the first chairman of Amnesty International, won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1974.

gonorrhea \,ga-n3-'re-3\ Sexually transmitted disease. It is characterized by genitourinary inflammation, caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonor- rhoeae (gonococcus). Symptoms in men include burning on urination, dis¬ charge of pus, and, with deeper infection, frequent urination, sometimes with blood. Women may have mild vaginal discharge and burning, but there is usually no sign until a sex partner is infected or complications— sometimes serious—arise from its spread beyond the cervix. If spontane¬ ous recovery does not occur, it may cause sterility in both sexes but is rarely fatal. Gonorrhea is common worldwide. Penicillin, generally a successful treatment, reduced its incidence, but resistant strains are increasingly found. Many cases are not reported. Penicillin may also mask coexisting syphilis (since the dose to cure gonorrhea does not cure syphilis).

Gonzaga dynasty \gon-‘dza-ga\ Italian dynasty that ruled Mantua 1328-1707 and Montferrat and Casale 1536-1707. Its history began with Luigi I (or Lodovico; 1267-1360), who gained control of Mantua in 1328. Its rulers, many noted as military and political leaders and patrons of the arts, included Giovan Francesco II (died 1444), a general and founder of the first school based on humanistic principles (1423); and Federigo II (died 1540), captain general of the papal forces who was made duke of Mantua in 1530. Mantua was annexed by Austria in 1708.

Good Feelings, Era of (1815-25) Period of U.S. national unity and complacency. A Boston newspaper coined the term in 1817 to describe a nation free from the influence of European political and military events. The good feelings were stimulated by two events of 1816, during James Madison’s presidency: enactment of the first U.S. protective tariff, and establishment of the second national bank. The presidency of James Mon¬ roe (1817-25) was marked by the dominance of the Democratic- Republican Party and the decline of the Federalist Party.

Good Friday Friday before Easter, commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus. As early as the 2nd century it was kept by Christians as a day of penance and fasting. The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches have special liturgies for the day, which include readings and prayers commemorating Christ’s sufferings on the cross. Protestant churches also hold special services on Good Friday.

Good Hope, Cape of Rocky promontory, southwestern coast, West¬ ern Cape province, South Africa. It was sighted by the Portuguese navi¬ gator Bartolemeu Dias in 1488 on his return voyage to Portugal after finding the southern limits of the African continent. Known for the stormy weather and rough seas encountered there, the cape lies at the conver¬ gence of warm currents from the Indian Ocean and cool currents from Antarctic waters. A part of the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve estab¬ lished in 1939, the cape was the site of the first Dutch settlement at Table Bay in 1652.

Good Hope, Cape of (province) See Cape Province

Good Neighbour Policy Popular name for the policy toward Latin America pursued in the 1930s by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt. In a marked departure from its traditional interventionism, which was abhorrent to Latin Americans, the U.S. repudiated its assumed right to intervene unilat¬ erally in Latin American affairs, abrogated most provisions of the Piatt Amendment (1901), which had restricted the national sovereignty of Cuba, and withdrew its Marines from Haiti. U.S. anticommunist policies after World War II led to renewed distrust between the U.S. and Latin America and brought an end to the noninterventionism of the Good Neighbour Policy.

Goodall, Jane (b. April 3,1934, London, Eng.) British ethologist. Soon after finishing high school, she fulfilled her childhood ambition of traveling to Africa, where she assisted Louis Leakey (see Leakey family), who sug¬ gested she study chimpanzees. She received a Ph.D. from Cambridge Uni¬ versity for her work and remained at the research centre she founded in Gombe, Tanz., until 1975. In 1977 she cofounded the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education, and Conservation in the U.S. Her obser¬ vations established, among other things, that chimpanzees are omnivorous rather than vegetarian, can make and use tools, and have complex and highly developed social behaviours. Noteworthy among her writings are In the Shadow of Man (1971) and The Chimpanzees of Gombe (1986). She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2003.

Goodman, Benny orig. Benjamin David Goodman (b. May

30, 1909, Chicago, Ill., U.S.—d. June 13, 1986, New York, N.Y.) U.S. jazz clarinetist and leader of the most popular band of the swing era. Goodman formed a big band in 1934, using arrangements by Fletcher Henderson. The band’s sensational broadcast from Los Angeles’s Palo- mar Ballroom in 1935 is seen as the beginning of the swing era. Good¬ man’s band featured trumpeters Bunny Berigan, Ziggy Elman, and Harry James and drummer Gene Krupa, all of whom would establish big bands of their own. Goodman’s small group was among the first racially inte¬ grated ensembles known to a wide public. His virtuosity and immense popularity earned him the sobriquet “King of Swing.”

Goodpasture, E(rnest) W(illiam) (b. Oct. 17, 1886, Montgomery county, Tenn., U.S.—d. Sept. 20, 1960, Nashville, Tenn.) U.S. patholo¬ gist. He spent most of his career (1924-55) at Vanderbilt University. His method for cultivating viruses and rickettsias in fertile chicken eggs, developed in 1931, made possible the production of vaccines for such diseases as smallpox, influenza, yellow fever, typhus. Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and other illnesses caused by agents that propagate in liv¬ ing tissue.

Goodson, Mark (b. Jan. 24, 1915, Sacramento, Calif., U.S.—d. Dec. 18, 1992, New York, N.Y.) U.S. radio and television producer. He worked as a radio announcer from 1939. In the late 1940s he and Bill Todman developed hit radio shows such as Stop the Music (1947) and Hit the Jackpot (1948), and long-running television game shows including What’s My Line? (1950-67), I’ve Got a Secret (1952-67), To Tell the Truth (1956-67), and The Price Is Right (1957-64). He received an Emmy Award for lifetime achievement in 1990.

Goodyear, Charles (b. Dec. 29, 1800, New Haven, Conn., U.S.—d. July 1, 1860, New York, N.Y.) U.S. inventor of the vulcanization process that permitted the commercial use of rubber. Interested in treating rubber so that it would lose its adhesive quality and not melt, he discovered vul¬ canization in 1839 when he accidentally dropped a rubber-sulfur mixture onto a hot stove. The process would prove profoundly important for the future uses of rubber. He patented it in 1844 but had to fight numerous patent infringements in the U.S. and Europe. He never profited from his discovery, and he died in debt. The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (founded 1898) honours his name.

gooney See albatross

goose Any of various large, heavy-bodied waterfowl (family Anatidae), especially those of the genera Anser (so-called gray geese) and Branta (so-called black geese), which are found only in the Northern Hemisphere. Intermediate in size and build between ducks and swans, geese are less fully aquatic than either, and their legs are farther forward, allowing them to walk readily. Geese have a specially modified bill for grasping sedges and grasses, their main diet. The sexes are alike in coloration; males (called ganders) are usually larger than females. Both sexes utter loud honking or gabbling cries while in flight or when danger appeal's. Geese pair for life. Flocks traveling in V-formations migrate between their north-

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

780 i gooseberry ► Gordon

em breeding grounds and southern wintering grounds. See also barnacle goose; Canada goose; greylag; nene.

gooseberry Hardy fruit bush of th< in the genus Ribes with the currant (or alternatively assigned to the genus Grossularia as its sole mem¬ ber), in the family Saxifragaceae. The spiny bushes bear clusters of green¬ ish to greenish-pink flowers. The tart, oval berries may be prickly, hairy, or smooth. They are eaten ripe and often made into jellies, preserves, pies and other desserts, or wine. Because gooseberry is an alternate host for white-pine buster rust, growing it is illegal in some states where white pine is an important resource.

GOP See Republican Party

gopher or pocket gopher Any

of about 40 species (family Geomy- idae) of stocky rodents found in North and Central America. Gophers range in length from 5 to 18 in. (13 to 45 cm), including a short, sparsely haired tail. They have chisel-like front teeth; long, strong claws on their forefeet; and large fur-lined pouches that open externally on each side of the mouth. Coat colour varies from almost white to brown or black.

Gophers live alone in extensive, shallow underground burrows marked by a series of rounded earth mounds on the surface. They feed on the underground parts of plants, which they obtain as they tunnel along.

Gorbachev V.gor-bo-'chof, 'gor-bs-.chefX, Mikhail (Sergeyevich)

(b. March 2, 1931, Privolye,

Stavropol region, Russia, U.S.S.R.)

Soviet official and last president of the Soviet Union (1990-91). After earning a law degree from Moscow State University (1955), he rose through the ranks to become a full Politburo member (1980) and gen¬ eral secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1985-91). His extraordinary reform policies of glasnost and perestroika were resisted by party bureaucrats; to reduce their power, Gorbachev changed the Soviet constitution in 1988 to allow multicandidate elections and removed the monopoly power of the party in 1990. He cultivated warmer relations with the U.S., and in 1989-90 he supported the demo¬ cratically elected governments that replaced the communist regimes of eastern Europe. In 1990 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Russia’s economic and political problems led to a 1991 coup attempt by hard¬ liners. In alliance with president Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev quit the Com¬ munist Party, disbanded its Central Committee, and shifted political powers to the Soviet Union’s constituent republics. Events outpaced him, and the various republics formed the Commonwealth of Independent States under Yeltsin’s leadership. On Dec. 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned the presidency of the Soviet Union, which ceased to exist that same day.

Gorchakov X.gor-cho-'kofX, Aleksandr (Mikhailovich), Prince

(b. June 4, 1798, Khaapsalu, Estonia, Russian Empire—d. Feb. 27, 1883, Baden-Baden, Ger.) Russian politician and diplomat. A career diplomat, he became foreign minister in 1856, succeeding Karl, Count Nesselrode, and immediately began to establish cordial relations with France and

Prussia. He was named imperial chancellor in 1866. He renounced the ban on Russian warships on the Black Sea (1870) and allied Russia with Germany and Austria-Hungary in the Three Emperors' League (1873). His influence waned when he was unable to maintain the League. At the con¬ clusion of the Russo-Turkish War, he did little to shape the Treaty of San Stefano, which punished the defeated Turks, or its replacement at the Congress of Berlin, a settlement that was far less favourable to Russia.

gordian worm See horsehair worm

Gordimer, Nadine (b. Nov. 20,1923, Springs, Transvaal, S.Af.) South African writer. The daughter of Jewish immigrants, she published her first book, the story collection The Soft Voice of the Serpent, in 1952. Her later works include The Conservationist (1974, Booker Prize), Burger's Daugh¬ ter (1979), July's People (1981), A Sport of Nature (1987), My Son’s Story (1990), None to Accompany Me (1994), and The House Gun (1998). Writ¬ ten in a clear, controlled, unsentimental style, her works often concern exile and alienation. She was a strong opponent of her country’s apartheid policy, and concerns about black-white relations are frequently expressed in her fiction. She received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991.

Gordium Ancient city, capital of Phrygia. Located in what is now north¬ western Turkey, its ruins have yielded important information about ancient Phrygian culture. Excavations revealed Early Bronze Age and Hittite settle¬ ments, but the city achieved its greatest prominence as the flourishing capital of Phrygia in the 9th-8th centuries bc. According to legend, it was founded by the peasant Gordius, who later became king of Phrygia and contrived the the ingenious Gordian knot. Gordium remained the politi¬ cal centre of Phrygia until the Cimmerians overran it in the early 7th cen¬ tury bc. Though rebuilt under the Persians, it never regained its former splendour.

Gordon River River, southwestern Tasmania, Australia. It rises in the central highlands and then flows south and west to enter the Indian Ocean at Macquarie Harbour after a course of 115 mi (185 km). The river is navi¬ gable only in its lowest 20 mi (32 km). Gordon Dam, built in 1978, created Lake Gordon, one of the largest freshwater storage reservoirs in Australia.

Gordon, Charles George (b. Jan. 28, 1833, Woolwich, near Lon¬ don, Eng.—d. Jan. 26, 1885, Khar¬ toum, Sudan) British general.

Gordon distinguished himself as a young officer in the Crimean War (1853-56) and subsequently volun¬ teered for the second Opium War (1856-60). In 1862 he helped defend Shanghai during the Taiping Rebellion.

These exploits earned him the epi¬ thet “Chinese” Gordon. In 1873 the Egyptian ruler Isma'il Pasha, who regularly employed Europeans, appointed Gordon governor of the province of Equatoria in southern Sudan (1874-76) and as governor- general of the Sudan (1874-80). In that post Gordon acted to crush rebellions and suppress the slave trade. He was again sent to the Sudan by Britain in 1884 to evacuate Anglo-Egyptian forces from Khar¬ toum, which was threatened by Mah- dist movement insurgents. After his arrival the city was besieged; it remained isolated for several months until it finally succumbed (Jan. 26, 1885). Gordon was killed in the action.

Gordon, Dexter (Keith) (b. Feb. 27, 1923, Los Angeles, Calif., U.S.—d. April 25, 1990, Philadelphia, Pa.) U.S. tenor saxophonist, one of the most influential saxophonists in modern jazz. Gordon played in the big bands of Lionel Hampton and Billy Eckstine in the early 1940s, later working in small groups with Charlie Parker, Tadd Dameron, and fellow tenorist Warded Gray. He was incarcerated on narcotics charges in the early 1950s and moved to Denmark in 1962. A starring role in the film 'Round Midnight (1986) revived his career.

Gordon, Lord George (b. Dec. 26, 1751, London, Eng.—d. Nov. 1, 1793, London) English instigator of the anti-Catholic Gordon riots. The third son of the 3rd duke of Gordon, he entered Parliament in 1774. In

Northern Hemisphere, often placed

Gooseberry (Ribes)

DEREK FELL

Eastern pocket gopher (Geomys).

WOODROW GOODPASTER-THE NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY COLLECTION/PHOTO RESEARCHERS

Mikhail Gorbachev, 1985.

COLTON-PICTURE SEARCH/BLACK STAR

Charles George Gordon, portrait by Lady Julia Abercromby; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY,

LONDON

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

Gordy ► Goring I 781

1779 he organized the Protestant associations formed to secure the repeal of the Catholic Relief Act (1778). In 1780 he led a mob to Parliament to present a petition against the act. The ensuing riot lasted a week, causing great property damage and nearly 500 casualties. Gordon was charged with, but was acquitted of, high treason. Convicted of libeling the queen of France in 1787, he was imprisoned in Newgate, where he died.

Gordy, Berry, Jr. See Motown

Gore, Al in full Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. (b. March 31, 1948, Wash¬ ington, D.C., U.S.) U.S. politician. He was the son of Albert Gore, who served in the U.S. Senate from Tennessee. After graduating from Harvard University, he briefly attended divinity school before serving in the Viet¬ nam War as a military reporter (1969-71). He worked as a reporter for The Tennessean in Nashville (1971-76) while attending first divinity school and then law school at Vanderbilt University. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1977-85) and later the Senate (1985-93). A moderate Democrat, he was Bill Clinton’s vice presidential running mate in 1992 and served two terms (1993-2001) as vice president under Clin¬ ton. As the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000, he won 500,000 more popular votes than Republican George W. Bush but narrowly lost the electoral vote (271-266).

Goree \go-'ra\, lie de or Goree Island Island, Senegal. Inhabited by the Lebu people when it was occupied by the Portuguese in the mid- 15th century, it was later occupied by the Dutch and then taken by the French in 1677. It was active in the Atlantic slave trade, but historians debate whether Goree was a major centre for the trade or simply one of many places from which Africans were taken to the Americas as slaves. Under French control until Senegal’s independence in 1960, it later lost importance with the rise of St.-Louis and Dakar on the mainland. It is now a World Heritage site; a museum there displays slavery artifacts.

Goren, Charles H(enry) (b. March 4, 1901, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.—d. April 3, 1991, Encino, Calif.) U.S. contract bridge authority. Goren learned bridge while a law student at McGill University. His inno¬ vative system of point-count bidding and his repeated successes in tour¬ naments made him one of the world’s most famous and influential players. His several popular books include the widely translated Goren’s Bridge Complete (1963).

Gorey, Edward (St. John) (b. Feb. 22, 1925, Chicago, HI., U.S.—d. April 15, 2000, Hyannis, Mass.) U.S. writer, illustrator, and designer. He studied at Harvard University and worked as an illustrator before pub¬ lishing his first children’s book, The Doubtful Guest , in 1957. In this and later books such as The Hapless Child (1961) and The Gashlycrumb Times (1962), his arch nonsense verse and mock-Victorian prose accompany pen-and-ink drawings of beady-eyed, blank-faced individuals in Edwar¬ dian costume whose dignified demeanour is undercut by silly, often maca¬ bre events. His work has been anthologized in Amphigorey (1972), Amphigorey Too (1975), and Amphigorey Also (1983).

Gorgas, Josiah (b. July 1, 1818, Dauphin county, Pa., U.S.—d. May 15, 1883, Tuscaloosa, Ala.) U.S. army officer. A graduate of West Point, he entered the U.S. Army in 1841. In keeping with the sympathies of his Alabama-born wife, he resigned his commission when the South seceded from the Union in 1860-61. As chief of ordnance for the Confederate army during the American Civil War, he sought arms from abroad while establishing factories in the South to produce rifles, small arms, bullets, powder, and cannons. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1864.

Gorgas Vgor-gosV William (Crawford) (b. Oct. 3, 1854, Mobile, Ala., U.S.—d. July 3, 1920, London, Eng.) U.S. Army surgeon. Son of the Confederate general Josiah Gorgas (1818-83), he served in the U.S. Army for many years. In charge of sanitation measures in Havana with the army’s medical corps in 1898, he conducted experiments on mosquito transmis¬ sion of yellow fever and effectively eliminated it from the area. Sent to Panama in 1904, he eradicated yellow fever from the Canal Zone and brought malaria under control, removing the chief obstacles to building the Panama Canal. He was surgeon general of the U.S. Army from 1914 to

Gorges Vgor-jozV Sir Ferdinando (b. 15667, probably at Wraxall, Somerset, Eng.—d. 1647, Long Ashton, Gloucestershire) British colonist. After a military career, he sought royal grants to establish settlements in North America. Believing that colonizing should be a royal endeavour, he obtained a grant in 1620 to all the land in North America between the 40th and 48th parallels. His plan to distribute the land as manors and fiefs

to aristocratic members of a Council of New England was thwarted by the development of self-governing English colonies at Plymouth and Mas¬ sachusetts Bay, which received their charters directly from the crown. He received the charter for Maine in 1639 but was unable to effect his plan.

Gorgon One of three monsters in Greek mythology, the most famous of which was Medusa. According to Hesiod, the three Gorgons were daughters of the sea god Phorcys.

Another tradition held that they were created by the earth goddess, Gaea, to aid her sons, the Titans, in their struggle with the gods. Classical art depicts them as winged females with snakes for hair.

gorilla Largest of the great apes. A stocky, powerful forest dweller native to equatorial Africa, the gorilla (Gorilla gorilla ) has black skin and hair, large nostrils, and prominent brow ridges. Adults have long, pow¬ erful arms; short, stocky legs; an extremely thick, strong chest; and a protruding abdomen. Adult males have a prominent crest on top of the skull and a “saddle” of gray or silver hairs on the lower part of the back.

Males, about twice as heavy as females, may reach a height of about 5.5 ft (1.7 m) and a weight of 300- 600 lbs (135-275 kg). Gorillas are mainly terrestrial, walking about on all four limbs. They live in stable family groups of six to 20 animals that are led by one or two silver- backed males. They eat leaves, stalks, and shoots. They are unag- gressive and even shy unless pro¬ voked. They are calmer and more persistent than chimpanzees; though not as adaptable, gorillas are highly intelligent and capable of problem solving. The gorilla is hunted for its body parts and meat, and its habitat is disappearing. It is an endangered species throughout its range; the mountain subspecies is critically endangered.

Goring Vgoe-riqN, Hermann or Hermann Goering (b. Jan. 12, 1893, Rosenheim, Ger.—d. Oct. 15,

1946, Niirnberg) German Nazi leader. He fought in World War I with the German air force. In 1922 he joined the Nazi Party and was given command of the SA. After the abortive Beer Hall Putsch, he escaped to Austria, then returned to Germany (1927) and was elected to the Reich¬ stag. Chosen president of the Reich¬ stag (1932), his power mounted after Adolf Hitler was named chancellor in 1933. As Hitler’s most loyal sup¬ porter, Goring held numerous posts, including minister of the interior in Prussia, where he established the Gestapo. He also became head of the German air force (Luftwaffe) and minister of economic affairs. After the Luftwaffe failed to win the Battle of Britain, Goring lost face and semi- retired to his country estate, where he displayed the vast art collection he had confiscated from Jews in occupied countries. In 1946 he was con¬ demned to death at the Niirnberg trials but committed suicide by taking a poison capsule.

Gorgon, carved marble mask of the early 6th century bc; in the Acropolis Museum, Athens

AUNARI—ART RESOURCE

Male gorilla (Gorilla gorilla).

KENNETH W. FINK/ROOT RESOURCES

Hermann Goring, commander of the Storm Troopers, 1933.

HEINRICH HOFFMANN, MUNICH

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

782 i Gorki ► Gossart

Gorki See Nizhniy Novgorod

Gorky, Arshile orig. Vosdanik Adoian (b. April 15, 1904, Khorkom, Van, Turkish Armenia—d. July 21, 1948, Sherman, Conn., U.S.) Armenian-born U.S. painter. In 1920 he emigrated from Turkish Armenia to the U.S. In 1925, after study at the Rhode Island School of Design, he settled in New York City, where he studied and then taught at the Grand Central School of Art (1926-31). He sought to assimilate the aesthetic visions of Paul Cezanne, Joan Miro, and Pablo Picasso by paint¬ ing in their styles until he encountered the emigre European Surrealists; he then developed his own style of abstraction featuring biomorphic forms that suggest plants or human viscera floating over a background of melt¬ ing colours. After a series of personal calamities, he hanged himself. He is the most important direct link between Surrealism and Abstract Expres¬ sionism.

Gorky, Maksim orig. Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov (b.

March 28, 1868, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia—d. June 14, 1936, Nizhny Novgorod) Russian writer. After a childhood of poverty and misery (his assumed name, Gorky, means “bitter”), he became a wandering tramp. His early works offered sympathetic portrayals of the social dregs of Rus¬ sia; they include the outstanding stories “Chelkash” (1895) and “Twenty- Six Men and a Girl” (1899) and the successful play The Lower Depths (1902). For his revolutionary activity, he spent the years 1906-13 abroad as a political exile. His works include the autobiographical trilogy My Childhood (1913-14), In the World (1915-16), and My Universities (1923). Though initially an open critic of Vladimir Iuch Lenin and the Bol¬ sheviks, after 1919 he cooperated with Lenin’s government. He lived in Italy from 1921 to 1928. Upon his return to the U.S.S.R., he became the undisputed leader of Soviet writers. When the Union of Soviet Writers was established in 1934, he became its first president and helped estab¬ lish Socialist Realism. He died suddenly while under medical treatment, possibly killed on the orders of Joseph Stalin.

gorse Any of several related plants of the genera Ulex and Genista. Common gorse ( U. europaeus ) is a spiny, yellow-flowered leguminous shrub native to Europe and naturalized in the Middle Atlantic states and on Vancouver Island. The large green spines and green twigs of Spanish gorse (G. hispanica ), native to Spain and northern Italy, make it appear evergreen in winter. Both species bear yellow, pea-like flowers and grow well in dry soil.

Gorsky, Aleksandr (Alexeyevich) (b. Aug. 18, 1871, St. Peters¬ burg, Russia—d. Oct. 20, 1924, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) Russian dancer, choreographer, and influential director of the Bolshoi Ballet. He trained in St. Petersburg and joined the Mariinsky Theatre, where he became a soloist in 1895. He directed several ballets before moving to Moscow in 1900 as lead dancer and stage manager of the Bolshoi. He reshaped the repertoire and introduced realism in scenery and costume, reviving inter¬ est in the company.

Gortyn Vgor-.tlnN Ancient city, south-central Crete, Greece. Although unimportant in Minoan times, it later displaced Phaestus as the dominant city. It shared or disputed control of Crete with Knossos until the Roman annexation in the 1st century bc, when it became the administrative capi¬ tal of the Roman province of Crete and Cyrenaica. Among the city’s ruins, the great civic law code of Gortyn, discovered in the 19th century, is the most extensive account of Greek law before the Hellenistic Age.

goryd \g6-'ry6\ In Japanese mythology, vengeful spirits of the dead. They were originally thought to be spirits of nobles who had been killed unjustly and who avenged themselves by bringing about natural disasters, disease, and wars. Identified by divination, they were appeased by being granted status as gods. Later the belief arose that anyone could become a goryd by willing it at the moment of death or by meeting an untimely death. Various forms of exorcism and magical practices, such as the Bud¬ dhist recitation of nembutsu (invoking the name of the Buddha Amida), have been used to ward them off.

Gosden, Freeman F(isher); and Correll, Charles J. (respec¬ tively b. May 5, 1899, Richmond, Va., U.S.—d. Dec. 10, 1982, Los Ange¬ les, Calif.; b. Feb. 2, 1890, Peoria, Ill., U.S.—d. Sept. 26, 1972, Chicago, Ill.) U.S. comedians. They performed comedy routines in traveling vari¬ ety shows before creating two black characters, Sam and Henry, for a Chicago radio show (1926-28). In 1929 they broadened their appeal by devising a larger cast of characters for a new nightly radio program, Amos ’n ’ Andy, thus creating the first situation comedy. As Amos the cab driver

and his sidekick, Andy, they became the mainstays of radio’s most popu¬ lar program in the 1930s, and their popularity ensured the success of radio broadcasting as a form of mass entertainment. Their show, which was broadcast weekly, finally ended in 1954, partly in response to criticism that its humour was offensive to blacks.

goshawk Vgas-,h6k\ Any of the more powerful accipiters (hawks in the genus Accipiter), primarily short¬ winged, forest-dwelling bird catch¬ ers. Best known is the northern goshawk, which reaches about 2 ft (60 cm) in length with a 4.3-ft (1.3-m) wingspread and has finely barred gray plumage. Long used for falconry, the goshawk takes game as large as foxes and grouse. In the wild it lives in temperate to northern for¬ ests throughout the Northern Hemi¬ sphere, though it has become rare in the British Isles and is declining in North America. Several other species are found in the Southern Hemi¬ sphere.

Gospel Any of the four New Testa¬ ment books narrating the life and death of Jesus. The Gospels of Mat¬ thew, Mark, Luke, and John are placed at the beginning of the New Testa¬ ment and make up about half its total text. Since the 18th century, the first three have been called the Synoptic Gospels, because they give similar accounts of the ministry of Jesus. The term is also applied to apocryphal works of the 2nd century (e.g.. The Gospel of Thomas).

gospel music Form of black American music derived from Pentecos¬ tal church worship services and from spiritual and blues singing. Record¬ ings of Pentecostal preachers’ sermons were immensely popular among African Americans in the 1920s. Taking the scriptural direction “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord” (Psalm 150), Pentecostal churches welcomed timbrels, pianos, banjos, guitars, other stringed instru¬ ments, and even brass into their services. Choirs often featured the extremes of female vocal range in antiphonal counterpoint with the preacher’s sermon. Other forms of gospel music have included the sing¬ ing and acoustic guitar playing of itinerant street preachers; individual secular performers; and harmonizing male quartets, whose acts included dance routines and stylized costumes. Gospel music’s principal compos¬ ers and practitioners included Thomas A. Dorsey, who coined the term; the Rev. C.A. Tindley (1851-1933); the blind wandering preacher Rev. Gary Davis (1896-1972); Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915—73), whose perfor¬ mances took gospel into nightclubs and theatres in the 1930s; and Maha- lia Jackson. Gospel music was a significant influence on rhythm and blues and soul music, which have in turn strongly influenced contemporary gos¬ pel music.

Gosplan \gos-'plan\ Central board that supervised various aspects of the planned economy of the former Soviet Union. The name is an abbre¬ viation of the Russian for “State Planning Committee.” Established in 1921, Gosplan originally advised the government but assumed a more comprehensive planning role in 1928, when the First Five-Year Plan was adopted in an effort to bring about rapid industrialization and collectiviza¬ tion. Throughout the existence of the Soviet Union it was responsible for translating general economic objectives outlined by the Communist Party into specific national plans. See also command economy, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Gossart Vg6s-art\, Jan or Jan Gossaert or Jan Mabuse

\ma-'bui-z9\ (b. c. 1478, Maubeuge?, France—d. Oct. 1, 1532, Antwerp?) Flemish painter. After a stay in Italy (1508-09), Gossart turned from the ornate style of the Antweip school to the High Renaissance style. Nep¬ tune and Amphitrite (1516) reflects his attempt to assimilate the art of Classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. Despite his efforts to develop a fully Italianate style, his nudes seldom avoid the stiffness of his earlier figures, and ultimately he retained the jewel-like technique and

Northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis).

KARL H. MASLOWSKI

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

Gosse ► Gottfried von Strassburg I 783

careful observation of traditional Early Netherlandish art. He was among the first to introduce the Italian Renaissance style into the Low Countries.

Gosse \'gos. Sir Edmund (b. Sept. 21, 1849, London, Eng.—d. May 16, 1928, London) British literary historian and critic. He worked prin¬ cipally as a librarian and translator (of Henrik Ibsen’s plays, among many other works). He wrote the literary histories 18th Century Literature (1889) and Modern English Literature (1897), as well as biographies of Thomas Gray, John Donne, Ibsen, and others, and introduced many works by continental European writers to English readers. Many of his critical essays were collected in French Profiles (1905), and his autobiography, Father and Son (1907), has been much admired.

Goteborg \'y6e-ta-,b6r y \ or Gothenburg \'gath- 3 n-,b3rg\ City (pop., 2001 est.: 471,267), southwestern Sweden. The country’s chief seaport and second largest city, it lies along the Gota River estuary, about 5 mi (8 km) above the Kattegat. Founded in 1603, the city was destroyed in the Kalmar War with Denmark (1611-13) but was refounded in 1619. Many of the early inhabitants were Dutch, who built urban canals and laid out the city centre. A prosperous period began with the completion of the Gota Canal (1832) and the start of a transoceanic shipping service. It retains some historic architecture, and a moat still encircles the old part of the city. The port’s principal exports are automobiles (Volvo), ball bearings, and paper.

Goth Member of a Germanic people whose two branches, the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths, harassed the Roman Empire for centuries. Legend holds that the Goths originated in southern Scandinavia, crossed to the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, and then migrated to the Black Sea in the 2nd century. They raided the Roman provinces in Asia Minor and the Balkan peninsula in the 3rd century and drove the Romans out of the province of Dacia during the reign of Aurelian. In the 4th and 5th centuries, the Visigoths smashed a Roman army, sacked the city of Rome, and created a kingdom in Spain that would last until the Muslim con¬ quests of the 8th century. The Ostrogoths established an important king¬ dom in Italy in the late 5th century that was destroyed by Justinian in the 6th century. The adjective “Gothic” was applied disparagingly and inap¬ propriately to medieval architecture by much later writers.

Gothic, Carpenter See Carpenter Gothic

Gothic architecture Architectural style in Europe that lasted from the mid 12th century to the 16th century, particularly a style of masonry building characterized by cavernous spaces with the expanse of walls broken up by overlaid tracery. In the 12th—13th centuries, feats of engi¬ neering permitted increasingly gigantic buildings. The rib vault, flying buttress, and pointed (Gothic) arch were used as solutions to the problem of building a very tall structure while preserving as much natural light as possible. Stained-glass window panels rendered startling sun-dappled interior effects. One of the earliest buildings to combine these elements into a coherent style was the abbey of Saint-Denis, Paris (c. 1135-44). The High Gothic years (c. 1250-1300), heralded by Chartres Cathedral, were dominated by France, especially with the development of the Ray- onnant style. Britain, Germany, and Spain produced variations of this style, while Italian Gothic stood apart in its use of brick and marble rather than stone. Late Gothic (15th-century) architecture reached its height in Germany’s vaulted hall CHURCHes. Other late Gothic styles include the British Perpendicular style and the French and Spanish Flamboyant style.

Gothic art Architecture, sculpture, and painting that flourished in West¬ ern and central Europe in the Middle Ages. It evolved from Romanesque art and lasted from the mid-12th century to the end of the 15th century. Its loftiest form of expression is architecture, as in the great cathedrals of northern Europe. Sculpture was closely tied to architecture and often used to decorate the exteriors of cathedrals and other religious buildings. Paint¬ ing evolved from stiff, two-dimensional forms to more natural ones. Reli¬ gious and secular subjects were depicted in illuminated manuscripts. Panel and wall painting evolved into the Renaissance style in Italy in the 15 th century, but retained its Gothic features until the early 16th century elsewhere in Europe. See also Gothic architecture.

Gothic language Extinct Germanic language spoken by the Goths. Its records antedate those of other Germanic languages by about four cen¬ turies. Best known from a translation of the Bible into Gothic in ad 350, it died out among the Ostrogoths after the fall of their kingdom in Italy in the 6th century and among the Visigoths around the time of the Arab

conquest in 711. It persisted longer in the Crimea, where a form of Gothic was spoken as late as the 16th century.

gothic novel European Romantic, pseudo-medieval fiction with a pre¬ vailing atmosphere of mystery and terror. Such novels were often set in castles or monasteries equipped with subterranean passages, dark battle¬ ments, and hidden panels, and they had plots involving ghosts, madness, outrage, superstition, and revenge. Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1765) initiated the vogue, which peaked in the 1790s. Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797) are among the finest examples. Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Monk (1796) introduced more horrific elements into the English gothic. Gothic traits appear in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and in the works of many major writers, and they persist today in thousands of paperback romances.

Gothic Revival Architectural movement (c. 1730-c. 1930) most com¬ monly associated with Romanticism. The first nostalgic imitation of Gothic architecture appeared in the 1 8th century, when scores of houses with castle-style battlements were built in England, but only toward the mid-19th century did a true Gothic Revival develop. The mere imitation of Gothic forms and details then became its least important aspect, as architects focused on creating original works based on underlying Gothic principles. French architects, particularly E.-E. Viollet-le-Duc, were the first to think about applying the Gothic skeleton structure to a modern age. Though the movement began losing force toward the end of the cen¬ tury, Gothic-style churches and collegiate buildings continued to be con¬ structed in Britain and the U.S. well into the 20th century.

Gothic script See black letter script

Gotland Island (pop., 2002 est.: 57,458) and county, southeastern Swe¬ den. Located in the Baltic Sea, it covers 1,212 sq mi (3,140 sq km). A trading centre since the Bronze Age, Gotland became part of Sweden in the 9th century. By the 12th century Gotland’s traders dominated the routes between Russia and western Europe. German merchants, who settled in the major town and current county capital, Visby, brought Got¬ land into the Hanseatic League. It was at the height of its prosperity when it was taken by the Danish in 1361. It was finally returned to Sweden in 1645 and was fortified in the late 19th century. The island’s economy centres on agriculture, fishing, and tourism.

Goto Vgo-.toV Islands Japanese Goto-retto Island chain, China Sea, part of Nagasake prefecture, Japan. Lying off the western coast of Japan, the chain comprises more than 100 islands, of which 34 are inhabited. The five main ones are Fukue, Hisaka, Naru, Uku, and Nakadori; the capital is Fukue, on Fukue Island. They have a total area of 266 sq mi (689 sq km), stretching about 60 mi (100 km) from northeast to south¬ west. The islands were a gateway to Japan for the introduction of Chi¬ nese culture. Fishing is the major activity in the northern islands; agriculture predominates in the southern islands.

gotra Vgo-troX Lineage segment within an Indian caste, indicating com¬ mon descent from a mythical ancestor. Marriage by members of the same gotra was traditionally prohibited. The custom was intended to prevent inbreeding as well as to broaden the influence of each gotra through mar¬ riage alliances. The term originally denoted segments of the Brahman caste descended from seven ancient seers. The number of Brahman gotras later increased, and some non-Brahman Hindu groups also established gotras.

Gottfried von Strassburg

Vgot-.fret-fon-'shtras-.burkV (fl. c.

1210) German poet, one of the great¬ est of the Middle Ages. Little is known of his life. His courtly epic Tristan und Isolde (c. 1210) is the classic version of the famous love story. The unfinished poem is based on an Anglo-Norman version of the story, which came from Celtic leg¬ end. One of the most perfect cre¬ ations of the medieval courtly spirit, it is distinguished by its refined and elevated tone and its skillful tech¬ nique.

Gottfried von Strassburg (right of cen¬ tre), miniature from the Heidelberger Liederhandschrift; in the Universitats- bibliothek, Heidelberg, Ger.

COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITATSBIBUOTHEK, HEIDELBERG, GER

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

784 I Gottingen ► gourami

Gottingen Ygce-tiq-anX, University of German Georg-August- Universitat zu Gottingen Eminent European university, founded in 1737 in Gottingen, Germany. It was one of the first and most influential secular universities. In the late 18th century it was the centre of the Got- tinger Hain, a circle of poets who were forerunners of German Roman¬ ticism. In the late 19th century its Mathematical Institute, headed at various times by Carl Friedrich Gauss, Bernhard Riemann, and David Hilbert, attracted students from all over the world. In the 20th century its physics faculty included Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, and Max von Laue.

Gottschalk Vgat-.shokA, Louis Moreau (b. May 8, 1829, New Orleans, La., U.S.—d. Dec. 18, 1869, Rio de Janeiro, Braz.) U.S. com¬ poser and pianist. He was exposed early to the music of New Orleans’s Caribbean and Latin American population. Sent to France at age 13 to study music, he quickly became known throughout Europe as a piano vir¬ tuoso and a composer of exotic piano works. He returned in 1853 and toured the U.S., West Indies, and South America. Though he wrote operas and symphonies, he is known for his more than 200 piano pieces, includ¬ ing La Bamboula, Le Bananier, Le Banjo , L’Union, and The Dying Poet. Gottschalk was the first American pianist to achieve international recog¬ nition and the first American composer to employ Latin American and Creole folk themes and rhythms.

Gottwald Vgot-.valdV Klement (b. Nov. 23, 1896, Dedice, Moravia, Austria-Hungary—d. March 14, 1953, Prague, Czech.) Czechoslovak communist politician and journalist. A charter member of Czechoslova¬ kia’s Communist Party (1921), he became its leader in 1927 and a mem¬ ber of the Czechoslovak parliament in 1929. Opposed to the Munich agreement, he lived in Moscow through World War II, making several broadcasts to the Czechoslovak underground. After the war, he was appointed deputy premier (1945—46), then premier (1946-48). Inaugu¬ rated as president in 1948 after Edvard Benes’s resignation, he quickly consolidated his position, purging rivals and adopting a Stalinist model of government, and served until his death.

gouache \'gwash\ Opaque watercolour. Also known as poster paint, designer’s colour, and body colour, it differs from transparent waterco¬ lour in that the pigments are bound by liquid glue, which is used as a thinner. The addition of white pigment lightens the tone and lends opac¬ ity. Gouache paints dry to a matte finish and, if desired, without visible brush marks. They can be applied thinly or thickly. A wide range of colours are available, including fluorescent and metallic pigments. The suede finish and crisp lines characteristic of many Indian and Islamic miniature paintings is produced by this medium; it is used in Western screen and fan decoration and was used by modem artists such as Georges Rouault and Paul Klee.

Goulart \gii-'lart\, Joao (Belchior Marques) (b. March 1, 1918, Sao Borja, Braz.—d. Dec. 6, 1976, Corrientes province, Arg.) Reformist president of Brazil (1961-64). Son of a wealthy rancher, he earned a law degree and became a protege of Pres. Getulio Vargas, in whose admin¬ istration he served as minister of labour, industry, and commerce. Elected vice president (1956-61), he became president when Pres. Janio Quadros resigned. He undertook a program of radical reforms, winning passage of a law limiting the amount of profits that foreign companies could export. He attempted land reform but was unable to secure majority support for his legislative program. Inflation reached alarming proportions, the cost of living tripling. He was ousted by the military in 1964 and died in exile.

Goulburn Vgol-bamX River River, central Victoria, Australia. Rising on Mount Singleton in Fraser National Park, it flows north for 280 mi (450 km) through the Eildon, Goulburn, and Waranga reservoirs and Lake Nagambie to join the Murray River. Goulburn River National Park lies along its banks.

Gould VgiildV, Chester (b. Nov. 20, 1900, Pawnee, Okla., U.S.—d. May 11, 1985, Woodstock, Ill.) U.S. cartoonist. He studied cartooning through a correspondence school. His “Dick Tracy” action comic strip, first distributed in 1931 by the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndi¬ cate, became the first popular cops-and-robbers series. Drawn with hard outlines and accurate in the details of crime and criminal investigation, the widely syndicated strip featured a clean-cut detective with a jutting jaw, whose methods made him the nemesis of a gallery of grotesquely caricatured criminals. Gould retired from the strip in 1977.

Gould VgiildV Glenn (Herbert) (b. Sept. 25, 1932, Toronto, Ont., Can.—d. Oct. 4,1982, Toronto) Canadian pianist. The acclaim that greeted

Gould’s first recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations (1955) led him to abandon his interest in composition and to instead develop an international career as a pianist. His interpretations of Bach (and occasionally of other composers) set a new standard with their technical brilliance and subtle intelligence. Famously eccentric, he often wore gloves while playing and was intensely hypochondriac. Never happy performing, in 1964 he left the concert stage forever for the recording studio. He later composed radio “documentaries” (including The Idea of North) that fall somewhere between typical examples of the genre and musique concrete.

Gould \'giild. Jay orig. Jason Gould (b. May 27, 1836, Roxbury, N.Y., U.S.—d. Dec. 2, 1892, New York, N.Y.) U.S. railroad executive, speculator, and robber baron. Educated in local schools, he worked as a surveyor and then operated a tannery. By 1859 he was speculating in the stocks of small railways. In 1867 he became a director of the Erie Rail¬ road; in the following year he joined with Daniel Drew and James Fisk to prevent Cornelius Vanderbilt from buying control of the company. To this end he engaged in outrageous financial manipulations, including the issue of fraudulent stock and the payment of lavish bribes to New York state legislators to legalize the stock’s sale. He and Fisk then joined forces with William Marcy Tweed to profit from further stock manipulations. In 1869 they attempted to comer the gold market, causing the Black Friday panic. In 1872 public outcry forced Gould to cede control of the Erie Railroad. With a fortune of $25 million, he began buying large blocks of stock in Union Pacific Railroad Company and acquired control of that company by 1874. By 1881 he owned 15% of all U.S. rail mileage. Having made large profits by manipulating the company’s stock, he pulled out of the com¬ pany in 1882 and began building a new rail system southwest of St. Louis that by 1890 included half the region’s rail mileage. In 1881 he gained control of Western Union Corp., and he owned the New York World news¬ paper from 1879 to 1883. He remained ruthless, unscrupulous, and friend¬ less to the end.

Gould, Shane (b. Nov. 23, 1956, Sydney, Austl.) Australian swimmer. In the 1972 Olympic Games, at age 15, she dominated women’s swim¬ ming, winning five medals (three gold, one silver, and one bronze). She set world records in all five freestyle distances (100, 200, 400, 800, and 1,500 m). In 1973 she became the first woman to break the 17-minute barrier in the 1500-m freestyle (16 min 59.6 sec).

Gould, Stephen Jay (b. Sept. 10, 1941, New York, N.Y., U.S.—d. May 20, 2002, New York, N.Y.) U.S. paleontologist and evolutionary biologist. He received a Ph.D. in paleontology from Columbia University and joined the faculty of Harvard University in 1967. With Niles Eldredge (b. 1943), he developed the controversial theory of punctuated equilib¬ rium (1972), a revision of Darwinism that proposed that the evolutionary creation of new species occurs in rapid bursts over periods as short as thousands of years, which are followed by long periods of stability. He was widely known as a popularizing writer on biological and evolution¬ ary topics, especially in Natural History magazine; his numerous books include The Panda’s Thumb (1980), The Mismeasure of Man (1981), and The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002).

Gounod \gu-'no\, Charles (Francois) (b. June 17, 1818, Paris, Fr.—d. Oct. 18, 1893, Saint-Cloud, near Paris) French composer. He stud¬ ied music at the Paris Conservatory and in Rome. He also studied for the priesthood and worked as an organist, and he remained tom between the theatre and the church. His reputation largely rests on his hugely popular opera Faust (1859). His 15 other operas include Romeo and Juliet (1867), The Mock Doctor (1858), Philemon and Baucis (1860), and Mireille

(1864); other works include 17 masses, more than 150 songs, and 2 symphonies.

gourami \gu-'ra-me\ Any of sev¬ eral of the freshwater, tropical laby¬ rinth fishes (order Perciformes), especially Osphronemus goramy, an East Indian fish caught or raised for food. A compact, oval fish with a long, filamentous ray extending from each pelvic fin, it weighs up to 20 lbs (9 kg). Adults are brown or gray with a paler belly. Other gourami s, several of them popular in home aquariums, are Asian members of different gen-

Dwarf gourami (Colisa lalia).

JANE BURTON/BRUCE COLEMAN LTD.

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gourd ► GPS I 785

era and families. Generally deep-bodied and small-mouthed, they include the giant gourami (Colisa fasciata), a blue-green and reddish brown fish 5 in. (12 cm) long; the dwarf gourami (C. lalia ), 2.5 in. (6 cm) long, brightly striped in red and blue; and the kissing gourami ( Helostoma tem- mincki), a greenish or pinkish white fish noted for its “kissing” activities.

gourd Any of certain hard-shelled food and ornamental plants of the family Cucurbitaceae (order Violales), including SQUASHes and pumpkins. Most species are prostrate or climb by tendrils. They are annual herba¬ ceous plants native to temperate and tropical areas. Gourds are generally low in nutrients; one exception is winter squash (certain cultivars of Cucurbita maxima, C. moschata, C. pepo, etc.). The shells of many gourds have made them useful as containers and utensils. Colourful and oddly shaped gourds are picked for ornamental use.

Gourmont \gur-'mo n \, Remy de (b. April 4, 1858, Bazoches-en- Houlmes, France—d. Sept. 27, 1915, Paris) French novelist, poet, play¬ wright, and philosopher. He worked 10 years at the national library; his dismissal resulted from an allegedly unpatriotic article in the Mercure de France, a journal he had cofounded. A painful skin disease later kept him a semirecluse. One of the most intelligent critics from the Symbolist move¬ ment, he had a major role in disseminating its aesthetic doctrines. His 50 published volumes are mainly collections of essays.

gout Hereditary metabolic disorder in which excess uric-acid salts, nor¬ mally excreted in urine, are deposited as needle-sharp crystals in joints, causing attacks of severe inflammation. The most common site is the base of the big toe. One of the oldest diseases in medical literature, gout is far more common in men. Attacks usually do not begin until middle age. They cause heat, redness, and extreme tenderness and pain and often subside in a week or two. Colchicine is used to treat acute attacks. Drugs such as allopurinol inhibit uric-acid synthesis.

government Political system by which a body of people is adminis¬ tered and regulated. Different levels of government typically have differ¬ ent responsibilities. The level closest to those governed is local government. Regional governments comprise a grouping of individual communities. National governments nominally control all the territory within internationally recognized borders and have responsibilities not shared by their subnational counterparts. Most governments exercise executive, legislative (see legislature), and judicial (see judiciary) powers and split or combine them in various ways. Some also control the religious affairs of their people; others avoid any involvement with religion. Politi¬ cal forms at the national level determine the powers exercised at the sub¬ national levels; these have included autocracy, democracy, fascism, monarchy, ougarchy, plutocracy (government by the wealthy), theocracy, and TOTALITARIANISM.

government budget Forecast of governmental expenditures and rev¬ enues for the ensuing fiscal year. In modern industrial economies, the budget is the key instrument for the execution of government economic policies. Because government budgets may promote or retard economic growth in certain areas of the economy and because views about priori¬ ties in government spending differ widely, government budgets are the focus of competing political interests. In the U.S. the federal budget is prepared by the president’s Office of Management and Budget. The U.S. Congress has considerable input, influencing the budget’s preparation through negotiations with the president and considering it in detail on its official submission to Congress.

governor In technology, a device that automatically maintains the rotary speed of an engine within reasonably close limits regardless of the load. A typical governor regulates an engine’s speed by varying the rate at which fuel or working fluid is furnished to it. Nearly all governors work by centrifugal force and consist of a pair of masses rotating about a spindle driven by the engine and kept from flying outward, usually by springs. With an increase in speed, the controlling force of the springs is over¬ come and the masses move outward, opening valves supplying the engine with its working fluid or fuel. James Watt invented a governor for con¬ trolling steam engines. Modem governors are used to regulate the flow of gasoline to internal-combustion engines and the flow of steam, water, or gas to various types of turbines. See also flywheel.

Gower Vgau-or, 'g6r\, John (b. 1330?—d. 1408, London?) English poet. His works, in the tradition of courtly love and moral allegory, strongly influenced other poets of his day. His friend Geoffrey Chaucer called him “moral Gower.” His Speculum meditantis (c. 1374-78), writ¬

ten in French, is an allegorical work on vices and virtues. Vox clamantis (1385?), his major Latin poem, owes much to Ovid. His greatest work in English is the Confessio Amantis (begun c. 1386), a long collection of exemplary tales of love.

Goya (y Lucientes), Francisco (Jose) de (b. March 30, 1746, Fuendetodos, Spain—d. April 16, 1828, Bordeaux, France) Spanish painter and printmaker. He came to maturity in 1775 with the first of some 60 cartoons for the royal tapestry factory of Santa Barbara, painted through 1792. In 1780 he was elected to the Royal Academy in Madrid and in 1786 was appointed painter to Charles III. By 1799, under the patronage of Charles IV, he had become the most successful and fashion¬ able artist in Spain; his famous The Family of Charles TV was painted at this time (1800). Though he welcomed his honours and success, the record he left of his patrons and their society is ruthlessly penetrating. The eroti¬ cism of his famous Naked Maja and Clothed Maja (c. 1800-05) caused him to be summoned before the Inquisition in 1815. After an illness left him permanently deaf in the 1790s, his work took on an exaggerated real¬ ism that borders on caricature. His 80 Caprichos (“Caprices”; publ. 1799), satirical prints attacking political, social, and religious abuses, marked an outstanding achievement in the history of printmaking. When Napoleon invaded Spain (1808-15), Goya produced the 82-etching series The Disasters of War (1810-20). He settled in Bordeaux, France, in 1824, resigned as court painter in 1826, and began working in lithography. He had no immediate followers, but his work profoundly influenced 19th- century European art.

Goyen \'kui-o,\ English Vgoi-onV, Jan Josephs(zoon) van (b. Jan. 13, 1596, Leiden, Neth.—d. April 27, 1656, The Hague) Dutch painter and etcher. He studied in Leiden and Haarlem before settling at The Hague in 1632. Confining himself primarily to the scenery of Holland, he painted on wood panels; intricate detail, low horizons, and subtle atmospheric effects characterize his work. He excelled at capturing the moods of sky and water, Dutch cities, and lowland winter scenes. A prolific draftsman, he also executed many landscape etchings. He had numerous imitators. With Salomon van Ruysdael, he was the outstanding master of tonal land¬ scape painting in 17th-century Holland.

Gozzoli \got-'ts6-le\, Benozzo orig. Benozzo di Lese \'la-sa\ (b. 1420, Florence—d. Oct. 4, 1497, Pistoia) Italian Renaissance painter. Early in his career he assisted Lorenzo Ghiberti on the east doors of the Baptistery in Florence and Fra Angelico on frescoes in Florence, Rome, and Orvieto. His reputation today rests on the breathtaking fresco cycle The Journey of the Magi (1459-61) in the chapel of Florence’s Medici- Riccardi Palace. His work as a whole was undistinguished, however. He painted several altarpieces and a series of 25 frescoes of Old Testament scenes, now badly damaged, for the Camposanto in Pisa (1468-84).

Detail with Lorenzo de' Medici from "Procession of the Magi," fresco by Benozzo Gozzoli, 1459; in the Medici-Riccardi Palace, Florence.

SCAIA—ART RESOURCE

GPS See Global Positioning System

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

786 i Graaff ► Graham

Graaff, Robert Van de See Robert J. Van de Graaff

Grable, Betty orig. Ruth Elizabeth Grable (b. Dec. 18, 1916, St. Louis, Mo., U.S.—d. July 2, 1973, Santa Monica, Calif.) U.S. film actress. She performed as a chorus-line dancer in 1930s musicals, then was featured in musicals such as Down Argentine Way (1940) and Moon over Miami (1941). Noted for her shapely legs, she became a top star and a favourite pinup girl of U.S. troops in World War II. After the war, she starred in films such as Mother Wore Tights ( 1947) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), but as the film musical fell into decline so did her career.

Gracchus Vgra-kosV, Gaius Sempronius (b. c. 160—d. 121 bc, Grove of Furrina, near Rome) Roman tribune (123-122 bc). He joined the outcry over the murder of his brother, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and helped implement his agrarian law. He combined the votes of plebeians and equites to pass reforms aimed at curbing the corruption of the nobil¬ ity. His attempts to extend citizenship to Rome’s Italian allies and more freedom to plebeians were unpopular. Though he came from an aristo¬ cratic family, his policies were seen by extreme conservatives as an attempt to destroy the aristocracy. He committed suicide while under siege on the Aventine Hill.

Gracchus, Tiberius Sempronius (b. c. 169—d. June 133 bc, Rome) Roman aristocrat and tribune (133 bc). He sponsored agrarian reforms to restore the class of small independent farmers on which the Roman economy and military depended. Although a traditional system only 30 years before, it was seen as radical by his Senate enemies. He was assas¬ sinated in a riot sparked by senatorial opponents angered by his unortho¬ dox political tactics. His brother Gaius Sempronius Gracchus enforced his reforms.

grace In Christian theology, the unmerited gift of divine favour, which brings about the salvation of a sinner. The concept of grace has given rise to theological debate over the nature of human depravity and the extent to which individuals may contribute to their own salvation through free will. Though in principle the ideas of merit and grace are mutually exclu¬ sive, the question of whether grace may be given as a reward for good works or for faith alone was important in the Protestant Reformation. There has also been controversy over the means of grace: Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and some Protestants believe that it is conferred through the sacraments, while some other Protestants (e.g., Baptists) hold that participation in grace results from personal faith alone. See also jus¬ tification; ORIGINAL SIN.

Grace One of a group of Greek goddesses who personified charm and beauty. Originally fertility goddesses, they were frequently associated with Aphrodite. Their number varied in different legends, but often there were three. They were sometimes said to be the daughters of Zeus and Hera and sometimes of Helios and Aegle, daughter of Zeus.

Grace, W(illiam) G(ilbert) (b. July 18, 1848, Downend, Gloucester¬ shire, Eng.—d. Oct. 23, 1915, London) Greatest cricketer in Victorian England. Although he practiced medicine, cricket was his first love. Grace evolved the modern principles of bat¬ ting and achieved many notable per¬ formances on rough and unpredictable wickets such as are unknown to modem players. In his career in first-class cricket (1865—

1908), Grace scored 54,896 runs, registered 126 centuries (100 runs in a single innings), and, as a bowler, took 2,876 wickets. In 84 matches for Gentlemen versus Players, he amassed 6,000 runs and took 271 wickets. In 1880 he was on the English team that played the first Test match against Australia in England.

grackle Any of several songbird species (in the family Icteridae) hav¬ ing iridescent black plumage and a long tail; also called crow-blackbird.

Grackles use their stout, pointed bill to snap up insects, dig grubs from the soil, and kill small vertebrates, including fishes and baby birds; they

can also crack hard seeds. The common grackle ( Quiscalus quiscula ) of North America is about 12 in. (30 cm) long. The males of two Cassidus species (boat-tailed and great-tailed grackles) have a long, deeply keeled tail; these species are found in arid lands of the southwestern U.S. to Peru and in salt marshes from New Jersey to Texas, where they are locally called jackdaws. See also blackbird, mynah.

gradient In mathematics, a differential operator applied to a three- dimensional vector-valued function to yield a vector whose three compo¬ nents are the partial derivatives of the function with respect to its three variables. The symbol for gradient is V. Thus, the gradient of a function / written grad / or V/, is V/ = \f x + j f y + k f z where f x , f y , and f z are the first partial derivatives of/and the vectors i, j, and k are the unit vectors of the vector space. If in physics, for example,/is a temperature field (giv¬ ing the temperature at every point in a space), V/ is the direction of the heat-flow vector in the field.

Graf, Steffi in full Stephanie Maria Graf (b. June 14, 1969, Briihl, W.Ger.) German tennis player. At age 13 she became the second young¬ est player ever to earn an international ranking. In 1987 she won her first grand-slam event (the French Open), and in 1988 she won all four grand- slam events (French, Australian, U.S., and Wimbledon) and an Olympic gold medal. Sidetracked by knee surgery in 1997, she played her way back to the top, winning the French Open in 1999 for her 22nd grand-slam title (including seven Wimbledon championships).

Grafe \'gra-fo\, Albrecht Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst von (b. May

22, 1828, Berlin, Prussia—d. July 20, 1870, Berlin) German ophthal¬ mologist. Using Hermann von Helmholtz’s ophthalmoscope, he developed several operations for eye disorders, including iridectomy (removal of part of the iris) for glaucoma and lens extraction for cataract. He traced blind¬ ness and visual defects in some cerebral disorders to optic-nerve inflam¬ mation. Grafe sign (diagnostic for Graves disease) is failure of the upper eyelid to follow the eyeball when looking downward. His writings include a Manual of Comprehensive Ophthalmology (7 vol., 1874-80). He is con¬ sidered the founder of modern ophthalmology.

graffiti Form of visual communication, usually illegal, involving the unauthorized marking of public space by an individual or group. Tech¬ nically the term applies to designs scratched through a layer of paint or plaster, but its meaning has been extended to other markings. Graffiti is widely considered a form of antisocial behaviour performed in order to gain attention or simply for thrills. But it also can be understood as an expressive art form. Derived from the Italian word grajfio (“scratch”), graffiti (“incised inscriptions,” plural but often used as singular) has a long history. It has been found in ancient Roman ruins, in the remains of the Mayan city of Tikal in Central America, on rocks in Spain dating to the 16th century, and in medieval English churches. During the 20th century, graffiti in the U.S. and Europe was closely associated with gangs. Graffiti was particularly prominent in major urban centres throughout the world; common targets were subways, billboards, and walls. In the 1990s there emerged a new form of graffiti, known as “tagging,” which entailed the repeated use of a single symbol or series of symbols to mark territory.

graft In horticulture, the act of placing a portion of one plant (called a bud or scion) into or on a stem, root, or branch of another (called the stock) in such a way that a union forms and the partners continue to grow. Grafting is used for various puiposes: to repair injured trees, produce dwarf trees and shrubs, strengthen plants’ resistance to certain diseases, retain varietal characteristics, adapt varieties to adverse soil or climatic conditions, ensure pollination, produce multifruited or multiflowered plants, and propagate certain species (such as hybrid roses) that can be propagated in no other way. In theory, any two plants that are closely related botanically and that have a continuous cambium can be grafted. Grafts between species of the same genus are often successful and between genera occasionally so, but grafts between families are nearly always failures. See illustration on opposite page.

Graham, Billy in full William Franklin Graham, Jr. (b. Nov. 7, 1918, Charlotte, N.C., U.S.) U.S. Christian evangelist. The son of a dairy farmer, he underwent a conversion experience at age 16 during a revival. After attending Bob Jones College and the Florida Bible Institute, he was ordained a Southern Baptist clergyman in 1940. He later earned a degree in anthropology from Wheaton College. He won numerous con¬ verts with his tent revivals and radio broadcasts, and by 1950 he had become fundamentalism’s leading spokesman. He led a series of widely televised international revival crusades through the Billy Graham Evan-

Common grackle (Quiscalus quiscula)

THASE DANIEL

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

Graham ► Grainger I 787

gelistic Association in Minneapolis, Minn., and he enjoyed close asso¬ ciations with a series of U.S. presidents. Graham and his wife, Ruth, were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1996.

Graham Vgra-om, 'gramV, Jorie (b. May 9, 1951, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. poet. She studied at New York University and the University of Iowa, where she later taught. Her abstract, intellectual verse is known for its visual imagery, complex metaphors, and philosophical content. Her first volume of verse. Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts (1980), contains compact, intricate poems that explore death, beauty, and change. Later volumes include The End of Beauty (1987), Region of Unlikeness (1991), The Dream of the Unified Field (1995, Pulitzer Prize), The Errancy (1997), and Swarm (2000).

Graham, Katharine orig. Katharine Meyer (b. July 16, 1917, New York, N.Y., U.S.—d. July 17, 2001, Boise, Idaho) U.S. owner and publisher of news publications. The daughter of Eugene Meyer (1875— 1959), owner and publisher of The Washington Post (1933^-6), she stud¬ ied at Vassar College and the University of Chicago. In 1940 she married Philip Graham, who later became the Post’s publisher. The Grahams acquired the paper from Meyer in 1948. After her husband’s suicide in 1963, she stepped in as head of the Washington Post Co. (which had pur¬ chased Newsweek in 1961). Under her leadership, and through the edito¬ rial direction of Ben Bradlee, the Post became one of the nation’s most powerful newspapers, particularly with its coverage of the Watergate scandal. Her best-selling autobiography. Personal History, earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1997.

Graham, Martha (b. May 11, 1894, Allegheny county, Penn., U.S.—d. April 1, 1991, New York, N.Y.) U.S. dancer, teacher, choreog¬ rapher, and foremost exponent of modern dance. She studied from 1916 with Ted Shawn at the Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, then left in 1923 for New York, where she founded her own school in 1927 and a performing company in 1929. She choreographed more than 160 works, creating unique “dance plays” and using a variety of themes to express emotion and conflict. Many are based on American themes, including Appalachian Spring (1944); other works include Primitive Mys¬ teries (1931), El Penitente (1940), Letter to the World (1940), Cave of the Heart (1946), Clytemnestra (1958), Phaedra (1962), and Frescoes (1978). She collaborated for many years with Louis Horst, her musical director,

3 4 5

Some methods of grafting: (1) simple splice graft, showing cut surfaces of stock and scion and the cut surfaces joined and bound, (2) tongued graft, (3) whip graft, (4) cleft graft, (5) side cleft graft.

© MERRIAM-WEBSTER INC.

and with Isamu Noguchi, who designed many of her sets. She retired from dancing in 1970 but continued to teach and choreograph. Her technique became the first significant alternative to classical ballet, and her influence extended worldwide through her choreography and her students.

Graham, Otto (Everett, Jr.) (b. Dec. 6, 1921, Waukegan, Ill., U.S.—d. Dec. 17, 2003, Sarasota, Fla.) U.S. gridiron football player and coach. He was a star tailback at Northwestern University, but he is best remembered as quarterback of the Cleveland Browns during a 10-year period (1946-55) in which they won 105 games, lost 17, and tied 5 in regular season play and won 7 of 10 championship games. Graham’s career average yardage per pass (8.63) was still an NFL record at the beginning of the 21st century. His coaching career was mainly with the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (1959-66) and the Washington Redskins (1966-68). He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1965.

Grahame Ygra-am, ‘gram\, Kenneth (b. March 8, 1859, Edinburgh, Scot.—d. July 6, 1932, Pangboume, Berkshire, Eng.) British writer of children’s books. He worked as a banker in London while contributing articles and stories to journals, these works were in books such as The Golden Age (1895) and Dream Days (1898). He is best known for his classic The Wind in the Willows (1908; dramatized by A.A. Milne as Toad of Toad Hall, 1930), whose animal characters—principally Mole, Rat, Badger, and Toad—captivatingly combine human traits with authentic animal habits.

Grahn, Lucile orig. Lucina Alexia Grahn (b. June 30, 1819, Copenhagen, Den.—d. April 4, 1907, Munich, Ger.) Danish ballerina, ballet mistress, and choreographer. She was trained in Copenhagen by August Bournonville. In 1839 she was engaged at the Paris Opera; this marked the beginning of her international career as one of the greatest Romantic ballerinas. After 1846 she toured Europe, frequently producing the ballets in which she appeared, including her own original works. In 1856 Grahn retired from the stage. From 1858 to 1875 she worked as a ballet mistress and director in Germany. At the Court Opera in Munich she produced a number of ballets and also worked with the composer Richard Wagner on the production of several of his operas.

grail or Holy Grail In Arthurian legend, a sacred cup that was the object of a mystical quest by knights of the Round Table. The grail leg¬ end may have been inspired by classical and Celtic stories of magic caul¬ drons and horns of plenty. It was first given Christian significance as a mysterious, holy object by Chretien de Troyes in the 12th-century romance Perceval, or the Count of the Holy Grail. The grail was sometimes said to be the same cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and later by Joseph of Arimathea to catch the blood flowing from the wounds of Jesus on the cross. The most notable figure connected with the grail was Sir Galahad, who, according to Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, found the grail and achieved mystical union with God.

grain See cereal

grain alcohol See ethanol

grain elevator Storage building for grain, usually a tall frame, metal, or concrete structure with a compartmented interior; also, the device for loading grain into a building. One common mechanism consists of a hop¬ per, a long rectangular open trough, and an endless vertical belt or chain with flights (crosspieces) for conveying the grain to the top of the stack. The force of gravity enables elevated grain to be unloaded quickly and easily from chutes.

grain mill Structure for grinding cereal. Waterwheels were first exploited for such tasks. Geared mills turning grindstones (see gear) were used in the Roman Empire, but their fullest development occurred in medieval Europe, in, for example, the great grain mill near Arles, France, which, with its 16 cascaded overshot wheels, each 7 ft (2 m) in diameter, and wooden gearing, may have met the needs of 80,000 people. Windmills were also among the original prime movers that replaced animal muscle as a source of power. They were used for centuries in various parts of the world, and remain of major industrial importance in developing nations.

Grainger, Percy Aldridge orig. George Percy Grainger (b.

July 8, 1882, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia—d. Feb. 20, 1961, White Plains, N.Y., U.S.) Australian-born U.S. composer and pianist. After studying music in Frankfurt, he established himself as a piano virtuoso in England, while also pursuing ethnomusicological interest, collecting folk tunes in England and Denmark. He moved to the U.S. permanently

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

788 i gram ► Grand Alliance

in 1914, teaching in Chicago and New York, but invested much energy in establishing an ethnomusicological centre at the University of Mel¬ bourne. Though an inveterate experimenter in the realms of timbre, rhythm, harmony, and texture, he is known for his tuneful short works for orchestra, piano, and concert band, including Country Gardens, Molly on the Shore, Mock Morris, and Lincolnshire Posy.

gram Unit of mass or weight used especially in the centimetre-gram- second (CGS) system of measurement. One gram is equal to 0.001 kg, about 0.035 oz, or 15.43 grains. The gram is very nearly equal to the mass of 1 cc of pure water at its maximum density. The gram of force is equal to the weight of a gram of mass under standard gravity. For greater preci¬ sion, the mass may be weighed at a point at which the acceleration due to gravity is 980.655 cm/sec 2 . See also gravitation; metric system.

gram stain Staining technique for the initial identification of bacteria, devised in 1884 by the Danish physician Hans Christian Gram (1853— 1938). The stain reveals basic differences in the biochemical and struc¬ tural properties of a living cell. A slide containing a smear of bacteria is treated with a purple dye; the slide is then dipped in an iodine solution, followed by an organic solvent (such as alcohol) that can dissolve the dye. Gram-positive bacteria remain purple because they have a thick cell wall that the solvent cannot easily penetrate; gram-negative bacteria lose their colour because they have thin cell walls that allow the solvent to pen¬ etrate and remove the dye.

gramadevata Vgra-ms-'da-vo-.taX Folk deities widely worshiped in rural India. Often female figures, they may have originated as agricultural deities, and they are offered animal sacrifices to ward off disease, crop failures, and other natural disasters. Many are purely local, spirits of a place (e.g., a crossroads) or of a person who has died an untimely death. They are worshiped in the form of stones or earthenware icons fixed in simple shrines or set up under a village tree.

Grameen Bank In Bangladesh, first bank to specialize in small loans for poor individuals. Originated by economist Muhammad Yunus, the Grameen banking model is based on groups of five prospective borrowers who meet regularly with Grameen Bank field managers. Typically, two of the five prospective borrowers are granted loans. If, after a probationary time period, the first two borrowers meet the terms of repayment, then loans are granted to the remaining group members. Peer pressure acts as a replacement for traditional loan collateral. Grameen became an indepen¬ dent bank in 1983; headquartered in Dhaka, Bangladesh, it has more than 1,000 branches in the country. A typical Grameen loan ranges from $ 100 to $400. The Grameen model has come to symbolize an efficient means of helping the poor by providing them with opportunities to help themselves. More than 90 percent of Grameen’s loan recipients have been women.

grammar Rules of a language governing its phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics; also, a written summary of such rules. The first Europeans to write grammar texts were the Greeks, notably the Alexan¬ drians of the 1st century bc. The Romans applied the Greek grammatical system to Latin. The works of the Latin grammarians Donatus (4th cen¬ tury ad) and Priscian (6th century) were widely used to teach grammar in medieval Europe. By 1700, grammars of 61 vernacular languages had been printed. These were mainly used for teaching and were intended to reform or standardize language. In the 19th-20th centuries linguists began studying languages to trace their evolution rather than to prescribe cor¬ rect usage. Descriptive linguists (see Ferdinand de Saussure) studied spo¬ ken language by collecting and analyzing sample sentences. Transformational grammarians (see Noam Chomsky) examined the under¬ lying structure of language (see generative gramaaar). The older approach to grammar as a body of rules needed to speak and write correctly is still the basis of primary and secondary language education.

Grammy Awards Annual awards given by the Recording Academy (officially the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences). The first Grammies (the name is a dimunitive of “gramophone”) were given in 1958. The awards, which reflect the votes of the Academy’s large membership of musicians, producers, and other music professionals, have expanded considerably to reflect the variety of musical taste and produc¬ tion; today awards are given in dozens of categories.

Grampian Mountains or Grampian Hills Mountain system, Scotland. Extending across central Scotland, it forms a natural boundary between the Scottish Highlands and Lowlands. Its highest peak, Ben Nevis, is the highest mountain in Britain.

Grampians, the Mountain range, western Victoria, Australia. Com¬ posed mainly of hard sandstone, the range is noted for deep gorges, weath¬ ered rock formations, and wildflowers. The highest peak, Mount William, rises to 3,827 ft (1,166 m). The range was named after the Grampian Mountains of Scotland.

Gramsci Vgram-she\, Antonio (b. Jan. 23, 1891, Ales, Sardinia—d. April 27, 1937, Rome, Italy) Italian intellectual and politician. After enter¬ ing the University of Turin, he joined the Italian Socialist Party in 1914. In 1921 he left the Socialists to found the Italian Communist Party (see Democratic Party of the Left), and he spent two years in the Soviet Union. In 1924 he became head of the party and was elected to the national leg¬ islature. The party was outlawed by the fascist government of Benito Mussolini in 1926, and Gramsci was arrested and imprisoned for 11 years; in poor health, he was released to die at 46. His influential Letters from Prison (1947) and other writings outline a version of communism less dogmatic than Soviet communism. His work has influenced sociology, political theory, and international relations.

Gran Chaco \gran-'cha-ko\ Spanish Chaco or El Chaco Lowland alluvial plain, south-central South America. An arid lowland, it is bounded by the Andes Mountains to the west and the Paraguay and Parana rivers to the east; its northern and southern margins, generally considered to be a marshy area in Bolivia and the Salado River in Argentina, respectively, are less well defined. Its area is about 280,000 sq mi (725,000 sq km). The region’s heartland, in the fork of the Paraguay and Pilcomayo rivers, was fought over by Bolivia and Paraguay in the Chaco War (1932-35). By a 1938 treaty a larger eastern part went to Paraguay and a smaller western part to Bolivia. Chaco’s wildlife is abundant, and there are at least 60 known species of snakes. Cattle grazing is a major economic activity. The area remains isolated and is only sparsely populated.

Gran Colombia \'gran-ko-'lom-be-a\ Former South American repub¬ lic (1819-30). Formerly the Viceroyalty of New Granada, it included roughly the modern nations of Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, and Ecua¬ dor. Gran Colombia was formed in 1819 during the war for independence from Spain, with its capital at Bogota. Revolutionary leader Simon Boli¬ var was its creator and first president. Gran Colombia had a vigorous existence during the war, but it was dissolved with the secession of Ven¬ ezuela and Ecuador in 1830.

Gran Paradiso Vgran-.pa-ra-'de-zoV National Park Park, north¬ western Italy. Established in 1836 as a hunting zone, in 1856 it became the Royal Hunting Reserve of the Gran Paradiso, and in 1947 it received national park status. It covers an area of 153,240 acres (62,000 hectares) and extends along the upper Valle d'Aosta region; it contains the highest peak in the Graian Alps, Gran Paradiso, at 13,323 ft (4,061 m). The ter¬ rain is typically Alpine, with numerous glaciers and coniferous tree-lined slopes.

Granada \gra-‘na-tha\ City (pop., 2001: 240,661), capital of Granada province, Andalusia autonomous community, southern Spain. Located at the northwestern slope of the Sierra Nevada, it was the site of the Iberian settlement Elibyrge in the 5th century bc and of the Roman Illiberis. As the seat of the Moorish kingdom of Granada, it was the final stronghold of the Moors in Spain, falling to Roman Catholic monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I in 1492. Nearby is the Alhambra, as well as the Alcazaba fortress that guarded it. The city has fine Renaissance, Baroque, and Neo¬ classical architecture and is a major tourist centre. It has been the see of an archbishop since 1493; the University of Granada was founded in 1526.

Granados \gra-'na-thos\ (y Campina), Enrique (b. July 27, 1867, Lerida, Spain—d. March 24, 1916, at sea) Spanish composer. He studied composition with Felipe Pedrell and concertized as a pianist. From 1901 he taught at the Academia Granados, the music school he founded in Bar¬ celona. He wrote four zarzuelas, including Maria del Carmen (1898), and two “poemas” (also stage works), as well as songs and chamber works. His fame rests on the piano suite Goyescas (1911). His opera of the same name was performed successfully at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1916. Returning to Spain from this performance, Granados was drowned when his ship was torpedoed by a German submarine.

Grand Alliance, War of the (1689-97) Third major war of Louis XIV of France, in which his expansionist plans were blocked by an alli¬ ance led by Britain, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and the Austrian Habsburgs. The deeper issue underlying the war was the rivalry between the Bourbon and FIabsburg dynasties. Louis launched a campaign

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

Grand Banks ► Grand Trunk Railway I 789

in the 1680s to position the Bourbons for future succession to the Span¬ ish throne. To oppose him, the Habsburg emperor Leopold I joined other European nations in the League of Augsburg. The league proved ineffec¬ tive, but in 1690 Britain, Brandenburg, Saxony, Bavaria, and Spain, alarmed at Louis’s successes, joined with Leopold to form the Grand Alliance. As war broke out in Europe and in overseas colonies, including America (see King William's War), Louis found his military inadequately prepared, and France suffered heavy naval losses. In 1695 Louis started secret peace negotiations, which culminated in the Treaty of Rijswijk (1697). The underlying conflict between the Habsburg and Bourbon rul¬ ers and English-French conflicts remained unresolved and resurfaced four years later in the War of the Spanish Succession.

Grand Banks Portion of North American continental shelf, in the Atlantic Ocean. Lying southeast and south of Newfoundland, it is a noted international fishing ground and extends 350 mi (560 km) north-south and 420 mi (675 km) east-west. The cold Labrador Current and the warm Gulf Stream meet in its vicinity, causing heavy fogs. The banks were first reported in 1498 by John Cabot. In 1977 Canada extended its fishing claim to encompass most of the Grand Banks; it has since given limited fishing rights to other countries.

Grand Canal Series of waterways in northern China that link Hang¬ zhou with Beijing. Some 1,085 mi (1,747 km) in length, it is the world’s longest man-made waterway. It was build to enable successive Chinese regimes to transport surplus grain from the agriculturally rich Yangtze (Chang) and Huai river valleys to feed the capital cities and large stand¬ ing armies in the north. The oldest portion, in the south, may date from the 4th century bc. Expanded over the centuries, it continues to be used today for shipping and irrigation.

Grand Canyon Extensive canyon system cut by the Colorado River, northwestern Arizona, U.S. Noted for its rock formations and coloration, it is about 0.1-18 mi (0.2-29 km) wide and extends from northern Ari¬ zona to Grand Wash Cliffs, near the Nevada border, a distance of about 277 mi (446 km). The deepest section, 56 mi (90 km) long, is within Grand Canyon National Park, which covers the river’s length from Lake Powell to Lake Mead. The surrounding plateau is 6,000-9,000 ft (1,800-2,750 m) above sea level, and the canyon is in places more than 1 mi (1.6 km) deep. The national park, now containing 1,904 sq mi (4,931 sq km), was created in 1919. The former Grand Canyon National Monument, estab¬ lished in 1932, was added, with other lands, in 1975. In 1979 the Grand Canyon was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Grand Canyon series Major division of rocks in northern Arizona dating from Precambrian time. The rocks of the series consist of about 10,600 ft (3,400 m) of quartz sandstones, shales, and thick sequences of carbonate rocks. Spectacular exposures of these rocks occur in the Grand Canyon.

Grand Central Station Railroad terminal in New York City. It was designed and built (1903-13) by Reed & Stem in collaboration with the firm of Warren & Wetmore; the latter firm is credited with the aesthetics of the huge structure. The concourse, with its 125-ft (43-m) ceiling vault painted with constellations, was one of the largest enclosed spaces of its time. A gem of the Beaux-Arts style, the terminal looks as though it could have been transported from 1870s France. Atop the symmetrical main facade is a large clock and sculptures of an American eagle and Roman deities. In the late 20th century the station was lavishly restored; this res¬ toration effort brought national attention to the importance of preserving architectural landmarks.

Grand Falls See Churchill Falls

Grand Guignol \gra n -gen-'yol\ Short plays of violence, horror, and sadism popular in 20th-century Parisian cabarets. The name probably derives from the violent plots that featured the puppet Guignol. The plays were performed mainly at the Theatre du Grand Guignol from 1897 to 1962. The genre was introduced into England in 1908, but it remained mainly a Parisian theatrical form.

grand jury Jury that examines accusations against persons suspected of committing a crime and, if the evidence warrants it, issues formal charges on which the accused are later tried (see indictment). It does not decide guilt or innocence, only whether there is “probable cause” to believe that a person committed a crime. Public officials (prosecutors and police) provide information and summon witnesses for the jury. The pro¬ ceedings are usually secret. Some U.S. states have abolished the grand jury and authorize indictments by prosecutors.

Grand National British steeplechase horse-racing event held annually in Liverpool, Eng. Established in 1839, it attracts more attention through¬ out the world than any other such event, because of its extreme difficul¬ ties and dangers. The course is covered twice for a distance of 4.48 mi (7.2 km), including 31 jumps, some of them spectacularly hazardous.

Grand Ole Opry Country music radio show in Nashville, Tenn., U.S. Founded in 1925 by George Dewey Hay, the show was originally known as the WSM Barn Dance ; it acquired its lasting name in 1926. Its music developed from Dave Macon’s ballads of rural labourers in the 1920s, through the string bands, cowboy music, and western swing of the 1930s, and later back to the traditional music characterized by the career of Roy Acuff. After World War II, the honky-tonk style of Ernest Tubb and later Hank Williams, the bluegrass of Bill Monroe, and the singing of Eddy Arnold (b. 1918) and Kitty Wells all became Opry staples, as did comedy routines, notably those by Minnie Pearl (1912-96). In 1941 the Opry became a live stage show. In 1974 it moved to the Opryland amusement park and entertainment centre. The Opry initiated and promoted the cre¬ ation of Nashville as the centre of country music.

Grand Portage National Monument Historic site, northeastern corner of Minnesota, U.S. Located on Lake Superior near the Canadian border, it was designated a national historic site in 1951 and a national monument in 1958. It covers a 9-mi (14-km) overland trail from Lake Superior’s northern shore that bypassed the obstacles to early canoe travel. Used by early explorers, the portage marked the end of travel on the Great Lakes and the beginning of the interior river route. The portage trail now bisects the reservation of the Grand Portage tribe of the Minnesota Chippewa Indians.

Grand Prix Vgra n -'pre\ racing Automobile racing in which formula cars are run on closed highways or courses that simulate road conditions. Formula cars are open-wheel, open-cockpit, rear-engine vehicles and are generally smaller than those used in speedway races such as the India¬ napolis 500. Grand Prix racing began in 1906 and today comprises more than 15 major international events. Its popularity grew particularly from the 1950s, when world championships were established.

Grand Rapids City (pop., 2000: 197,800), western Michigan, U.S. Located on the Grand River, it was founded in 1826 as a trading post. Ample lumber from nearby forests soon fueled a woodworking industry. After Grand Rapids furniture was shown at the 1876 Centennial Exhibi¬ tion in Philadelphia, the city became known as the furniture capital of America. Its industry diversified with the advent of World War I, and metal-based manufacturing thereafter exceeded furniture. Its public library contains important collections of books on furniture design; its educational institutions include Kendall College of Art and Design (1928). It was the boyhood home of Pres. Gerald Ford.

Grand River See Neosho River

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument National preserve, southern Utah, U.S. Created a national monument in 1996, it covers 1.7 million acres (0.7 million hectares). Its western section has cliffs and plateaus, and its eastern section has canyons along the Escal¬ ante River. Dinosaur tracks have been found there. The area was once inhabited by the Anasazi people.

Grand Teton Vte-,tan\ National Park National preserve, northwest¬ ern Wyoming, U.S. In 1950 most of Jackson Hole National Monument (a fertile valley) was incorporated into the park, which was established in 1929 and now covers 484 sq mi (1,254 sq km). The snow-covered peaks of its Teton Range are 7,000 ft (2,100 m) above the nearby Snake River valley.

Grand Traverse Vtra-v9rs\ Bay Northeast arm of Lake Michigan, indenting northwestern Michigan, U.S. Located off the coast of the Lower Peninsula, the head of the bay is 32 mi (52 km) long and 12 mi (19 km) wide. It is divided into the east and west arms by Old Mission Peninsula, with Traverse City at its base. The Leelanau Peninsula lies west of the bay, which is noted for its year-round fishing. The area is an important summer resort region.

Grand Trunk Railway Early Canadian railway line, incorporated in 1852-53 to connect the key cities of eastern Canada with Portland, Me. By completing its final link in July 1853 between Montreal and Portland, it became North America’s first international railroad. The main Cana¬ dian line between Montreal and Toronto opened in 1856, and the Grand

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790 i grand unified theory ► Grant

Trunk eventually became the main rail system of Quebec and Ontario. It merged with the Great Western Railway (1882) and became part of the Canadian National Railways (1919-23).

grand unified theory or grand unification theory (GUT) Theory that attempts to unify the electroweak force (see electroweak theory) with the strong force. The unification of all four fundamental inter¬ actions is sometimes called unified field theory. Such theories generally predict that a proton decays into lighter particles. So far, no successful GUTs have been devised.

Grande, Rio See Rio Grande

grande ecole \gra n -da-'kol\ (French: “great school”) Any of several preeminent specialized institutions of higher learning in France. The Ecole Poly technique was founded in 1794 to recruit and train technicians for the army. The Ecole Normale Superieure serves mainly to prepare future university and lycee (senior secondary-school) teachers. The Ecole Nor¬ male d’Administration trains the highest ranks of civil servants. The inter¬ nationally renowned College de France (founded 1530) is a research institution that offers lectures by eminent scholars; it does not grant degrees or certificates. Other grandes ecoles include institutes for advanced study in social science, architecture, and the arts.

grandfather clause Constitutional provision enacted by seven South¬ ern U.S. states (1895-1910) to deny suffrage to African American men. It exempted descendants of men who voted before 1867 from meeting new literacy and property requirements. Since African American men were not granted voting rights until passage of the 15th Amendment in 1870, this clause effectively prevented them, and many impoverished and illiterate whites, from voting. The U.S. Supreme Court declared such clauses unconstitutional in 1915.

Grandi Ygran-de\, Dino, count di Mordano (b. June 4, 1895, Mor- dano, Italy—d. May 21, 1988, Bologna) Italian politician. He made an unsuccessful bid for leadership of Italy’s Fascists in 1921, losing to Benito Mussolini, but then held a succession of high government posts (1924- 43), including foreign minister (1929-33). In July 1943, as chair of the Grand Council of Fascism, he attacked Mussolini and proposed a motion of no confidence; passage of the resolution deposed Mussolini. Grandi fled to Lisbon, then moved to Brazil, but eventually returned to Italy.

Grandma Moses See Grandma Moses

Grange, Red orig. Harold Grange (b. June 13, 1903, Forksville, Pa., U.S.—d. Jan. 28, 1991, Lake Wales, Fla.) U.S. gridiron football player. He had an outstanding colle¬ giate career at the University of Illi¬ nois, where in 1924 he ran for five touchdowns in a single game against the University of Michigan and earned the nickname “the Galloping Ghost.” In 1925 he joined the Chi¬ cago Bears and embarked on a barn¬ storming tour that stimulated public interest in professional football.

After suffering a knee injury in 1927, he was never again an effective run¬ ner. He retired in 1934 and subse¬ quently worked as a sportscaster.

Granger, Clive W.J. (b. Sept. 4,

1934, Swansea, Wales) Welsh econo¬ mist. Granger attended the Univer¬ sity of Nottingham (B.A., 1955;

Ph.D., 1959), where he later taught.

He also wrote numerous books, cov¬ ering such subjects as time series analysis and forecasting, statistical theory, and applied statistics. In the 1970s and ’80s he developed techniques for analyzing time series data with common trends. In particular, he created concepts and analytic meth¬ ods to establish meaningful relationships between nonstationary variables, such as exchange rates and inflation rates. He shared the 2003 Nobel Prize for Economics with Robert F. Engle.

Granger movement Vgran-jorX Coalition of U.S. farmers, mainly in the Midwest, that fought monopolistic grain-transport practices in the

1870s. Oliver H. Kelley (1826-1913), a U.S. Department of Agriculture employee, organized the Patrons of Husbandry in 1867 to bring farmers together to learn new farming methods. By the mid-1870s almost every state had at least one branch, or Grange, and national membership passed 800,000. The Grangers influenced some states to pass regulatory legisla¬ tion to counter the price-fixing by railroads and grain-storage facilities. Outgrowths of the Granger movement included the Greenback and Popu¬ list movements. The Grangers dropped to about 100,000 members by 1880; they rebounded in the early 20th century, but declined again sub¬ sequently.

Granicus \gr3-'nl-k9s\, Battle of the (334 bc) First victory won by Alexander the Great in his invasion of the Persian empire. Against heavy odds at the Granicus River, Alexander’s army defeated the Persians under Darius III, who fled. Alexander himself charged the Persian generals, kill¬ ing two of Darius’ relatives and almost losing his own life. The Mace¬ donians reportedly lost only 115 men. The victory gave western Asia Minor to Alexander, and most cities hastened to open their gates.

Granit \gra-'net\, Ragnar Arthur (b. Oct. 30, 1900, Helsinki, Fin.—d. March 12, 1991, Stockholm, Swed.) Finnish-born Swedish physiologist. His “dominator-modulator” theory states that in addition to the retina’s three kinds of cone cells, which respond to different colours, certain optic-nerve fibres (dominators) respond either to the whole spec¬ trum or to specific colours (modulators). He also proved that light inhib¬ its as well as stimulates optic-nerve impulses; other research helped determine the nerve pathways and processes by which receptors in muscles coordinate muscle action. He shared a 1967 Nobel Prize with George Wald and Haldan Keffer Hartline.

granite Coarse- or medium-grained intrusive rock that is rich in quartz and alkali feldspar. One of the most common rocks of the Earth’s crust, it is formed by the cooling of magma. Granite was once used extensively as paving blocks and building stone, but today its principal uses are as road¬ way curbing, veneer for building faces, and tombstones. Granite charac¬ teristically forms irregular masses of extremely variable size, ranging from less than 5 mi (8 km) in maximum dimension to larger masses (batholiths) that are often hundreds of square miles in area.

granodiorite \ l gra-no-'dl-o- l rlt\ Medium- to coarse-grained rock that is one of the most abundant intrusive rocks. It contains quartz and is dis¬ tinguished from granite by having more plagioclase feldspar than ortho- clase feldspar; its other mineral constituents include hornblende, biotite, and augite. Granodiorite is similar to granite in appearance but darker.

Grant, Cary orig. Archibald Alexander Leach (b. Jan. 18, 1904, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Eng.—d.

Nov. 29, 1986, Davenport, Iowa,

U.S.) British-born U.S. film actor.

He performed with an acrobatic comedy troupe in England before he found parts in stage musicals. He made his film debut in This Is the Night (1932) and earned stardom with Mae West in She Done Him Wrong (1933). His debonair charm and good looks, combined with a distinctive voice, made him a long¬ time popular star in sophisticated comedies such as Topper (1937),

Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940), and The Philadelphia Story (1941). He also starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s thrillers Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief ( 1955), and North by North¬ west (1959). He received an honor¬ ary Academy Award in 1970.

Grant, Ulysses S. orig. Hiram Ulysses Grant (b. April 27, 1822, Point Pleasant, Ohio, U.S.—d. July 23,1885, Mount McGregor, N.Y.) U.S. general and 18th president of the U.S. (1869-77). He served in the Mexican War (1846—48) under Zachary Taylor. After two years’ service on the Pacific coast (1852-54), during which he attempted to supplement his army pay with ultimately unsuccessful business ventures, he resigned his com¬ mission. His decision might have been influenced by his fondness for alco¬ hol, which he reportedly drank often during this period. He worked

Cary Grant, 1957

THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART/FILM STILLS ARCHIVE, NEW VORK CITY

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granulite facies ► graphical user interface I 791

unsuccessfully at farming in Mis¬ souri and at his family’s leather busi¬ ness in Illinois. When the American Civil War began (1861), he was appointed brigadier general; his 1862 attack on Fort Donelson, Tenn., pro¬ duced the first major Union victory.

He drove off a Confederate attack at Shiloh but was criticized for heavy Union losses. He devised the cam¬ paign to take the stronghold of Vicks¬ burg, Miss., in 1863, cutting the Confederacy in half from east to west. Following his victory at the Battle of Chattanooga in 1864, he was appointed commander of the Union army. While Gen. William T.

Sherman made his famous march across Georgia, Grant attacked forces under Gen. Robert E. Lee in Virginia, bringing the war to an end in 1865. Grant’s administrative ability and inno¬ vative strategies were largely responsible for the Union victory. In 1868 his successful Republican presidential campaign made him, at 46, the young¬ est man yet elected president. His two terms were marred by administrative inaction and political scandal involving members of his cabinet, including the Credit Mobilier scandal and the Whiskey Ring conspiracy. He was more successful in foreign affairs, where he was aided by his secretary of state, Hamilton Fish. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protec¬ tion for the civil rights of former slaves. His veto of a bill to increase the amount of legal tender (1874) diminished the currency crisis during the next 25 years. In 1881 he moved to New York City; when a partner defrauded an investment firm co-owned by his son, the family was impov¬ erished. His memoirs were published by his friend Mark Twain.

granulite facies Vgran-yo-.lIt-'fa-shezN One of the major divisions of the mineral facies classification of metamorphic rocks, encompassing rocks that formed under intense temperature-pressure conditions (higher than 950°F, or 500°C). The minerals found in the rocks of granulite facies include hornblende, pyroxene, biotite, garnet, calcium plagioclase, and quartz or olivine. See also amphibolite facies.

Granville-Barker, Harley (b. Nov. 25, 1877, London, Eng.—d. Aug. 31, 1946, Paris, France) British producer, playwright, and critic. An actor from age 15, he directed his own first play, The Marrying of Ann Leete, in 1901. As comanager of the Court Theatre (1904-07) he produced many of George Bernard Shaw’s early plays as well as plays by Henrik Ibsen, Maurice Maeterlinck, and John Galsworthy, and also produced his own The Voysey Inheritance (1905) and Waste (1907). He influenced 20th-century theatre with his naturalistic stagings of Shakespeare’s plays, which emphasized continuous action on an open stage and rapid, lightly stressed speech. He moved to Paris after World War I and there wrote Prefaces to Shakespeare (1927—46), a series of books of criticism.

grape Any of the 60 plant species that make up the genus Vitis (family Vitaceae), native to the northern tem¬ perate zone, including varieties that may be eaten as table fruit, dried to produce raisins, or crushed to make grape juice or wine. V. vinifera is the species most commonly used in wine making. The grape is usually a woody vine, climbing by means of tendrils. In arid regions it may form an almost erect shrub. Botanically, the fruit is a berry. Grapes contain such minerals as calcium and phos¬ phorus and are a source of vitamin A. All grapes contain sugar (glucose and fructose) in varying quantities depending on the variety.

grape hyacinth Any of the approximately 50 species of small bul¬ bous perennial plants that make up the genus Muscari, in the lily family, native to the Mediterranean region. Most species have dense clusters of blue, white, or pink urn-shaped flowers borne at the tip of a leafless flower stalk. Some species have a musky odour. Grape hyacinths often are planted as spring-flowering garden ornamentals.

grape phylloxera V.fi-.lak-'sir-o, fo-Tak-so-roN Small, greenish yellow insect {Phylloxera vitifoliae, order Homoptera) that is highly destructive to grape plants in Europe and the western U.S. It sucks fluid from grape¬ vines, causing galls to form on leaves and nodules on roots; eventually the plants rot. It was introduced into Europe from the eastern U.S. in the mid-19th century and within 25 years had almost destroyed the grape and wine industries in France, Italy, and Germany. Vines were saved by graft¬ ing European plants to rootstocks of resistant vines native to the U.S. Hybrids and fumigants are used to combat the pest.

grape sugar See glucose

grapefruit Tree {Citrus paradisi ) of the rue family and its edible fruit. It originated in the West Indies (probably Jamaica) before being brought to the New World mainland.

The shiny, dark green foliage is very dense. The large white flowers are borne singly or in clusters. Lemon- yellow when ripe, the fruit is 4-6 in.

(100-150 mm) in diameter, about twice as large as a medium-size orange. The mildly acidic pulp— juicy and light yellowish, pink, or red—is an excellent source of vita¬ min C. It is popular as breakfast fruit in various parts of the world.

graph Visual representation of a data set or a mathematical equation, inequality, or function to show rela¬ tionships or tendencies that these for¬ mulas can only suggest symbolically and abstractly. Though histograms and pie charts are also graphs, the term usually applies to point plots on a coordinate system. For example, a graph of the relationship between real numbers and their squares matches each real number on a horizontal axis with its square on a vertical axis. The resulting set of points in this case is a parabola. A graph of an inequality is usually a shaded region on one side of a curve, whose shape depends not only on the equation or inequality but on the coordinate system chosen.

graph theory Mathematical theory of networks. A graph consists of vertices (also called points or nodes) and edges (lines) connecting certain pairs of vertices. An edge that connects a node to itself is called a loop. In 1735 Leonhard Euler published an analysis of an old puzzle concerning the possibility of crossing every one of seven bridges (no bridge twice) that span a forked river flowing past an island. Euler’s proof that no such path exists and his generalization of the problem to all possible networks are now recognized as the origin of both graph theory and topology. Since the mid-20th century, graph theory has become a standard tool for ana¬ lyzing and designing communications networks, power transmission sys¬ tems, transportation networks, and computer architectures.

graphic design The art and profession of selecting and arranging visual elements—such as typography, images, symbols, and colours—to convey a message to an audience. Sometimes graphic design is called “visual communications.” It is a collaborative discipline: writers produce words and photographers and illustrators create images that the designer incorporates into a complete visual message. Although graphic design has been practiced in various forms throughout history, it emerged as a spe¬ cific profession during the job-specialization process that occurred in the late 19th century. Its evolution has been closely bound to developments in image making, typography, and reproduction processes. Prominent graphic designers include Jules Cheret, Piet Zwart, Paul Rand, Alexey Brodovitch, Milton Glaser, and David Carson.

graphical user interface (GUI) Computer display format that allows the user to select commands, call up files, start programs, and do other routine tasks by using a mouse to point to pictorial symbols (icons) or lists of menu choices on the screen as opposed to having to type in text commands. The first GUI to be used in a personal computer appeared in Apple Computer’s Lisa, introduced in 1983; its GUI became the basis of Apple’s extremely successful Macintosh (1984). The Macintosh’s GUI style was widely adapted by other manufacturers of personal computers and PC software. In 1985 Microsoft Corp. introduced Windows, a GUI (which later grew into an operating system) that gave MS-DOS-based

Ulysses S. Grant.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Grape (Vitis).

GRANT HEILMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

Grapefruit (Citrus paradisi).

GRANT HEILMAN

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

792 i graphite ► Graves

computers many of the same capabilities as the Macintosh. In addition to being used for operating-system interfaces, GUIs are used in other types of software, including browsers and application programs.

graphite or plumbago \ I pbm-'ba-go\ or black lead Mineral allo- trope of carbon. It is dark gray to black, opaque, and very soft. Its lay¬ ered structure, with rings of six atoms arranged in widely spaced parallel sheets, gives it its slippery quality. It occurs in nature and is used (mixed with clay) as the “lead” in pencils. It is also used in lubricants, crucibles, polishes, arc lamps, batteries, brushes for electric motors, and nuclear reactor cores.

graptolite Vgrap-to-.lItX Any member of an extinct group of small, aquatic colonial invertebrates that first became apparent during the Cam¬ brian Period and persisted into the Early Carboniferous Period (354-323 million years ago). Graptolites were floating animals that had tentacles and a hard outer covering. They most often have been preserved as impressions on black shales. Graptolite fossils show a gradual develop¬ ment through time, and evolutionary relationships between different grap¬ tolite groups have been discovered and analyzed.

grass Any of many low, green, nonwoody plants that make up the fami¬ lies Poaceae (or Gramineae), Cyperaceae (sedges), and Juncaceae (RUSHes). Only the approximately 8,000-10,000 species in the family Poaceae are true grasses. They are the most economically important of all flowering plants because of their nutritious grains and soil-forming function, and they are the most widespread and most numerous of plants. The cereal grasses include wheat, com, rice, rye, oats, barley, and millet. Grasses provide for¬ age for grazing animals, shelter for wildlife, and construction materials, furniture, utensils, and food for humans. Some species are grown as garden ornamentals, cultivated as turf for lawns and recreational areas, or used as cover plants for erosion control. Most have hollow, segmented, round stems, bladelike leaves, and extensively branching fibrous root systems.

Grass \'gras\, Gunter (Wilhelm) (b. Oct. 16, 1927, Danzig) German novelist, poet, and playwright. Grass was involved in the Hitler Youth, was drafted at age 16 and wounded in battle, and became a prisoner of war. His extraordinary first novel,

The Tin Drum (1959), brought him international fame, and he became the literary spokesman for the Ger¬ man generation that grew up in the Nazi era. Together with Cat and Mouse (1961) and Dog Years (1963), it forms a trilogy set in Danzig (now Gdansk, Pol.). His other works, all politically topical, include The Flounder (1977); The Call of the Toad (1992), about the uneasy rela¬ tionship between Poland and reuni¬ fied Germany; A Broad Field (1995), controversial for expressing his view that reunification was a mistake; and My Century (1999). He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.

grasshopper Any of the leaping insects of the family Acrididae (short¬ horned grasshoppers) or Tettigoni- idae (long-horned grasshoppers), both in the order Orthoptera. Grass¬ hoppers are most common in tropical forests, semiarid regions, and grass¬ lands. Colours range from green to olive or brown, sometimes with yel¬ low or red markings. Grasshoppers eat plant material and may damage crops. Some species are more than 4 in. (11 cm) long. The male can pro¬ duce a buzzing sound either by rub¬ bing its front wings together or by rubbing toothlike ridges on the hind legs against a raised vein on each front wing. Grasshoppers are a favourite food of many birds, frogs, and snakes. See also katydid; locust.

Grateful Dead U.S. rock group. It was formed in San Francisco in the mid-1960s by Jerry Garcia (1942-95) on guitar, Phil Lesh (b. 1940) on bass, Ron (“Pigpen”) McKernan (1945-73) on keyboards, Bob Weir (b.

1947) on guitar, and Bill Kreutzmann (b. 1946) on drums. The Grateful Dead emerged from the Haight-Ashbury psychedelic-drug-and-music scene, later gaining fame for performing at the Monterey Pop Festival (1967) and Woodstock. Though they regularly released albums, their focus was on live music. They became one of the country’s most suc¬ cessful touring bands, known for Garcia’s marathon four-hour musical meanderings and for their entourage of “Deadheads,” a devoted legion of nomadic fans who followed the band in spirited makeshift communities. In the late 1980s a new generation of fans made the Grateful Dead the most successful touring band in the world. They stopped touring after Garcia died of a heart attack at a drug rehabilitation centre.

Gratian Vgra-shonV Latin in full Flavius Gratianus Augustus (b.

359, Sirmium, Pannonia—d. Aug. 25, 383, Lugdunum, Lugdunensis) Roman emperor (r. 367-83). He originally shared the office with his father, Valentinian I (r. 364-75), and his uncle, Valens (r. 364-78). He later shared authority with his 4-year-old half brother, who was supported by the army. Following his uncle’s death at the disastrous Battle of Adrian- ople, he became ruler of the Eastern Empire and summoned Theodosius I to share power with him. Influenced by St. Ambrose, Gratian omitted the words pontifex maximus (“supreme priest”) from his title. He was mur¬ dered opposing the usurper Magnus Maximus.

Grattan \'gra-t 3 n\, Henry (b. July 3, 1746, Dublin, Ire.—d. June 6, 1820, London, Eng.) Irish politician. He entered the Irish Parliament in 1775 and, as a brilliant orator, soon became the leading spokesperson of the Irish nationalist agitation. His movement gained momentum; he forced the British in 1779 to remove restraints on Irish trade and in 1782 to relin¬ quish their right to legislate for Ireland. In 1800 he headed the unsuc¬ cessful opposition to the union of England and Ireland. In 1805 he was elected to the English House of Commons, where he fought for Catholic emancipation for his last 15 years.

gravel Aggregate of more or less rounded rock fragments coarser than sand (i.e., more than 0.08 in., or 2 mm, in diameter). Gravel beds in some places contain heavy metallic ore minerals, such as cassiterite (a major source of tin), or native metals, such as gold, in nuggets or flakes. Depos¬ its accumulate in parts of stream channels or on beaches where the water moves too rapidly to permit sand to remain. Because of changing condi¬ tions, gravel formations generally are more limited and more variable in coarseness, thickness, and configuration than sand or clay deposits. In many regions gravel terraces (or raised beaches) extend great distances inland, indicating that the sea at one time stood higher than it does today. Gravels are widely used building materials.

Graves, Michael (b. July 9, 1934, Indianapolis, Ind., U.S.) U.S. archi¬ tect and designer. He studied at Harvard University and in 1962 began a long teaching career at Princeton University while designing private houses in the abstract and austere style of orthodox Modernism. In the late 1970s he rejected Modernist expression and began seeking a larger, postmodernist vocabulary. The hulking masses of the Portland Building in Portland, Ore. (1980), and the Humana Building in Louisville, Ky. (1982), display his highly personal. Cubist rendering of such Classical elements as colonnades and loggias. Though considered somewhat awk¬ ward, these and his later buildings (e.g., Indianapolis Art Center, 1996) have been acclaimed for their ironic interpretation of traditional forms. Among his later projects were the restoration of the Washington Monu¬ ment (2000) and the creation of a line of household items, including kitchenware and furniture, for the discount retailer Target.

Graves, Robert (von Ranke) (b. July 24/26, 1895, London, Eng.—d. Dec. 7, 1985, Deya, Majorca, Spain) British man of letters. He served as an officer at the Western Front during World War I and his first three volumes of poetry were published during that time; they include some of the finest English love poems of the century. In 1926 he began a 13-year relationship with the American poet Laura Riding (1901-91), with whom he founded a press, briefly published a journal, and collabo¬ rated as a writer. After 1929 he lived principally in Majorca, Spain. The most famous of his more than 120 books are Good-bye to All That (1929), a grim memoir of the war; the historical novel I, Claudius (1934; tele¬ vised in 1976); and erudite, controversial studies in mythology, notably The White Goddess (1948).

Graves, Robert James (b. 1796, Dublin, Ire.—d. March 20, 1853, Dublin) Irish physician. In 1821 he set up the Park Street School of Medi¬ cine, where he gave his advanced students responsibility for patients (under supervision) and lectured in English, not Latin. He was a founder

Short-horned grasshopper (Acrididae)

EARL L. KUBIS-ROOT RESOURCES

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Graves disease ► Great Attractor I 793

and editor of the Dublin Journal of Medical Science. His Clinical Lec¬ tures on the Practice of Medicine (1848) established his reputation. He introduced timing of the pulse by watch and giving patients with fevers nourishment instead of withholding it. He was a leader of the Irish (Dub¬ lin) school of diagnosis, which stressed observation of patients, and was one of the first to fully describe exophthalmic goitre (Graves disease).

Graves disease or toxic diffuse goitre or exophthalmic

\,ek-saf-'thal-mik\ goitre Most common type of hyperthyroidism (over¬ secretion of thyroid hormone), usually with goitre and exophthalmos (eye¬ ball protrusion). Increased thyroid hormone levels result in increased cardiac output, rapid heartbeat, and possibly heart failure. Stress may trigger a severe worsening (thyroid storm), which can lead to circulatory collapse and death. Graves disease is considered an autoimmune disease. It can sometimes be controlled by drugs; severe cases require partial or total removal of the thyroid gland. Graves disease is named after Robert James Graves, one of the first physicians to fully describe the disease.

gravitation Universal force of attraction that acts between all bodies that have mass. Though it is the weakest of the four known forces, it shapes the structure and evolution of stars, galaxies, and the entire universe. The laws of gravity describe the trajectories of bodies in the solar system and the motion of objects on Earth, where all bodies experience a downward gravitational force exerted by Earth’s mass, the force experienced as weight. Isaac Newton was the first to develop a quantitative theory of gravitation, holding that the force of attraction between two bodies is pro¬ portional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Albert Einstein proposed a whole new concept of gravitation, involving the four-dimensional continuum of space-time which is curved by the presence of matter. In his general theory of relativity, he showed that a body undergoing uniform acceleration is indistinguishable from one that is stationary in a gravitational field.

gravitational radius See Schwarzschild radius

gravity, centre of Imaginary point where the total weight of a mate¬ rial body may be thought to be concentrated. Since weight and mass are proportional, the same point may also be called the centre of mass, but the centre of mass does not require a gravitational field. A body’s centre of gravity may coincide with its geometric centre, especially if the body is symmetric and composed of homogeneous material. In asymmetric, unhomogeneous, or hollow objects, the centre of gravity may be at some distance from the geometric centre or even at a point in space external to the object, such as between the legs of a chair.

gravure \gr3-'vyur\ printing Printing processes used for catalogs, magazines, newspaper supplements, cartons, floor and wall coverings, textiles, and plastics. The Bohemian Karel Klfc made photogravure a practical commercial process in 1878. An image is etched in the copper surface of the printing cylinder as pits or wells of different depths. In rotogravure printing, the cylinder rotates through a trough filled with fast¬ drying ink. A thin steel doctor blade removes the ink from the surface but not from the wells. The cylinder comes in contact with the paper, which draws the ink out of the wells. Because of the various depths of the wells, a full range of tonal values can be printed; in reproducing illustrations, gravure comes closest to simulating continuous-tone copy. In colour print¬ ing, a separate cylinder is prepared for each colour. See also letterpress printing; offset printing.

Gray, Asa (b. Nov. 18, 1810, Sauquoit, N.Y., U.S.—d. Jan. 30, 1888, Cambridge, Mass.) U.S. botanist. He received a medical degree from Fairfield Medical School, where he spent his spare time studying plant specimens. He collaborated with John Torrey (1796-1873) on Flora of North America (1838^13) and in 1842 joined the faculty at Harvard Uni¬ versity, where he would teach until 1873. His donation of his thousands of books and plant specimens established Harvard’s botany department. Gray was largely responsible for the unification of the taxonomic knowl¬ edge of the North American flora; his most widely used book, commonly called Gray’s Manual (1848), remains a standard work. He was the chief early American supporter of the theories of Charles Darwin.

Gray, Thomas (b. Dec. 26, 1716, London, Eng.—d. July 30, 1771, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire) British poet. He studied and later settled at Cambridge, where he wrote poems of wistful melancholy filled with tru¬ isms phrased in striking, quotable lines. Though his output was small, he became the dominant poetic figure in his day. He is remembered espe¬ cially for “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard” (1751), one of

the best known of English lyric poems and the greatest work of the English “graveyard school.” After its overwhelming success, his next two poems met a disappointing response, and he virtually ceased writing.

gray fox Grizzled, gray-furred New World FOX ( Urocyon cinereoar- genteus) found in forested, rocky, and brush-covered country from Canada to northern South America.

Distinguished by the reddish color on its neck, ears, and legs, it grows to a length of about 20-30 in. (50-75 cm), excluding its 12-16-in. (30^10- cm) tail, and a weight of about 7-13 lbs (3-6 kg). Unlike other foxes, it commonly climbs trees. Primarily nocturnal, it takes a variety of foods, including small birds and mammals, insects, and fruits.

gray hound See greyhound

grayling Any of several game fishes (genus Thymallus), similar to trout, that are found in cold, clear streams of Eurasia and northern North America. Graylings are silvery purple and reach a length of about 16 in. (40 cm). They have relatively large scales, a small mouth with weak teeth, and a sail-like, brightly coloured dorsal fin. They feed primarily on insects and spawn in shallow water in the spring. Pollution of streams has reduced the numbers of this excellent food fish.

graywacke Vgra-,wak\ or dirty sandstone Sedimentary rock com¬ posed of sand-sized grains in a fine-grained clay matrix. The sand-sized grains frequently include rock fragments of wide-ranging mineralogies (e.g., pyroxenes, amphiboles, feldspars, and quartz). The clay matrix may constitute up to 50% of the volume. Of the clay minerals, chlorite and biotite are most abundant. The matrix tends to bind the grains strongly and form a relatively hard rock.

Graz \'grats\ City (pop., 2001: 226,424), capital of Steiermark (Styria) state, southeastern Austria. The country’s second largest city, it lies on the Mur River at the foot of the Styrian Alps. It grew from a fortress settle¬ ment and received town rights c. ad 1240. It became the centre of Steier¬ mark during the Middle Ages and was the residence of the Leopoldine Habsburgs after 1379. Its fortifications, built in the 15th and 16th centu¬ ries, successfully withstood numerous sieges by Hungarians and Turks; the fortifications were converted into parks in the 19th century. Astrono¬ mer Johannes Kepler taught at its university, founded in 1585. A rail and industrial centre, Graz has an active trade in agricultural products; tour¬ ism is also important.

Graziani \,grat-se-'a-ne\, Roldolfo, marquess di Neghelli (b.

Aug. 11, 1882, Filettino, Italy—d. Jan. 11, 1955, Rome) Italian field mar¬ shal and adherent of Benito Mussolini. He was commander in chief of Ital¬ ian forces in Libya (1930-34), governor of Italian Somaliland (1935-36), and viceroy of Ethiopia (1936-37). At the outbreak of World War II, he advanced against Egypt from Libya, was defeated by the British under Archibald Percival Wavell, and resigned his post in 1941. After the Italian armistice of 1943, he became defense minister of the German-backed Italian republic. Sentenced to 19 years’ imprisonment in 1950, he was released the same year. He later became a leader of the Italian neofascist movement.

Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (A&P) Historic U.S. corporation that originated as a tea importer and distributor before diversifying into the grocery business. The company had its start in 1859, when the Great American Tea Co. was founded in New York as a direct-mail operation to trade in tea from the cargoes of clipper ships. The first retail stores were incorporated in 1869 under the name Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. By 1925 it was the largest U.S. grocery chain, and in 1936 A&P opened its first supermarket. By 1969 it was the largest supermarket chain in the U.S., but it declined thereafter, and in 1979 a controlling portion of its stock was bought by German supermarket giant Tengelmann.

Great Attractor Proposed concentration of mass, equivalent to tens of thousands of galaxies, that influences the movement of many galaxies,

Thomas Gray, detail of an oil painting by John Giles Eccardt; in the National Portrait Gallery, London

COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

794 i great auk ► Great Game

including the Milky Way Galaxy (see galaxy). In 1986 a group of astrono¬ mers noted that the Milky Way and neighbouring galaxies exhibit sys¬ tematic deflections from the motion predicted by Edwin P. Hubble’s theory of the expanding universe. One possible explanation is a large collection of galaxies exerting a gravitational pull on the clusters of galaxies around it; its centre would lie in the direction of the constellations Hydra or Cen- taurus in the southern sky, about 200 million light-years from Earth.

great auk Flightless seabird (Pinguinus impennis) extinct since 1844. Great auks bred in colonies on rocky islands off North Atlantic coasts; fos¬ sil remains have been found as far south as Florida, Spain, and Italy. Their bodies were about 30 in. (75 cm) long; the wings, used for swimming underwater, were less than 6 in. (15 cm) long. They stood erect on land and had a black back and head, a white front, and a large white spot between the eye and the black bill. Great auks were hunted to extinction for food and bait. About 80 specimens are preserved in museums. See also auk.

Great Australian Bight Bay of the Indian Ocean, southern Austra¬ lian coast. Its generally accepted boundaries are from Cape Pasley, West¬ ern Australia, to Cape Carnot, South Australia—a distance of 720 mi (1,160 km). The head of the bight abuts on the arid Nullarbor Plain and is bounded by cliffs 200-400 ft (60-120 m) high. Near Eucla on the bight’s shores is the Nuytsland Reserve. Lying in the track of the winter western winds, the bight has a reputation for storms and rough seas.

Great Awakening Religious revival in British North America from 1720 into the 1740s. It was part of a movement, known as Pietism or Qui¬ etism on the European continent and evangelicalism in England, that swept Western Europe in the late 17th and early 18th century under the leadership of preachers such as John Wesley. In North America the Great Awakening was a Protestant evangelical reaction against formalism and rationalism in religion, and it had a strong Calvinist element. Revivalist preachers emphasized the need for sinners to fear punishment and to hope for the unearned gift of grace from God. George Whitefield (1714-1770) was one of the most popular, preaching to huge crowds throughout the colonies in 1739—40. Jonathan Edwards also helped inspire the Great Awakening and was its most important theologian. Among its results were missions to the Indians and the founding of colleges (including Prince¬ ton Univ.). Another revival known as the Second Great Awakening occurred in New England and Kentucky in the 1790s.

Great Barrier Reef Extensive complex of coral reefs, shoals, and islets in the Pacific Ocean, off the northeastern coast of Australia. The largest deposit of coral in the world, it extends for more than 1,250 mi (2,000 km) along the coast of Queensland and has an area of some 135,000 sq mi (350,000 sq km). The reef has been formed over millions of years from the skeletons of a mass of living marine organisms. In addition to at least 300 species of hard coral, marine life includes anemones, worms, gastropods, lobsters, crayfish, prawns, crabs, and a variety of fishes. Encrusting red algae form the purplish red algal rim that is one of the reef’s characteristic features. A major tourist attraction, nearly all of it is within Great Barrier Reef National Park; the reef was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1981.

Great Basin National Park National preserve, eastern Nevada, U.S. Made a national park in 1986, the area was previously part of the Hum¬ boldt National Forest. It has an area of 121 sq mi (313 sq km) and con¬ sists of the southern part of the Snake Mountains, a chain that rises abruptly from the desert floor to reach a height of 13,063 ft (3,982 m) at Wheeler Peak. A park attraction is the Lehman Caves, a group of lime¬ stone caverns.

Great Bear Lake Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada. Lying astride the Arctic Circle, it was visited before 1800 by North West Company trad¬ ers and later named for the bears that inhabited its shores. Containing many small islands, Great Bear Lake is roughly 200 mi (320 km) long and 25-110 mi (40-175 km) wide and has a maximum depth of 1,356 ft (413 m). It is the largest lake entirely within Canada and the fourth larg¬ est in North America. The lake’s waters abound with fish, including the speckled trout.

Great Britain or Britain Island, western Europe. It is the largest island in Europe, comprising England, Scotland, and Wales and covering 88,787 sq mi (229,957 sq km). With Northern Ireland, it constitutes the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Less formally, the names Great Britain and Britain are used to refer to the entire United Kingdom.

Great Dane Breed of working dog developed at least 400 years ago in Germany, where it was used for boar hunting. Tallest of the working breeds, it stands 28-32 in. (71-81 cm) tall and weighs 120-150 lbs (54-68 kg). It has a massive, square-jawed head and elegant body lines. Its short coat is black, golden brown, brindle, blue-gray, or white with black patches. It is typically swift and alert and is noted for courage, friendli¬ ness, and dependability. There is no known reason to associate Denmark with the breed.

Great Depression Longest and most severe economic depression ever experienced by the Western world. It began in the U.S. soon after the New York Stock Market Crash of 1929 and lasted until about 1939. By late 1932 stock values had dropped to about 20% of their previous value, and by 1933 11,000 of the U.S.’s 25,000 banks had failed. These and other conditions, worsened by monetary policy mistakes and adherence to the gold standard, led to much-reduced levels of demand and hence of pro¬ duction, resulting in high unemployment (by 1932, 25-30%). Since the U.S. was the major creditor and financier of postwar Europe, the U.S. financial breakdown precipitated economic failures around the world, especially in Germany and Britain. Isolationism spread as nations sought to protect domestic production by imposing tariffs and quotas, ultimately reducing the value of international trade by more than half by 1932. The Great Depression contributed to political upheaval. It led to the election of U.S. Pres. Franklin Roosevelt, who introduced major changes in the structure of the U.S. economy through his New Deal. The Depression also advanced Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1933 and fomented political extremism in other countries. Before the Great Depression, gov¬ ernments relied on impersonal market forces to achieve economic cor¬ rection; afterward, government action came to assume a principal role in ensuring economic stability.

Great Dismal Swamp See Dismal Swamp

Great Dividing Range Main watershed of eastern Australia. It com¬ prises a series of plateaus and mountain ranges roughly paralleling the coasts of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, Austl. Beginning in the north on the Cape York Peninsula, Queen., the range heads south to become the Australian Alps near the New South Wales-Victoria border. Bending west in Victoria, the range ends in the Grampians, while a south¬ ern spur emerges from the Bass Strait to form the central uplands of Tas¬ mania. The range stretches for 2,300 mi (3,700 km). First traversed in 1813 by Europeans moving into the Australian Outback, the region is now important for agriculture, lumbering, and mining, and national parks attract tourists.

Great Fear (1789) In the French Revolution, a period of panic and riot by peasants and others amid rumors of an “aristocratic conspiracy” by the king and the privileged to overthrow the Third Estate. The gathering of troops around Paris provoked insurrection, and on July 14 the Parisian rabble seized the Bastille. In the provinces the peasants rose against their lords, attacking chateaux and destroying feudal documents. To check the peas¬ ants, the National Constituent Assembly decreed the abolition of the feudal regime and introduced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citi¬ zen.

Great Fire of London (September 2-5, 1666) Worst fire in London’s history. It destroyed a large part of the city, including most of the civic buildings, St. Paul's Cathedral, 87 parish churches, and about 13,000 houses. It began accidentally at the house of the king’s baker in Pudding Lane near London Bridge, and a violent east wind encouraged the flames. On the fourth day houses were blown up by gunpowder to master the fire. The Thames River swarmed with vessels filled with people trying to save their goods, and some fled to the hills of Hampstead and Highgate, but most of the houseless Londoners settled in Moorfields.

Great Fish River River, southeastern Eastern Cape province, South Africa. Flowing southeast for much of its 400-mi (644-km) run, it joins the Koonap River before entering the Indian Ocean southeast of Graha- mstown. In the early 19th century the lower Great Fish valley formed a battle zone between mostly British settlers moving east from the Cape and tribal settlements to the northeast.

Great Game Rivalry between Britain and Russia in Central Asia in the late 19th century. The term was used by Rudyard Kipling in his novel Kim (1901). British attitudes were influenced by the reports of official, semi¬ official, and private adventurers enjoying the thrill of clandestine opera-

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great hall ► Great Rift Valley I 795

tions beyond the frontiers of India, reports that frequently embellished (or even invented) accounts of Russian machinations and the vacillating loy¬ alties of local chieftains.

great hall Main space in a medieval manor house, monastery, or col¬ lege, in which meals were eaten. In large manor houses it also served other purposes: Justice was administered there, entertainment enjoyed, and often at night its stone floor was strewn with rushes so that servants could sleep there.

great horned owl Horned owl species (Bubo virginianus ) that ranges from Arctic tree limits south to the Strait of Magellan. A powerful, mottled-brown predator, it is often more than 2 ft (60 cm) long, with a wingspan often approaching 80 in. (200 cm). It usually eats small rodents and birds, but has been known to carry off larger prey. Adapted to desert and forest, the species migrates only when food is scarce.

Great Indian Desert See Thar Desert

Great Lakes Chain of lakes, east-central North America. Comprising Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, it forms a natural boundary between the U.S. and Canada. The Great Lakes cover an area of about 94,850 sq mi (245,660 sq km) and constitute the largest fresh¬ water surface in the world. Connected to form a single waterway that dis¬ charges down the St. Lawrence River into the Atlantic Ocean, with the St. Lawrence Seaway they form a shipping lane more than 2,000 mi (3,200 km) long that carries oceangoing traffic as far west as Duluth, Minn. Large quantities of iron ore, coal, grain, and manufactured goods are moved between lake ports and shipped overseas. While commercial fishing was once a major industry on the lakes, pollution and other factors led to its collapse; recovery has been slow and partial. The lakes are used for many recreational activities, including boating and sailing.

Great Lakes Group of large lakes located chiefly in the Great Rift Val¬ ley, eastern central Africa. It includes the lakes Turkana, Albert, Victoria, Tanganyika, and Malawi.

Great Lakes trout See lake trout

Great Leap Forward Failed industrialization campaign undertaken by the Chinese Communists between 1958 and early 1960. Mao Zedong hoped to develop labor-intensive methods of industrialization that would emphasize manpower rather than the gradual purchase of heavy machinery, thereby putting to use China’s dense population and obviating the need to accumulate capital. Rather than large new factories, he proposed develop¬ ing backyard steel furnaces in every village. Rural people were organized into communes where agricultural and political decisions emphasized ideological purity rather than expertise. The program was implemented so hastily and zealously that many errors occurred; these were exacerbated by a series of natural disasters and the withdrawal of Soviet technical person¬ nel. China’s agriculture was so disrupted that about 20 million people died of starvation from 1958 to 1962. By early 1960 the government began to repeal the Great Leap Forward; private plots were returned to peasants and expertise began to be emphasized again.

Great Mosque See Masjid-i-Jami

Great Mosque of Esfahan Persian Masjed-e Jami'

Vmas-jid-i-'ja-meX Complex of buildings, chiefly of the Seljuq period (see SeuOq dynasty), in Esfahan, Iran. The mosque (completed c. 1130) has a central courtyard framed by four huge eyvans, or vaulted niches. It is renowned for its fine brickwork, vaulting, and two domed sanctuaries. The brick dome of the main sanctuary (c. 1070-75) is supported by heavy piers. The smaller domed chamber (1088) is known for its beauty of pro¬ portion; its dome, resting on a series of arches, is a structural masterpiece. The dome and the four -eyvan plan became standard for Seljuq mosques.

Great Mother of the Gods or Cybele Vsi-b3-le\ Deity of the ancient Mediterranean world. Her cult originated in Phrygia in Asia Minor and spread to the Greek world, where she was identified with Rhea. It reached Rome by the 3rd century bc and became a major cult during the empire. Known by a variety of local names, Cybele was venerated as the universal mother of gods, humans, and animals. Her lover was the fertil¬ ity god Attis. Her priests, the Galli, castrated themselves when they entered her service, and on her festival day they spattered their blood on her altar and her sacred pine tree. See photo above.

Great Northern Railway Co. U.S. railroad founded by James J. Hill in 1890. Hill bought a Minnesota railroad, the St. Paul and Pacific Rail¬

road, in 1878, and extended it north to the Canadian border and west to the Pacific coast, encouraging thou¬ sands of homesteaders to settle along its tracks. Together with J. P. Morgan of the Northern Pacific Railway Co., Hill bought control of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad in 1901 and set up a holding company to control the three railroads. In 1904 the U.S. Supreme Court declared the company in violation of antitrust laws and ordered it dissolved, but the Burlington continued under control of the Great Northern and the North¬ ern Pacific. In 1970 the three were merged under the name Burlington Northern, Inc.

Great Northern War See Sec¬ ond Northern War

Great Ouse See River Ouse

Great Plague of London

(1664-66) Epidemic of plague that ravaged London, killing more than 75,000 of a total population esti¬ mated at 460,000. As early as 1625, 40,000 Londoners had died of the plague, but this was the worst and the last of the epidemics. Most of the devastation was in the city’s out¬ skirts, in areas where the poor were densely crowded. The disease spread throughout the country, but from 1667 only sporadic cases appeared until 1679. The plague’s decline was attributed to various causes, including the Great Fire of London. Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year (1722) provides a valuable picture of the time.

Great Plains Continental slope of central North America. It stretches from the Rio Grande at the U.S.-Mexico border in the south to the Mac¬ kenzie River delta along the Arctic Ocean in the north and from the Inte¬ rior Lowlands and the Canadian Shield in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west. The plains embrace parts of 10 U.S. states and 4 Canadian provinces, covering an area of about 1,125,000 sq mi (2,900,000 sq km). A high plateau of semiarid grassland, these prairie regions in both the U.S. and Canada produce the major proportion of wheat grown in each coun¬ try and are also important cattle- and sheep-herding areas. Parts of the plains have reserves of coal and lignite, petroleum, and natural gas.

Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution See Cultural Revolution

Great Red Spot Storm on the planet Jupiter that moves in longitude but remains centred at about latitude 22° south. A high-pressure centre, it is oval, measuring about 7,500 mi (12,000 km) north to south, roughly the diameter of Earth, and nearly twice as wide east to west. Its dis¬ covery in the 1660s is attributed to Gian Domenico Cassini or Robert Hooke. Its colour, whose cause is unknown, varies from brick-red to brownish; it tends to change colour over a period of years.

Great Rift Valley or Rift Val¬ ley or East African Rift Sys¬ tem Rift system (see rift valley), extending from Jordan in the Middle East south to Mozambique in south¬ ern Africa. It is some 4,000 mi (6,400 km) long and averages 30-40 mi (48-64 km) wide. The rift has been forming for some 30 million years, as Africa and the Arabian Peninsula

Cybele, terra-cotta statuette, from Cam- irus, Rhodes, early 5th century bc; in the British Museum, London.

COURTESY OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM

Jupiter's Great Red Spot (top right) and the surrounding region. Below the spot is one of the large white ovals associ¬ ated with the feature.

NASA/JPL

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

796 i Great Saint Bernard Pass ► Greater Manchester

separate, and has produced such massifs as Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya. The system’s main branch, the Eastern Rift Valley, is occupied in the north by the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the Gulf of Aqaba. It continues south along the Red Sea to several lakes in Kenya. Less obvious in Tan¬ zania, with its eastern rim eroded, it continues south to the Indian Ocean near Beira, Mozam. The western branch of the system, the Western Rift Valley, extends north from the northern end of Lake Malawi in an arc that includes lakes Rukwa, Tanganyika, Kivu, Edward, and Albert.

Great Saint Bernard Pass ancient Mons Jovis Pass in the Alps. One of the highest of the Alpine frontier passes, at 8,100 ft (2,469 m) it lies on the Italian-Swiss border east of the Mont Blanc group and con¬ nects Martigny-Ville, Switz., with Aosta, Italy. Historically the most important trans-Alpine route, it was often used by pilgrims to Rome and later by medieval armies. In 1800 it was crossed by Napoleon and his 40,000 troops on their way to northern Italy. A famous hospice on the pass, founded by St. Bernard of Menthon in the 11th century, is still kept by Augustinian monks who, with their St. Bernard dogs, provide services to travelers. The old road, open only five months a year, has been partly superseded by a tunnel beneath the pass, which allows year-round travel.

Great Salt Lake Lake, northern Utah, U.S. It is the largest inland body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most saline in the world. It fluctuates greatly in size, depending on rates of evaporation and the flow of the rivers into it. Its surface area has varied from about 2,400 sq mi (6,200 sq km) at its highest levels in 1873 and the mid 1980s to about 950 sq mi (2,460 sq km) at its low level in 1963. At times of median water level, it is generally less than 15 ft (4.5 m) deep. Surrounded by stretches of sand, salt land, and marsh, the lake remains isolated, though in recent years it has become important as a source of minerals, as a beach and water-sports attraction, and as a wildlife preserve.

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve Natural area, south-central Colorado, U.S. It lies at the eastern edge of the San Luis Valley along the western base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Estab¬ lished in 1932 as a national monument, the 150,000-acre (60,700-hectare) region contains some of the highest inland sand dunes in the U.S., with changing crests that rise to 700 ft (215 m). In 2000 the Great Sand Dunes National Preserve was created, and after much land acquisition the monu¬ ment officially became a national park in 2004.

Great Sandy Desert Wasteland, northern Western Australia. It extends from Eighty Mile Beach on the Indian Ocean eastward into the Northern Territory and from the Kimberley Downs south to the Tropic of Capricorn and the Gibson Desert. An arid expanse of salt marshes and sand hills, it roughly coincides with the sedimentary Canning basin. Canning Stock Route (1,000 mi [1,600 km] long) spans the region from Wiluna via Lake Disappointment to Halls Creek.

Great Schism See Western Schism

great sea otter See sea otter

Great Slave Lake Lake, south-central Northwest Territories, Canada. Named for the Slave Indians, it is fed by several rivers, including the Slave, and drained by the Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean. The lake, with an area of 11,031 sq mi (28,570 sq km), is the fifth largest in North America. It is 300 mi (500 km) long and 30-140 mi (50-225 km) wide, with a maximum depth of more than 2,000 ft (600 m). While supporting a fishing industry, the lake is an integral part of the Mackenzie River waterway.

Great Smoky Mountains West range of the Appalachian Mountains in the U.S. It extends along the North Carolina-Tennessee boundary and blends into the Blue Ridge to the east. The highest part lies within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and includes Clingmans Dome, which at 6,643 ft (2,025 m) is the highest peak. Covered by forests, it was origi¬ nally the domain of the Cherokee, and the area includes the Cherokee Indian Reservation and parts of the Pisgah and Cherokee national forests. The mountains form a popular resort area that includes part of the Appa¬ lachian National Scenic Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park National preserve, eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, U.S. It is 20 mi (32 km) wide and extends southwest for 54 mi (87 km) from the Pigeon River to the Little Tennessee River. Established in 1934 to preserve the U.S.’s last remaining sizable area of southern primeval hardwood forest, it covers 520,269 acres (210,553 hectares) and contains some of the highest peaks

in the Appalachian Mountains. Summits are crowned with dense forest, while lower elevations have mountain laurel, rhododendron, and azaleas. The region’s first settlers established themselves in the valleys, and some of their homes are preserved in the park. It was designated a World Heri¬ tage site in 1983.

Great Society Slogan used in 1965 by Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson to identify his legislative program of national reform. In his first State of the Union address, Johnson described his vision of a “Great Society” that would include a “war on poverty” and federal support for education, medical care for the elderly, and legal protection for African Americans deprived of voting rights by state regulations. He also proposed a new department of housing and urban development to coordinate federal hous¬ ing projects. Congress enacted almost all his programs, the largest num¬ ber of such measures since the New Deal. See also Civil Rights Act of 1964; Medicare and Medicaid.

Great Trek Emigration of some 12,000-14,000 Boers (see Afrikaners) from Cape Colony (South Africa) between 1835 and the early 1840s, in rebellion against British policies and in search of fresh pasturelands. The trek, regarded by Afrikaners as the origin of their nationhood, enabled the settlers to establish temporary military supremacy over the Xhosa, to pen¬ etrate into Natal and the Highveld, and to expand white settlement north to the Limpopo River. See also Andries Pretorius.

Great Victoria Desert Arid region. Western Australia and South Aus¬ tralia. Lying between Gibson Desert on the north and Nullarbor Plain on the south, it extends east from Kalgoorlie almost to the Stuart Range. Much of its eastern end is occupied by the Central and North West Aboriginal reserves. A vast expanse of sand hills, it is crossed by the Laverton-Warburton Mission Track, which links the mission station in the Warburton Range with Laverton, 350 mi (560 km) southwest. There are several national parks and reserves in the area, including the Great Victoria Desert Nature Reserve and the Nullarbor National Park.

Great Wall of China Chinese Wanli Changcheng

Vwan-Te-'chaq-'cheqX Defensive wall, northern China. One of the largest building-construction projects ever carried out, it runs (with all its branches) about 4,500 mi (7,300 km) east to west from the Bo Hai (Gulf of Chihli) to a point deep in Central Asia. Large parts of the fortification date from the 7th to the 4th century bc. In the 3rd century bc the emperor Shihuangdi connected existing defensive walls into a single system forti¬ fied by watchtowers. These served both to guard the rampart and to com¬ municate with the capital, Xianyang (near modern Xi'an) by signal— smoke by day and fire by night. Originally constructed partly of masonry and earth, it was faced with brick in its eastern portion. It was rebuilt in later times, especially in the 15th and 16th centuries. The basic wall is about 23-26 ft (7-8 m) high; at intervals towers rise above it to varying heights. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987.

great white shark or white shark Large, aggressive shark ( Car- charodon carcharias, family Lamnidae), considered the species most dan¬ gerous to humans. It is found in tropical and temperate regions of all oceans and is noted for its voracious appetite. Its diet includes fishes, sea turtles, birds, sea lions, small whales, carcasses, and ships’ garbage. The great white is heavy-bodied and has a crescent-shaped tail and large, saw- edged, triangular teeth. It can reach a length of more than 20 ft (6 m) and is generally gray, bluish, or brownish, with the colour shading suddenly into a whitish belly. Though it is widely feared, only a few hundred humans are known to have ever been killed by the great white shark.

Great Zimbabwe Extensive stone ruins in southeastern Zimbabwe. Located southeast of Masvingo, Zimbabwe, it is the largest of many such ruins in southern Africa. The primary ruins of this former city extend more than 60 acres (24 hectares) and include a hilltop fortress and walls of stone monoliths. The centre of a great inland empire ruled by the Karanga (Shona) people who traded on the shores of the Indian Ocean, Great Zim¬ babwe flourished between the 11th and 15th centuries. Portuguese explor¬ ers probably encountered the ruins in the 16th century, but it was not until the late 19th century that the existence of the ruins was confirmed, gen¬ erating much archaeological research. Great Zimbabwe was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986.

Greater London See London

Greater Manchester Metropolitan county (pop., 2001: 2,482,352), northwestern England, one of the major conurbations of the country. It consists of the cities of Manchester and Salford and several metropolitan

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

grebe ► Greek alphabet I 797

boroughs (including Stockport and Wigan). In 1986 the metropolitan county lost its administrative powers, and its constituent boroughs became autonomous administrative units.

grebe Any of about 18 species of diving birds (family Podicipedidae) found in most tropical and temperate areas and often in subarctic regions.

Most species can fly, and some are migratory. Grebes have a pointed bill, short narrow wings, and a ves¬ tigial tail. The position of their legs, set at the rear of the body, makes walking awkward. They feed chiefly on fish or invertebrates. Courting or rival males perform elaborate aquatic dances in pairs. Species range from about 8 to 29 in. (21-73 cm) long.

Greco, El orig. Domenikos Theotokopoulos (b. 1541, Candia, Crete—d. April 7, 1614, Toledo, Spain) Cretan-born Spanish painter, the first great master of Spanish painting. Documentation on his early life is limited, but it is known that he was in Venice c. 1566-70 and may have studied in Titian’s workshop. In 1572 he was a member of the guild of St. Luke in Rome. His first commission in Spain (1577) was for altarpieces for the church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo (1577-79); the paintings for the high altar show the influence of Titian and Michelangelo. In these works he developed his signature style: he chose a method of space elimination that is common to middle and late 16th-century Italian painters known as Mannerists. The elogonated figures in these works were also characteristic of his oeuvre. El Greco’s Mannerist method of com¬ position is nowhere more clearly expressed than in his masterpiece. The Burial of the Count de Orgaz (1586—88), where all of the action takes place in the frontal plane. From 1590 until his death his output was pro¬ digious. His major commissions included the complete altar composition for the Hospital de la Caridad at Illescas (1603-05), for which he also worked as architect and sculptor. He excelled as a portraitist. His work¬ shop produced many replicas of his works, but his style was so individual that his only followers were his son and a few forgotten imitators.

Greco-Persian Wars See Persian Wars

Greco-Roman wrestling Style of wrestling that prohibits the legs from being used to obtain a fall and in which no holds may be taken below the waist. It originated in France in the early 19th century in imitation of Classical Greek and Roman representations of the sport. It eventually came to be favoured by most other countries and was, until the accep¬ tance of freestyle wrestling in the late 20th century, the style practiced exclusively in Olympic and international amateur competition.

Greco-Turkish Wars (1897, 1921-22) Two military conflicts between the Greeks and the Turks. The first, or Thirty Days’ War, took place after an 1896 rebellion on Turkish-ruled Crete between Christian residents and their Muslim rulers. Greek troops occupied the island in 1897. The Euro¬ pean powers imposed a blockade to prevent assistance to the island. Unable to reach Crete, the Greeks sent a force to attack the Turks in Thes¬ saly, but it was overwhelmed by the superior Turkish army. Though a peace treaty forced the Greeks to withdraw, Turkish troops also left Crete, which had been made an international protectorate and was later (1913) ceded to Greece. The second war occurred after World War I, when the Greeks attempted to claim territories assigned to them by the Treaty of Sevres (1920). In 1921 the Greek army launched an offensive in Anatolia against nationalist Turks who would not recognize the treaty. The Greek forces were driven out by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and the Treaty of Lau¬ sanne (1923) returned the disputed territories to Turkey.

Greece officially Hellenic Republic Country, Balkan Peninsula, south¬ eastern Europe. Area: 50,949 sq mi (131,957 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 11,088,000. Capital: Athens. The people are predominantly Greek. Language: Greek (official). Religion: Christianity (predominantly Eastern Orthodox [official]). Currency: euro. The land, with its 2,000-odd islands and extensive coastline, is intimately linked with the sea. About one-fifth of this mountainous country consists of lowland, much of this as coastal plains along the Aegean or as mountain valleys and small plains near river mouths. The interior is dominated by the Pindus Mountains, which extend from Albania on Greece’s northwestern border into the Peloponnese. Mount Olympus is the country’s highest peak. Among the Greek islands

Slavonian, or horned, grebe (Podiceps auritus)

INGMAR HOLMASEN

are the Aegean and Ionian groups and Crete. The climate is Mediterranean. Greece has an advanced developing economy characterized mainly by private enterprise and based on agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism. It is a multiparty republic with one legisla¬ tive house; the chief of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. The earliest urban society in Greece was the palace- centred Minoan civilization, which reached its height on Crete c. 2000 bc. It was succeeded by the mainland Mycenaean civilization, which arose c. 1600 bc following a wave of Indo-European invasions. About 1200 bc a second wave of invasions destroyed the Bronze Age cultures, and a Dark Age followed, known mostly through the epics of Homer. At the end of this time, Classical Greece began to emerge (c. 750 bc) as a collection of independent city-states, including Sparta in the Peloponnese and Athens in Attica. The civilization reached its zenith after repelling the Persians at the beginning of the 5th century bc (see Persian Wars) and began to decline after the civil strife of the Peloponnesian War at the century’s end. In 338 bc the Greek city-states were taken over by Philip II of Macedon, and Greek culture was spread by Philip’s son Alexander the Great through¬ out his empire. The Romans, themselves heavily influenced by Greek cul¬ ture, conquered the city-states in the 2nd century bc. After the fall of Rome, Greece remained part of the Byzantine Empire until the mid-15th century, when it became part of the expanding Ottoman Empire; it gained its independence in 1832. It was occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. Civil war followed and lasted until 1949, when communist forces were defeated. In 1952 Greece joined NATO. A military junta ruled the country from 1967 to 1974, when democracy was restored and a refer¬ endum declared an end to the Greek monarchy. In 1981 Greece joined the European Community (see European Union), the first eastern European country to do so. Upheavals in the Balkans in the 1990s strained Greece’s relations with some neighbouring states, including the former Yugoslav entity that became the Republic of Macedonia. Greece revised its consti¬ tution in 2001.

Greek alphabet Writing system developed in Greece c. 1000 bc, the direct or indirect ancestor of all modem European alphabets. Derived from the North Semitic alphabet via that of the Phoenicians, it modified an all¬ consonant alphabet to represent vowels. Letters for sounds not found in Greek became the Greek letters alpha, epsilon, iota, omicron, and upsi- lon, representing the vowels a, e, i, o, and u. This greatly increased the accuracy and legibility of the new system. While the Chalcidian version of the Greek alphabet probably gave rise to the Etruscan alphabet and thus indirectly to the Latin alphabet, in 403 bc Athens officially adopted the Ionic version. This became the classical Greek alphabet, which had 24

© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

798 i Greek Civil War ► Greek religion

letters, all capitals—ideal for monuments; various scripts better suited to handwriting were later derived from it.

Greek Alphabet

Letters

English

sound

Name

Letters

English

sound

Name

A a

a

alpha

Nv

n

nu

B|3

b

beta

Hi;

X

xi

r r

9

gamma

Oo

o

omicron

A 5

d

delta

n n