- Industry: Library & information science
- Number of terms: 49473
- Number of blossaries: 0
- Company Profile:
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. It was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The ...
Are mostly suns, but being, the nearest of them, at a distance from us more than 500,000 times our distance from the sun, are of a size we cannot estimate, but are believed to be 300 times larger than the earth; they are of unequal brightness, and are, according to this standard, classified as of the first, second, down to the sixteenth magnitude; those visible to the naked eye include stars from the first to the sixth magnitude, and number 3000, while 20,000,000 are visible by the telescope; of these in the Milky Way alone there are 18,000,000; they are distinguished by their colors as well as their brightness, being white, orange, red, green, and blue according to their temperature and composition; they have from ancient date been grouped into constellations of the northern and the southern hemispheres and of the zodiac, the stars in each of which being noted by the Greek letters, as (Greek: alpha), (Greek: beta), according to their brightness; they all move more or less, and some go round each other, and are called double according as there are two or more of them so revolving; besides stars singly visible there are others called clusters or nebulae.
Industry:Language
Artistic designer and book illustrator, as well as painter, born in London, son of an innkeeper; illustrated, among other works, "Pilgrim's Progress," and along with Turner, Rogers' "Italy" (1755-1834).
Industry:Language
Assyriologist, born at London; trained as a bank-note engraver, but attracted the attention of Sir Henry Rawlinson by his interest in cuneiform inscriptions, and in 1867 received an appointment in the British Museum; acquired great skill as an interpreter of Assyrian inscriptions, published "Annals of Assurbanipal," and in 1872 discovered a tablet with the "Chaldean Account of the Deluge"; carried through important expeditions (1871-3-6) in search of antiquities in Nineveh and other parts of Assyria, accounts of which he published; wrote also histories of Babylonia, Assyria, Sennacherib, etc. (1840-1876).
Industry:Language
At West Kensington, London, a famous charity school founded by John Colet, dean of St. Paul's, for children of "every nation, country, and class"; originally stood in St. Paul's Churchyard, but was burned out by the Great Fire of 1666; the present building was opened in 1884. The endowment amounts to £10,000 a year, and 1000 boys and 400 girls are provided with education and board. There are a number of Oxford and Cambridge exhibitions.
Industry:Language
Athenian philosopher, pronounced by the Delphic oracle the wisest of men; was the son of Sophroniscus, a statuary, and Phaenarete, a midwife; was brought up to his father's profession, in which it would seem he gave promise of success; he lived all his days in Athens, and gathered about him as his pupils all the ingenuous youth of the city; he wrote no book, propounded no system, and founded no school, but was ever abroad in the thoroughfares in all weather talking to whoso would listen, and instilling into all and sundry a love of justice and truth; of quacks and pretenders he was the sworn foe, and he cared not what enmity he provoked if he could persuade one and another to think and do what was right; "he was so pious," says Xenophon in his "Memorabilia," "that he did nothing without the sanction of the gods; so just, that he never wronged any one, even in the least degree; so much master of himself, that he never preferred the agreeable to the good; so wise, that in deciding on the better and the worse he never faltered; in short, he was the best and happiest man that could possibly exist;" he failed not to incur enmity, and his enemies persecuted him to death; he was charged with not believing in the State religion, with introducing new gods, and corrupting the youth, convicted by a majority of his judges and condemned to die; thirty days elapsed between the passing of the sentence and its execution, during which period he held converse with his friends and talked of the immortality of the soul; to an offer of escape he turned a deaf ear, drank the hemlock potion prepared for him with perfect composure, and died; "the difference between Socrates and Jesus Christ," notes Carlyle in his "Journal," "the great Conscious, the immeasurably great Unconscious; the one cunningly manufactured, the other created, living and life-giving; the epitome this of a grand and fundamental diversity among men; but did any truly great man ever," he asks, "go through the world without offence, all rounded in, so that the current moral systems could find no fault in him? most likely never" (469-399 B.C.).
Industry:Language
Athenian tragic poet, born at Colonos, a suburb of Athens; when but 16, such was his musical talent, he was selected to lead the choir that sang the song of triumph over the victory of Salamis; his first appearance as a dramatist was in 488 B.C., when he had Aeschylus as his rival and won the prize, though he was seven years afterwards defeated by Euripides, but retrieved the defeat the year following by the production of his "Antigone." That same year one of the 10 strategi (or generals) and he accompanied Pericles in his war against the aristocrats of Samos. He wrote a number of dramas, over 100 it is alleged, but only 7 survive, and these in probable order are "Ajax," "Antigone," "Electra," "Oedipus Tyrannus," "Trachineae," "Oedipus Coloneus," and "Philoctetes." Thus are all his subjects drawn from Greek legend, and they are all alike remarkable for the intense humanity and sublime passion that inspires them and the humane and the high and holy resolves they stir up.
Industry:Language
Author of "Self-Help," born in Haddington; was bred to medicine, and professed it for a time, but abandoned it for literary and other work; wrote the "Life of George Stephenson" in 1857, followed by "Self-Help" two years after; born 1812.
Industry:Language
Author of "Tullochgorum," born in Bervie, Aberdeenshire; originally a schoolmaster; became an Episcopal clergyman (1721-1807).
Industry:Language
Author of a famous collection of stories after the style of Boccaccio's "Decameron," partly borrowed and partly genuine folk-stories, which ranks as an Italian classic, and has been translated into various European languages; flourished in the 16th century.
Industry:Language
