Heinrich Von Melk

A Benedictine lay brother of the Austrian monastery of Melk, he composed a vivid poem Von des Tôdes gehügede (c. 1150–60; “Remembrance of Death” or “Memento Mori”). The monkish theme is traditional, but the poem's satiric edge and unflattering description of the contemporary emerging feudal and courtly culture

Computers, Interpreters

HLL coding was attempted right from the start of the stored-program era in the late 1940s. Shortcode, or short-order code, was the first such language actually implemented. Suggested by John Mauchly in 1949, it was implemented by William Schmitt for the BINAC computer in that year and for UNIVAC in 1950. Shortcode went through multiple steps: first it converted the alphabetic statements

Grabau, Amadeus William

Grabau was a member of the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, from 1892 until 1897 and of the Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute from 1899 until 1901, when he became a professor at Columbia

Berengar Ii

Berengar was important in the career of the German king and Holy Roman emperor Otto I the Great. For several months in 951 he held captive Adelaide, the daughter and widow of kings of Italy; she escaped and married Otto, who assumed the title of king of the Lombards and made Berengar his vassal. Later (from 960) Berengar and his son

Reformed Churches In The Netherlands

The Christian Reformed Church was organized by seceders who left The Netherlands Reformed Church (q.v.) in 1834 because of disagreements over church organization

Wigglesworth, Sir Vincent (brian)

English entomologist, noted for his contribution to the study of insect physiology. His investigations of the living insect body and its tissues and organs revealed much about the dynamic complexity of individual insects and their interactions with the environment. His Insect Physiology (1934) is often

Singhasari

Kingdom based in eastern Java that emerged in the first half of the 13th century after the decline of the kingdom of Kadiri. Singhasari's first king, Ken Angrok (or Ken Arok), defeated the king of Kadiri, Kertajaya, in 1222. The last king of Singhasari, Kertanagara (q.v.; 1268–92), was able to unite eastern Java temporarily. Toward the end of Kertanagara's reign, Kublai Khan, the great khan of the Mongols

Uda

The son of the emperor Koko, Uda was one of the few rulers during this period whose mother was not a member of the Fujiwara family, which, partly through intermarriage with the imperial line, dominated Japan from 859 to 1160. During the first part of Uda's reign, Mototsune, the head of the Fujiwara house, occupied the post of kampaku,

Vieira, Luandino

Vieira immigrated with his parents to Angola in 1938, living in and around the musseques (African quarters) of Luanda. His writings reflect the fusion of Kimbundu (the language of the Mbundu people) and a variety of Portuguese that is the unique language of the musseque. Vieira, a white Angolan, committed

Silchar

City, southern Assam state, northeastern India. Situated on the Surma River near the Bangladesh border, it is a trade and processing centre for tea, rice, and other agricultural products. There is limited industry, principally papermaking and tea-box manufacturing. The city has an airport and lies on both a rail line and a motor road connecting Aizawl in Mizoram state