organometallic compound: Importance of organometallic compounds: Alkylaluminum compounds are also employed in organic synthesis. Used with titanium salts, they are important catalysts in the polymerization of unsaturated hydrocarbons, such as ethylene and propylene. The mechanism of action of the titanium-aluminum alkyl catalysts probably involves interaction between the titanium atoms and the…

alkylating agent, any highly reactive drug that binds to certain chemical groups (phosphate, amino, sulfhydryl, hydroxyl, and imidazole groups) commonly found in nucleic acids and other macromolecules, bringing about changes in the DNA and RNA of cells. Alkylating agents were the first anticancer

alkylation, in petroleum refining, chemical process in which light, gaseous hydrocarbons are combined to produce high-octane components of gasoline. The light hydrocarbons consist of olefins such as propylene and butylene and isoparaffins such as isobutane. These compounds are fed into a reactor,

soap and detergent: Raw materials: …benzene by a reaction called alkylation, with various catalysts, to form the alkylbenzene. By sulfonation, alkylbenzene sulfonate is produced; marketed in powder and liquid form, it has excellent detergent and cleaning properties and produces high foam.

soap and detergent: Raw materials: …War II, another raw material, alkylbenzene, became available in huge quantities. Today it is the most important raw material for synthetic detergent production; about 50 percent of all synthetic detergents produced in the United States and western Europe are based on it. The alkyl molecular group has in the past…

soap and detergent: Raw materials: By sulfonation, alkylbenzene sulfonate is produced; marketed in powder and liquid form, it has excellent detergent and cleaning properties and produces high foam.

organometallic compound: Alkylidene ligands: Alkylidene ligands, such as CH2, CHR, or CR2, form the M=C d-p double bonds (i.e., bonds between the d orbitals of the metal and the p orbitals of the carbon), and their metal compounds are often called carbenes. The first stable metal carbene…

organometallic compound: Alkylidyne ligands: Alkylidyne ligands have the general formula CH or CR. They are bound to the metal by an M≡C triple bond involving one σ bond and two d-p π bonds. The simplest member of this series is methylidyne, CH, and the next simplest, CCH3,…

organometallic compound: Formation of alkyllithium and Grignard reagents: The highly active metals combine with a halogen-substituted hydrocarbon to produce simple organometallic compounds. For example, methyllithium, an important reagent in organic synthesis, is produced commercially by following the reaction: 2Li + CH3Cl → LiCH3 +

organometallic compound: Carbanion character: alkylmagnesium compounds are the most common carbanion reagents in laboratory-scale synthetic chemistry; carbanion character is greatly diminished for the less metallic elements boron and silicon. The nucleophilic character of organometallic compounds of active metals has many synthetic applications. For example, the organic group in organometallic…

hydrocarbon: Alkenes and alkynes: Alkenes (also called olefins) and alkynes (also called acetylenes) belong to the class of unsaturated aliphatic hydrocarbons. Alkenes are hydrocarbons that contain a carbon-carbon double bond, whereas alkynes have a carbon-carbon triple bond. Alkenes are characterized by the general molecular formula CnH2n

blood disease: Leukemia: In acute lymphocytic anemia (ALL), most frequently seen in children, the cells are immature forms of the lymphatic series of cells. In acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), the predominant cells are the youngest recognizable precursors (myeloblasts) of the neutrophils of the blood. In a third and the…

In his Billboard Hot 100 hit “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” American songwriter Billy Joel rattles off a list of historical references in order to argue that his generation…well, like the title says, didn’t “start the fire” of global tragedy, scandal, and screw-ups. Some items in his list are

In his 1989 hit “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” American songwriter Billy Joel rattles off a list of historical references in order to argue that his generation…well, like the title says, “didn’t start the fire” of global tragedy, scandal, and screwups. (Britannica explains all 119 events here.) In

All About Eve, American film, released in 1950, that delighted critics with its acid wit and that starred Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, and George Sanders. The movie received six Academy Awards, including that for best picture. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.) The film

Pedro Almodóvar: All About My Mother and Talk to Her: …Todo sobre mi madre (1999; All About My Mother), which he also wrote. The film—the bittersweet story of a woman’s search for her recently deceased son’s father—won an Academy Award for best foreign-language film, and Almodóvar was honored as best director at the Cannes film festival. He received similar praise…

Few animals on land or in the oceans can match the gracefulness, the economy of form, or the ruthless hunting efficiency of sharks. Sharks, having evolved in Earth’s oceans more than 400 million years ago, have changed little since their emergence. Their streamlined bodies were built for speed and

Sandra Bullock: Academy Award: …romantic comedies The Proposal and All About Steve, Bullock starred as a determined mother in the sports drama The Blind Side; she won numerous accolades for her performance, including an Academy Award for best actress. Another maternal role followed in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011), a film about a…

American football: Birth and early growth of professional football: Finally, the All-America Football Conference (1946–1949) seriously challenged the existing league and contributed the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers, and a first version of the Baltimore Colts to an expanded NFL in 1950. Yet professional football could offer the public nothing comparable to the compelling rivalries, youthful

US Airways, former American airline that was incorporated on March 5, 1937, as All American Aviation, Inc. It underwent numerous name changes before becoming US Airways in 1997. In 2015, two years after announcing plans to merge with American Airlines, the carrier flew its last flight. The company

US Airways, former American airline that was incorporated on March 5, 1937, as All American Aviation, Inc. It underwent numerous name changes before becoming US Airways in 1997. In 2015, two years after announcing plans to merge with American Airlines, the carrier flew its last flight. The company

Nirvana: …in songs such as “All Apologies” and “Rape Me”—reached number one on the U.S. album charts. By this point, however, Cobain’s heroin use was out of control. After a reputed suicide attempt in Rome in March 1994, he entered a Los Angeles treatment centre. In a mysterious sequence of…

Edward P. Jones: …third book followed in 2006, All Aunt Hagar’s Children, a collection of short stories that returned to the working-class Washington, D.C., in which Jones’s first book was set. Like Lost in the City, it drew comparisons to James Joyce’s Dubliners. In 2010 Jones joined the faculty of the George Washington…

Lesotho: Challenges in the 21st century: …Thabane, leaving to form the All Basotho Convention (ABC); many other LCD ministers followed Thabane to the ABC. Nevertheless, the LCD managed to maintain control of the parliament after early elections were called in February 2007. Although the elections were generally viewed as free and fair by international observers, the…

priesthood of all believers, cardinal doctrinal principle of the churches of the 16th-century Reformation, both Lutheran and Reformed, and the Protestant Free churches that arose from the Reformation churches. The doctrine asserts that all humans have access to God through Christ, the true high

All Blacks, New Zealand national rugby team and one of the most successful teams in the sport’s history, with an all-time winning record of nearly .770. They have been dominant since their first Test match (a match played between teams from different nations) in 1903. They have won the quadrennial

Lope de Vega: Works of Lope de Vega: In Fuente Ovejuna the entire village assumes responsibility before the king for the slaying of its overlord and wins his exoneration. This experiment in mass psychology, the best known outside Spain of all his plays, evoked a particular response from audiences in tsarist Russia.

James Herriot: From vet to author: … as a single volume titled All Creatures Great and Small. All Creatures soon garnered a legion of fans, many of whom sought Herriot out at his veterinary office in Thirsk. There he scheduled two afternoons per week to meet with readers, sign books, and solicit donations to a local dog…

Ray Davies: Life as a Kink: The hits “All Day and All of the Night” (1964) and “Tired of Waiting for You” (1965) followed.

Colin MacInnes: Later life and work: …another novel set in Australia, All Day Saturday (1966); a pair of historical novels, Westward to Laughter: A Novel of Adventure (1969) and Three Years to Play (1970); the book-length essay Loving Them Both: A Study of Bisexuality and Bisexuals (1973); and Out of the Garden: A Novel (1974), his…

All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, private club and grounds in the Wimbledon neighborhood of London, which is famed as the venue for the Wimbledon Championships in tennis. The club features 18 Championships grass courts, 20 practice grass courts, 8 clay courts, 2 acrylic courts, and 5 indoor

Tupac Shakur: Incarceration, Me Against the World, and All Eyez on Me: That album, All Eyez on Me (1996), was a two-disc paean to the “thug life” that Shakur embodied. It debuted at number one on the Billboard charts and sold more than five million copies within its first year of release. Quick to capitalize on his most recent…

John Arden: …fellow students performed his comedy All Fall Down (1955), about the construction of a railway. He continued to write plays while working as an architectural assistant from 1955 to 1957. His first play to be produced professionally was a radio drama, The Life of Man (1956). Waters of Babylon (1957),…

John Frankenheimer: Films of the 1960s: Next came All Fall Down (1962), a drama based on a novel by James Leo Herlihy, with a screenplay by William Inge. It starred Warren Beatty as a callous womanizer whose adoring younger brother (Brandon deWilde) gradually comes to despise him. Frankenheimer’s first popular success was Birdman…

Julio Cortázar: …los fuegos el fuego (1966; All Fires the Fire, and Other Stories), Un tal Lucas (1979; A Certain Lucas), and Queremos tanto a Glenda, y otros relatos (1981; We Love Glenda So Much, and Other Tales). Cortázar also wrote poetry and plays and published numerous volumes of essays.

muggins, domino game similar to the regular drawing game except for the rule that if a player can play a piece that makes the sum of the open-end pips on the layout a multiple of five, he scores that number. Each player takes five pieces. If the leader poses (places) either 5-5 (double-five), 6-4,

April Fools’ Day, in most countries the first day of April. It received its name from the custom of playing practical jokes on this day—for example, telling friends that their shoelaces are untied or sending them on so-called fools’ errands. A successful April Fools’ Day prank ends with the

John Dryden: Writing for the stage: …different mode was his tragedy All for Love (1677), based on Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and written in a flowing but controlled blank verse. He had earlier adapted The Tempest (1667), and later he reworked yet another Shakespeare play, Troilus and Cressida (1679). Dryden had now entered what may be…

Diana Krall: …came three years later with All for You, a tribute to Nat King Cole that spent more than a year on the jazz best-seller lists. She gained a wider audience with When I Look in Your Eyes (1999), for which she also received her first Grammy Award. Later albums included…

all fours, ancestor of a family of card games dating back to 17th-century England and first mentioned in The Complete Gamester of Charles Cotton in 1674. The face card formerly known as the knave owes its modern name of jack to this game. Originally, all fours was regarded as a lower-class game—it

Maya Angelou: Poetry and other works: …Heart of a Woman (1981), All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002), and Mom & Me & Mom (2013).

Eduardo Mallea: In Todo verdor perecerá (1941; All Green Shall Perish), which many consider his greatest work, he explored—by the use of interior monologue and flashback techniques—the anguish of a woman living in the provinces.

Queen Latifah: …following year her debut album, All Hail the Queen, appeared. Propelled by diverse styles—including soul, reggae, and dance—and feminist themes, it earned positive reviews and attracted a wide audience.

All Saints’ Day, in the Christian church, a day commemorating all the saints of the church, both known and unknown, who have attained heaven. It is celebrated on November 1 in the Western churches and on the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Eastern churches. In Roman Catholicism, the feast is

Halloween, a holiday observed annually on October 31 and noted for its pagan origins and its Christian roots as well as its secular traditions. In much of Europe and most of North America, observance of Halloween is today largely nonreligious, celebrated with parties, spooky costumes, pumpkin

Sleater-Kinney: …further raised Sleater-Kinney’s profile, and All Hands on the Bad One (2000), with its intimations of 1960s girl-group vocal harmonies, showed a marked turn toward pop songcraft while maintaining the band’s distinct edge.

Douglas Sirk: Films of the early to mid-1950s: All I Desire (1953), another period piece, starring Richard Carlson and Barbara Stanwyck, left more of an impression as Sirk presented the melodramatic elements of the story with a conviction and flourish uncommon to the genre. Taza, Son of Cochise (1954), released in 3-D before…

Kelly Clarkson: …rock and pop tendencies on All I Ever Wanted (2009) and Stronger (2011), the latter of which earned her another Grammy Award for best pop vocal album. Powerfully produced singles such as “My Life Would Suck Without You” and “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” extended her string of hits. Additionally,…

the Everly Brothers: …Up Little Susie” (1957), “All I Have to Do Is Dream” (1958), and “Cathy’s Clown” (1960).

Kenny Chesney: …first album for that company, All I Need to Know (1995)—a mixture of love songs, ballads, and upbeat honky-tonk tunes—sold well, but his next album, the lighter and livelier Me and You (1996), sold more than 500,000 copies.

Sheryl Crow: Tuesday Night Music Club: …the enormous popularity of “All I Wanna Do” that put Crow on the charts. At the 1994 Grammy Awards ceremony she received three awards: best record and best pop vocal performance by a female for “All I Wanna Do” as well as best new artist.

What Is the Most Popular Christmas Song?: …Christmas Is You,” an upbeat favorite that first appeared on the pop superstar’s 1994 holiday album, Merry Christmas. Because Carey did not initially release it as a commercial single, it was several years before the song would show up on the Billboard Hot 100 (until 1998, airplay-only singles did not…

Operation Just Cause: The U.S. invasion of Panama: …“Panama” by Van Halen, “All I Want Is You” by U2, and “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” by Bruce Cockburn). Noriega was then transported to Miami, Florida, where he was tried, convicted of a raft of charges, and sentenced to a U.S. prison. In the wake of the…

All in the Family, American television situation comedy that aired on CBS for eight seasons (1971–79). The show continued from 1979 to 1983 under the title Archie Bunker’s Place. All in the Family became one of the most successful sitcoms of its time. The show was based on the popular British

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), regional political party of India, principally in Tamil Nadu state. It was formed in 1972 by actor-turned-politician M.G. Ramachandran (popularly known as MGR), who broke away from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Dravidian Progressive Federation;

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), regional political party of India, principally in Tamil Nadu state. It was formed in 1972 by actor-turned-politician M.G. Ramachandran (popularly known as MGR), who broke away from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Dravidian Progressive Federation;

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), regional political party of India, principally in Tamil Nadu state. It was formed in 1972 by actor-turned-politician M.G. Ramachandran (popularly known as MGR), who broke away from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Dravidian Progressive Federation;

Muslim League, political group that led the movement calling for a separate Muslim nation to be created at the time of the partition of British India (1947). The Muslim League was founded in 1906 to safeguard the rights of Indian Muslims. At first the league was encouraged by the British and was

All India Radio (AIR), India’s national public radio broadcaster, officially called Akashvani (“voice from the sky” or “oracle”). It is one of the two wings of Prasar Bharati (India’s public service broadcasting corporation), the other being Doordarshan, its television counterpart. As of March 2020

Trinamool Congress, political party in India formed by Mamata Banerjee in 1998 and active primarily in her home state of West Bengal, where it held power from 2011–26. It also has a presence in northeastern states, such as Meghalaya and Tripura, and has fielded candidates in elections in Goa. The

All India Women’s Conference (AIWC), organization dedicated to improving women’s education and social welfare in India. The All India Women’s Conference (AIWC) is one of the oldest women’s organizations in the country. Several hundred local AIWC branches are located across India, with thousands of

Robert Redford: Later films: Better received was All Is Lost (2013), in which he played a sailor whose yacht is struck by a shipping container; the tense survival drama featured little dialogue, and Redford was the only actor.

Kenneth Branagh: …then directed and starred in All Is True (2018), which centres on Shakespeare’s final years.

Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC), regional political party in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, northwestern India. In October 1932 the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, the precursor of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC), was founded at Srinagar by Sheikh

Water Margin, ancient Chinese vernacular novel known from several widely varying manuscripts under the name Shuihuzhuan. Its variations are so extreme as to make the work the most textually complex in Chinese literature; the text cannot be dated with accuracy, and its authors cannot be identified.

the Jam: Later records, particularly All Mod Cons (1978) and Setting Sons (1979), reflected more influences, which eventually included those of the Kinks, the Beatles, Motown, and soul. Those albums also showcased the band’s growing social awareness, with politically charged songs such as “Down in the Tube Station at Midnight,”…

Chadwick Boseman: …acted on the soap opera All My Children in a role later assumed by Michael B. Jordan. Other TV credits included Law & Order, CSI: NY, and ER. He had a recurring role (2008–09) on Lincoln Heights and was cast in the short-lived mystery series Persons Unknown (2010).

Larry McMurtry: …featured in Moving On (1970), All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers (1972), and Terms of Endearment (1975; film 1983).

Anne Sexton: Sexton’s second book of poems, All My Pretty Ones (1962), continued in the vein of uncompromising self-exploration. Live or Die, a further record of mental illness, won the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and was followed by, among others, Love Poems (1969), Transformations (1971), The Book of Folly (1972), and…

All My Sons, drama in three acts by Arthur Miller, performed and published in 1947. All My Sons was considered Miller’s first significant play. With an underlying theme of guilt and responsibility, the drama centres on Joe Keller, a manufacturer of war materials, whose substandard and defective

baseball: Segregation: Especially noteworthy was the All Nations team, composed of African Americans, whites, a Japanese, a Hawaiian, an American Indian, and several Latin Americans. On its roster at various times before World War I were two of the greatest Black pitchers, John Donaldson and Jose Mendez.

All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd. (ANA), the largest domestic air carrier in Japan, and one of the largest in the world. The company was founded in 1952 and is headquartered in Tokyo. Under the Japanese government’s strict regulation of civil aviation, All Nippon Airways was basically restricted to

Carl Reiner: Film directing: Next was All of Me (1984), possibly Reiner’s most-sustained comic effort. It starred Martin as an attorney whose body becomes possessed by the soul of a sour millionaire (Lily Tomlin). Although the film continued the streak of hits for Reiner and Martin, it was the last they…

Harlem Hellfighters: The Hellfighters at war: “All of No Man’s Land Is Ours” described a soldier’s first call to his sweetheart, and “How Ya Gonna Keep ’Em Down on the Farm?” was a playful tune about the appeal of Paris in contrast to life at home. The latter song carried a…

Paul Mescal: Stardom: Normal People and Aftersun: In All of Us Strangers (2023), Mescal and Andrew Scott portrayed characters who embark on a romantic relationship while dealing with past trauma. The film garnered glowing reviews. Mescal’s other credits from 2023 include Foe, a sci-fi drama set in 2065 after a catastrophic world event.…

Mike Leigh: …to a contemporary setting with All or Nothing (2002), which focuses on the residents of a public housing estate. He captured Oscar nominations for best director and best original screenplay for Vera Drake (2004), about a kindhearted woman in early 1950s England who clandestinely performs abortions. In his next two…

Harry James: The James-Sinatra recording of “All or Nothing at All” was a flop when first released in 1939, but it sold more than a million copies when rereleased in 1943.

Pervez Musharraf: Return to Pakistan and arrest: …a new political party, the All Pakistan Muslim League, and vowed to return to Pakistan in time for the 2013 national elections. He did so in March 2013, but his bid to stand in elections faced a variety of legal and political obstacles, including several open criminal investigations regarding his…

Sierra Leone: Constitutional framework: …one-party republic based on the All People’s Congress; the head of state, or executive president, was elected by delegates of the All People’s Congress, and there was a parliament. Mounting political pressures and violence resulted in the adoption of a new constitution in 1991 that established a multiparty system. However,…

Simon Armitage: Other works: Armitage’s volumes of memoir include All Points North (1998), Gig: The Life and Times of a Rock-Star Fantasist (2009), and Walking Home (2012), which recounts his experience walking the Pennine Way in England. He also has penned plays, an opera libretto, and the script for a puppet opera. Other projects…

best of all possible worlds, in the philosophy of the early modern philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), the thesis that the existing world is the best world that God could have created. Leibniz’s argument for the doctrine of the best of all possible worlds, now commonly called

Odumegwu Ojukwu: …that he helped form, the All Progressive Grand Alliance, unsuccessfully ran for president. He ran again in 2007 but was defeated by the ruling party’s candidate, Umaru Yar’Adua, in an election that was strongly criticized by international observers as being marred by voting irregularities.

All Progressives Congress (APC), Nigerian political party formed in 2013 via a merger of prominent opposition parties. It has been the country’s ruling party since 2015. The All Progressives Congress (APC) was formed in a political environment in Nigeria that had been dominated, since the county’s

Ethel Lynn Beers: …Magazine printed her poem entitled “The Picket Guard,” which soon became better known by its first line, “All Quiet Along the Potomac To-night,” a familiar newspaper caption of those early months of the Civil War. The poem, often reprinted and later regularly anthologized, was subsequently claimed by several others. In…

All Quiet on the Western Front, novel by German writer Erich Maria Remarque, published in 1929 as Im Westen nichts Neues and in the United States as All Quiet on the Western Front. An antiwar novel set during World War I, it relies on Remarque’s personal experience in the war to depict the era’s

All Quiet on the Western Front, American war film, released in 1930 and set during World War I, that is regarded as one of the most effective antiwar movies ever made. It won great praise in the United States but was banned in several other countries, including Germany, because of its pacifist

Netflix: Award-winning original content: Netflix has used a variety of marketing approaches to promote its original programming. For example, the popularity of Squid Game prompted Netflix to produce a reality competition spinoff, Squid Game: The Challenge (2023).…

Jennifer Hudson: …also appeared in the films All Rise (2018) and Cats (2019), the latter of which is an adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s blockbuster stage musical. In 2021 Hudson starred as legendary soul singer Aretha Franklin in the biopic Respect.

insurance: Perils insured: ” All-risk policies offer insurance on any peril except those later excluded in the policy. The advantage of these contracts is that if property is destroyed by a peril not specifically excluded the insurance is good. In named-peril policies, no coverage is provided unless the property…

Schaffhausen: …there the Benedictine monastery of All Saints, around which the community developed. The town became a free imperial city between 1190 and 1218 but fell under Habsburg domination from 1330, until it bought its independence in 1415. It allied with the Swiss Confederation against the Habsburgs in 1454 and was…

Metéora: …Great Metéoron, Varlaám (also called All Saints [Áyioi Pándes]), Roussanou, St. Nikolas (Áyios Nikolaos), Holy Trinity (Áyia Triada), and St. Stephen (Áyios Stéfanos). Some still serve a religious function, though they are now only sparsely populated by monks and nuns. Since the construction of paved roads through the area in…

Todos os Santos Bay, sheltered bay of the Atlantic Ocean on the eastern coast of Brazil. A natural harbour, it is 25 miles (40 km) long and 20 miles (32 km) wide. Salvador, the principal seaport and capital of Bahia state, is on the peninsula that separates the bay from the Atlantic. Todos os

Western architecture: From the 19th to the early 20th century: …his power and originality was All Saints’, Margaret Street, London, designed in 1849 and largely completed by 1852. This church was sponsored by the Ecclesiological Society. But it is not its liturgical correctness that makes it so important in the history of the Gothic Revival. From the pavement to the…

All Saints’ Day, in the Christian church, a day commemorating all the saints of the church, both known and unknown, who have attained heaven. It is celebrated on November 1 in the Western churches and on the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Eastern churches. In Roman Catholicism, the feast is

James Renwick: …Saint Bartholomew’s Church (1871–72) and All Saints’ Roman Catholic Church (1882–93), both in New York City, feature Gothic-Romanesque forms built with stonework of contrasting colours and textures to produce effects of dazzling richness.

All Saints’ Day, in the Christian church, a day commemorating all the saints of the church, both known and unknown, who have attained heaven. It is celebrated on November 1 in the Western churches and on the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Eastern churches. In Roman Catholicism, the feast is

the Replacements: …personalities, the Replacements dissolved after All Shook Down (1990), which was essentially a solo album by Westerberg, whose solo career was the most successful of those of the ex-Replacements. A lineup of the Replacements that included Westerberg and Tommy Stinson played several high-profile concerts in 2013–15 before breaking up again.

Sir Walter Besant: …his first independent novel, entitled All Sorts and Conditions of Men and based on his impressions of the East London slums, which he saw as joyless rather than vicious places. The “Palace of Delights” that he projected in his book became a reality when the People’s Palace was founded (1887)…

Buddhism: Ullambana festival: The importance of the virtues of filial piety and the reverence of ancestors in China and Japan have established Ullambana—often called Hungry Ghost Festival, or Bon (in Japan)— as one of the major Buddhist festivals in those countries. In China worshipers in Buddhist…

All Souls’ Day, in Roman Catholicism, a day for commemoration of all the faithful departed, those baptized Christians who are believed to be in purgatory because they died with the guilt of lesser sins on their souls. It is observed on November 2. Roman Catholic doctrine holds that the prayers of