Polenta

A porridge or mush usually made of ground corn (maize) cooked in salted water. Cheese and butter or oil are often added. Polenta can be eaten hot or cold as a porridge; or it can be cooled until firm, cut into shapes, and then baked, toasted, panfried, or deep-fried. It is a traditional food of northern Italy, especially the Piedmont region, and of Corsica, where chestnut flour is

Fish

The term fish is applied to a variety of vertebrates of several evolutionary lines.

Italy, The Ostrogothic kingdom

Odoacer was conquered and killed by Theoderic, king of the Ostrogoths (489–526). The decades of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy (489–552) can be seen as the first true period of Germanic rule in the peninsula, for an entire tribe of 100,000 to 200,000 people came with Theoderic. Still, the Ostrogothic kingdom continued to operate inside a largely Roman political system. Like Odoacer, Theoderic courted

Mugabe, Robert

The son of a village carpenter, Mugabe was trained as a teacher in a Roman Catholic mission

Payroll Tax

Taxes on payrolls are seldom used as a source of general revenues, although in some developing countries the income tax base may actually include little beyond wages and salaries, the equivalent of the payroll

Morava River

Serbo-Croatian  Velika Morava  river in Serbia, Yugoslavia, formed by the confluence of the South (Juzna) Morava and West (Zapadna) Morava rivers. It follows a 137-mile (221-kilometre) course, mainly northerly, to enter the Danube River near Smederevo. North of Lapovo the Morava opens into the wide, meandering Pomoravlje valley, a fertile agricultural region. The total area of the Morava River basin is 14,457 square miles

Saudi Arabia, Religion

Saudi Arabia is the home of Islam, and its native population is almost entirely Sunnite Muslim (i.e., adhering to the chief branch of Islam, Sunnism [Sunnah], called traditionalist or orthodox). The Wahhabi interpretation of Sunnite Islam is the one officially used. Wahhabism, as it is called in the West, is a puritanical interpretation and is named after Muhammad ibn 'Abd

Dacier, André

Dacier studied at Saumur with the Humanist Tanneguy Lefèbvre, whose daughter Anne he married in 1683. He was made keeper of the library of the Louvre and, elected to the French Academy in 1695, became

Girard, Stephen

Girard shipped out to sea at the age of 14 and by 1774 was captain of a ship involved in U.S. coastal trade with the West Indies. Stymied by British blockades

Disasters

February 3, Near

Lower Burma

Historical and geographic division of Burma (Myanmar), referring to the southern coastal and delta region on the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea (as opposed to Upper Burma). It was the centre of the Mon kingdoms based at Pegu and was acquired by the British Indian government in 1826 and 1852. Under the British, Lower Burma rapidly developed into the country's principal rice-growing