OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rye (borough)

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​RYE, a market town and municipal borough in the Rye parliamentary division of Sussex, England, 11 m. N.E. by E. from Hastings, on the South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1901) 3900. It rises on a sharp eminence above the S. of Romney Marsh, which within historic times was an inlet of the English Channel. The sea began to recede in the 16th century, and now the river Rother forms a small estuary with its mouth 2 m. from the town; this serves as a small harbour with a depth of 15 ft. at high tide, and there is some trade in coal, grain and timber. Fishing and shipbuilding are carried on, and there is a market for sheep (which are pastured in great numbers on the marshes), wool, grain and hops. The church of St Mary is of mixed architecture, chiefly Transitional, Norman and Early English; it is cruciform, with a low central tower. Of the old fortifications there remain portions of the town wall, a strong quadrangular tower built by William of Ypres, earl of Kent, and lord warden in the time of Stephen, and now forming part of the police station, and a handsome gate with a round tower on each side, known as the Land Gate, at the entrance into Rye from the London road. Picturesque old houses are numerous. In the low land S. of the town stands Camber Castle, one of the coastal defensive works of Henry VIII. In the vicinity are golf-links, to which a steam tram runs from the town. The municipal borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 985 acres.
In the time of Edward the Confessor, Rye (Ria, Ryerot, La Rie) was a fishing village and, as part of the manor of “Rameslie,” was granted by the king to the abbot and convent of Fécamp, by whom it was retained until Henry III. resumed it. By 1086 Rye was probably a port of consequence, and a charter of Richard I. shows that in the reign of Henry II., if not before, it had been added to the Cinque Ports. The fluctuations of the sea and attacks of the French caused its decline in the 13th and 14th centuries, and the Walls were therefore built in the reign of Edward III. The decay of Winchelsea contributed to the partial revival of Rye in the 15th and 16th centuries, when it was a chief port of passage. Towards the end of the 16th century the decay of the port began, and notwithstanding frequent attempts to improve the harbour it never recovered its ancient prosperity. Rye was incorporated under a mayor and jurats ​by the beginning of the 14th century, but possesses no charter distinct from the Cinque Ports. As a member of the Cinque Ports, which were summoned from 1322 onwards, Rye returned two representatives to parliament from 1366 until 1832; after that date one only until 1885. In 1290 the barons of the royal port of Rye were granted a three days' fair in September, altered in 1305 to March. The mayor and commonalty evidently held weekly markets on Wednesday and Friday before 1405, as in that year the Friday market was changed to Saturday. Shipbuilding has been carried on since the 13th century.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Niles

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​NILES, a city of Trumbull county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Mahoning river, at the mouth of the Meander and Mosquito creeks, about 55 m. E.S.E. of Cleveland. Pop. (1890) 4289; (1900) 7468 (2104 foreign-born); (1910) 8361. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, the Erie and the Pennsylvania railways, and by an interurban electric system. Coal and iron-ore are abundant in the vicinity, and the city’s principal manufactures are sheet steel, sheet iron, tin, metal lath, boilers and railway cars. The municipality owns and operates its waterworks and electric-lighting plant. Niles was settled in 1832, laid out in 1834, incorporated as a village in 1865 and chartered as a city in 1895. It was named (1834) in honour of Hezekiah Niles (1777–1839), the founder and editor of the weekly Niles’s Register (1811–1849).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nilgai

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​NILGAI, or Nylghau (“blue bull”), the largest antelope (Boselaphus tragocamelus) found in India, where it represents the kudu and eland group of Agrica. Only the bulls have horns, and these are short and insignificant. The general colour of the old bulls is bluish grey, but younger bulls and cows are browner. The nilgai is about the size of a mule (see Antelope).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nilsson, Christine

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​NILSSON, CHRISTINE (1843–), Swedish singer, was born at Wederslöff, near Wexiö, Sweden, on the 20th of August 1843. Her father was a poor working man, and she used as a girl to sing and perform on the violin at popular gatherings. In 1857 a wealthy man, M. Tornérhjelm, perceiving the unusual beauty of her voice while she was performing at a fair in Ljungby, provided the means for giving her a proper musical education, and in 1860 she was heard in the concert halls in Stockholm and Upsala, and then went to Paris, where, after four years’ study, she made her début in the role of Violetta at the Théâtre Lyrique on the 27th of October 1864. Between that date and 1872, when she married M. Auguste Rouzaud, she was the leading prima donna. Her first appearance in London was in 1867. A year later, on the 9th of March, she made her first appearance in the Paris Opera House as Ophélie in Hamlet; and she visited the United States in 1870. She sang in St Petersburg in 1872; in America in 1873–1874 and in 1882; in Germany and Austria between 1876 and 1877; and in the next few years in Spain and Scandinavia; but after her marriage her appearances in public were rare. M. Rouzaud died in 1882, and five years afterwards Madame Nilsson married Count A. de Casa Miranda, and finally retired from the stage.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nikopoli

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​NIKOPOLI, or Nicopolis (Turkish, Nighebolu or Nebul), the chief town of a sub-prefecture in the district of Plevna (Pleven), Bulgaria. Pop. (1908) 5236, including 3339 Turks and 1615 Bulgarians. Nikopoli is picturesquely situated on the south bank of the Danube, where it receives the Osem. Until the creation of a new port at Somovit, in the neighbourhood, Nikopoli served as an outlet for the trade of Plevna, Lovtcha and other towns in the interior, the principal export being cereals. The chief industries are tanning and fishing. As a military post the town has for centuries been important. A ruined castle still dominates the place, and fortifications stretch down to the river.
Nikopoli occupies the site of the ancient Asamus, but by some medieval confusion bears the name of Nicopolis ad Istrum, which was founded by Trajan several miles down the river, at the inflow of the Iatrus or Yantra, at the spot still called Nikup. The following are the chief points in the modern history of the place:—capture of the fortress by Sigismund of Hungary in 1392 and 1395; defeat of Sigismund and his hosts in 1396 by Bayezid I.; siege of the town by King Ladislaus I. of Hungary in 1444; defeat of the Turks by Bathori in 1595 and by Michael of Walachia in 1598; capture of the town by Pasvan-oglu in 1797; occupation of the fortress by the Russians under Kamensky in 1810; destruction of the Turkish flotilla and storming of the Turkish camp by Govarov in 1829; capture and burning of the town by the Russians under Krüdener on the 15th of June 1877.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nikshich

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​NIKSHICH (also written Nikshitch and Nikshiti; Croatian, Nikšić), a town of Montenegro, lying in a flat plain enclosed by lofty mountains on the north-west, and watered by the river Zeta. Pop. (1900) about 3500. Owing to the prevalence of floods, a long viaduct, a gift from Russia, was raised between the town and the mountain road which leads to Podgoritsa, 60 m. S.E. Nikshich consists of a mass of white houses, dominated by the belfry and the pale yellow cupola of its cathedral, another gift from Russia. This building is chiefly Byzantine in style, and, though hardly beautiful, is the most impressive and by far the largest of Montenegrin churches. Close by stands a barrack-like royal palace; and a little beyond the town are the ruins of an old castle. As Nikshich possesses a brewery and a clothmill, besides being the chief mart of Western Montenegro for timber, hides, farm-produce and livestock, it ranks second in commercial importance to Podgoritsa. About 12 m. S.E. is the celebrated shrine of Ostrog (see Montenegro). Nikshich was included in the Turkish province of Herzegovina until 1876, in which year it was stormed by the Montenegrins, led by Prince Nicholas in person. In 1878 the Montenegrin possession was ratified by the treaty of Berlin.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Shendi

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​SHENDI, a town in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in the mudiria (province) of Berber, on the right bank of the Nile in 18° 1' N ., 33° 59' E., and 104 m. N.N.W. of Khartum by rail. Shendi possesses small manufactories of leather, iron and cotton; extensive railway workshops and a government experimental farm. It is the headquarters of the cavalry of the Egyptian army stationed in the Sudan. Shendi lies within the “Island of Meroë” and is a town of great antiquity. Thirty miles north are the pyramids of Meroë. On the opposite (west) bank of the Nile is the village of Metemma, whence there is a caravan route across the Bayuda Desert to the Merawi (Merowe) by Tebel Barkal; this was the route followed by the desert column under Sir Herbert Stewart in 1884 in the Gordon relief expedition. In 1772 James Bruce stayed some time at Shendi—then governed by a woman—on his way to Egypt after visiting the source of the Blue Nile. When the Egyptians invaded the Sudan in 1820 Shendi, then a place of considerable size, submitted to Ismail Pasha, son of Mehemet Ali, the pasha of Egypt. In 1822, however, Ismail and his chief followers were treacherously burnt to death at Shendi by order of the mek (ruler) of the town, in revenge for the cruelties committed by the Egyptians. Later in the same year an Egyptian army from Kordofan razed the town to the ground, most of the inhabitants being massacred. From that period until the establishment of Anglo-Egyptian rule in 1898 Shendi was but a poor village. Its subsequent growth has been comparatively rapid. There is a considerable area of fertile land on either side of the Nile in the neighbourhood.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Shelton, Thomas

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​SHELTON, THOMAS (fl. 1612–1620), English translator of Don Quixote. In the dedication of The delightfull history of the wittie knight, Don Quishote (1612) he explains to his patron, Lord Howard de Walden, afterwards 2nd Earl of Suffolk, that he had translated Don Quixote from Spanish into English some five or six years previously in the period of forty days for a “ very dear friend ” who was unable to understand the original. Shelton did not use the original edition of Cervantes, but one published in Brussels in 1607. On the appearance of the Brussels imprint of the second part of Don Quixote in 1616, he translated that also into English, completing his task in 1620, and printing at the same time a revised edition of the first part. His performance has become a classic among English translations for its racy, spirited rendering of the original. Light was thrown on Thomas Shelton's personal history by the researches of Mr Alexander T. Wright in a paper published in October 1898. Among the kinsfolk of the earl of Suffolk were three persons bearing the name Thomas Shelton, and though all died before 1600 he was probably a member of the same family. It seems safe to identify him with the Thomas Shelton who wrote a sonnet prefixed to the Restitution of Decayed Intelligence (1605) of Richard Verstegan, who was most likely the friend referred to in Shelton's preface, for there is reason to believe that both of them were then employed in a matter of doubtful loyalty, the intrigues of the Roman Catholics in England. He was acquainted with the “ cries of the wild Irish,” and seems to have been honestly employed in carrying letters to persons in England from Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam at Dublin Castle. But in 1599 he apparently acted as agent for Florence McCarthy to offer his service to the king of Spain, a commission for which his knowledge of Spanish especially fitted him. Soon afterwards an official précis of the facts was drawn up, in which Shelton was implicated ​by name. A second version of this document in 1617 is actually signed by him, but all reference to his share in the matter is omitted. Lady Suffolk, the wife of his patron, received yearly £1000 in secret service money from the Spanish king, and Shelton may have been her accomplice. If the “ many affairs ” of his preface were official he would not wish to call attention to his antecedents by owning friendship with Verstegan.
The 1612 edition is available in Mr Fitzmaurice Kelly's reprint for the Tudor Translations (1892); that of 1620 is reproduced in Macmillan's “ Library of English Classics " with an introduction by Mr A. W. Pollard, who incorporates the suggestions made by Mr A. T. Wright in his Thomas Shelton, Translator.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Shemakha

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​SHEMAKHA, a town of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Baku, 70 m. W. of the town of Baku, and in 40° 38' N. and 48° 40' E. It has some 20,000 inhabitants, consisting of Tatars (75%), Armenians and Russians. Shemakha was the capital of the khanate of Shirvan, and was known to the Roman geographer Ptolemy as Kamachia. About the middle of the 16th century it was the seat of an English commercial factory, under the traveller Jenkinson, afterwards envoy extraordinary of the khan of Shirvan to Ivan the Terrible of Russia. In 1742 Shemakha was taken and destroyed by Nadir Shah of Persia, who, to punish the inhabitants for their creed (Sunnite Mahommedanism), built a new town under the same name about 16 m. to the W., at the foot of the main chain of the Caucasus. The new Shemakha was at different times a residence of the khan of Shirvan, but it was finally abandoned, and the old town rebuilt. The Russians first entered Shirvan in 1723, but soon retired. In 1795 they captured Shemakha as well as Baku; but the conquest was once more abandoned, and Shirvan was not finally annexed to Russia until 1805.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Shem

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​SHEM (Hebrew for “ name, renown, posterity ”), in the Bible, the eldest of the three sons of Noah, whose superiority over Canaan is reflected in the tradition that Noah pronounced a curse upon the latter (Gen. ix. 20–27). In the genealogies (x. 2X sqq.), Shem numbers among his descendants Assyrian, Arabian, Aramaean and Hebrew populations, whence the ethnic Semitic (strictly speaking, Shemitic) has been coined as a convenient term for these peoples. It is not altogether scientific, since the Lydians (Lud) and Elamites are included among Shem's “ sons,” apparently on account of their geographical position or because of their indebtedness to Assyrian culture. On the traditions of Shem, see E. Meyer, Israeliten u. Nachbarstämme (Halle, 1906), pp. 219 sqq.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Shenandoah

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​SHENANDOAH, a borough of Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., about 40 m. N.N.W. of Reading. Pop. (1910, census), 25,774. Among the foreign-born the Lithuanians and Poles predominate—in 1910 a Lithuanian and a Polish paper were published here. Shenandoah is served by the Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley and the Philadelphia & Reading railways. The borough has a public library. The United Greek Catholic Church (Ruthenian Rite) here is said to be the first of this sect in the United States; it was organized as St Michael's Parish in 1885, the first building was erected in 1886, and a new building was completed in 1909. Shenandoah is situated in the eastern part of the middle basin of the great anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania, and the mining and shipping of coal are its chief industries. A log house was built on the site of the present Shenandoah as early as 1835, but there was no further development until 1862, when the first colliery was opened. The borough was incorporated in 1866.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sheppard, John

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​SHEPPARD, JOHN [Jack] (1702–1724), English criminal, was born at Stepney, near London, in December 1702. His father, who, like his grandfather and great-grandfather, was a carpenter, died the following year, and Jack Sheppard was brought up in the Bishopsgate workhouse. One of his father’s old employers apprenticed him to the family trade, but young Sheppard fell into bad company at a neighbouring Drury Lane tavern. Here he met Elizabeth Lyon, known as “Edgeworth Bess,” a woman of loose character with whom he lived, and to gratify whose tastes he committed many of his crimes. At the end of 1723 he was arrested as a runaway apprentice, and thenceforward, he says, “I fell to robbing almost every one that stood in my way,” Joseph Blake, known as “Blueskin,” being a frequent confederate. In the first six months of 1724 he twice escaped from gaol, and towards the end of that period he was responsible for an almost daily robbery in or near London. Eventually, however, his independent attitude provoked the bitter enmity of Jonathan Wild, who procured his capture at the end of July. Sheppard was tried at the Old Bailey and condemned to death, but, largely thanks to “Edgeworth Bess,” he managed to escape from the condemned cell, and was soon back in his old haunts. In September he was rearrested and imprisoned in the strongest part of Newgate, being actually chained to the floor of his cell, but by a combination of strength and skill he escaped through the chimney to the roof of the prison, whence he lowered himself into the adjoining house. After a few days' concealment he was rash enough to reappear in the Drury Lane quarter. He was captured, hopelessly drunk, in a Clare Market tavern and re imprisoned, his cell being now watched night and day. On the 16th of November 1724 he was hanged at Tyburn. He was then not quite twenty-two. Sheppard has been made the unworthy hero of much romance, of which Harrison Ainsworth's novel, Jack Sheppard (1839), is the most notable instance. In truth he was merely a vulgar scoundrel, who did not hesitate to rob his only real friend.
See A Narrative of all the Robberies, Escapes, &c., of John Sheppard, attributed to Daniel Defoe (London, 1724); Newgate Calendar, ed. Knapp and Baldwin; Griffiths, Chronicles of Newgate; British Journal (August, October 1724); Weekly Journal (August, September, November 1724); Celebrated Trials.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sheppey

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​SHEPPEY, an island off the Kentish coast of England, included in the north-eastern parliamentary division of Kent. It is the largest of the several low islands which are separated from the mainland by the ramifying creeks about the mouth of the river Medway. The strait isolating Sheppey is called the Swale; it is about 3 m. broad at its eastern end, but narrows to some 300 yds. at the west, where it is crossed on a bridge by at branch of the South-Eastern & Chatham railway, and by a road. There was formerly a ferry here, as there are at two other points. Sheppey is low-lying, with one small elevation slightly exceeding 200 ft. near the north coast, which presents slight cliffs towards the shallow sea. These are frequently encroached upon by the sea, while the flat shore on the south is protected by embankments. Sheppey is 101/2 m. in extreme length from E. to W., while the greatest bread this about 5 m. On the south, narrow branches of the Swale, formerly wider, divide the isles of Harty and Elmley from the main island, of which, however, they now practically form part. Sheppey is for the most part treeless but very fertile. ​bearing much grain and fruit; its name, meaning the “island of sheep,” is still appropriate, as great flocks are bred. On the west are the port of Queenborough and the naval station of Sheerness. From here the Sheppey light railway runs east through the island, serving Minster and Leysdown, which are in some favour as seaside resorts. The London clay, of which the island is composed, abounds in fossils.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Olgierd

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​OLGIERD (d. 1377), grand-duke of Lithuania, was one of the seven sons of Gedymin, grand-duke of Lithuania, among whom on his death in 1341 he divided his domains, leaving the youngest, Yavnuty, in possession of the capital, Wilna, with a nominal priority. With the aid of his brother Kiejstut, Olgierd in 1345 drove out the incapable Yavnuty and declared himself grand-duke. The two and thirty years of his reign (1345–1377) were devoted to the development and extension of Lithuania, and he lived to make it one of the greatest states in Europe. Two factors contributed to produce this result, the extraordinary political sagacity of Olgierd and the life-long devotion of his brother Kiejstut. The Teutonic knights in the north and the Tatar hordes in the south were equally bent on the subjection of Lithuania, while Olgierd’s eastern and western neighbours, Muscovy and Poland, were far more frequently hostile competitors than serviceable allies. Nevertheless, Olgierd not only succeeded in holding his own, but acquired influence and territory at the expense of both Muscovy and the Tatars, and extended the borders of Lithuania to the shores of the Black Sea. The principal efforts of this eminent empire-maker were directed to securing those of the Russian lands which had formed part of the ancient grand-duchy of Kiev. He procured the election of his son Andrew as prince of Pskov, and a powerful minority of the citizens of the republic of Novgorod held the balance in his favour against the Muscovite influence, but his ascendancy in both these commercial centres was at the best precarious. On the other hand he acquired permanently the important principalities of Smolensk and Bryansk in central Russia. His relations with the grand-dukes of Muscovy were friendly on the whole, and twice he married orthodox Russian princesses; but this did not prevent him from besieging Moscow in 1368 and again in 1372, both times unsuccessfully. Olgierd’s most memorable feat was his great victory over the Tatars at Siniya Vodui on the Bug in 1362, which practically broke up the great Kipchak horde and compelled the khan to migrate still farther south and establish his headquarters for the future in the Crimea. Indeed, but for the unceasing simultaneous struggle with the Teutonic knights, the burden of which was heroically borne by Kiejstut, Russian historians frankly admit that Lithuania, not Muscovy, must have become the dominant power of eastern Europe. Olgierd died in 1377, accepting both Christianity and the tonsure shortly before his death. His son Jagiello ultimately ascended the Polish throne, and was the founder of the dynasty which ruled Poland for nearly 200 years.
See Kazimierz Stadnicki, The Sons of Gedymin (Pol.) (Lemberg, 1849–1853); Vladimir Bonifatevich Antonovich, Monograph on the History of Western Russia (Rus.), vol. i. (Kiev, 1885). (R. N. B.)